Ch. 8-13 A few questions...(LHOD)

I am rather surprised at how well I am understanding this book.  Of course there are a few hitches as I go, but for the most part I think I have the just of it down as I am reading... this is a very good thing considering the first 50 pages I thought that my head was going to explode.

As for those hitches I was talking about, in the reading that was due on Thursday (2/2/12) I came across something that I'm not quite sure if I should be confused about of if I'm just missing something.  On page 108 towards the bottom (continuing to the top of page 111) the text reads as follows:

       "As everybody in Siuwensin appeared to have gone to bed directly after supper, I did the same.  I fell asleep in that utter country silence that makes your ears ring.  I slept an hour and woke in the grip of a nightmare about explosions, invasion, murder, and conflagration.
       It was a particularly bad dream, the kind in which you run down a strange street in the dark with a lot of people who have no faces, while houses go up in flames behind you, and children scream....
       ...I was bare-legged and barefoot, in my shirt, without breeches, hieb, or coat; but I had my pack....
       ...We soon came to a communal farm-center, where we were halted and interrogated.  I tried to attach myself to the group I had followed down the road, but no luck.... They, and I as a foreigner without passport, were cut out of the herd and given separate quarters for the night in a  storage-barn....
       ...The door squealed open and it was broad day, sunlight like a knife int he eyes, bright and frightening.  I stumbled out behind the rest and was mechanically following them when I heard my name...
       ..."Please come this way, Mr. Ai," said a hurried person in red, and I was no longer a refugee."

After that the reader is placed in the story that they continue to read for the rest of chapter 8 and pick back up again in chapter 10.

I suppose I'm just confused as to if this is really a nightmare.  If so, where does it end?  If not, is the word nightmare used to describe to the reader how horrible the situation is and how Genly, as the narrator, is surprised and did not expect the events he woke up to to be taking place?


My second question is one that requires less explaining and textual quotation.  It is simply this: What is going on in chapter 9?  I understand that this is a Karhidish tale that has been told over the years.  I am having a very hard time keeping all of the Estravens and Therems straight.  Is anyone in this tale supposed to be the Estraven that the reader meets in the first chapter who helps Genly in Karhide?  I am leaning toward 'no' as the answer to my last question, but if that is the case a second question comes to mind: Why did we need to hear the story if it does not connect the Estraven the reader knows.  Lastly, Estraven is a title as I have learned in this section of reading, what does it mean?