My nightmares always turn into semi lucid dreams, it's like "this is so horrible it must be a nightmare" and then I can choose to just nope out of sleeping.

My old man taught me that telling someone one is having a nightmare stops it from coming back. I've found that just saying it out aloud works as well.

I've used it quite a few times throughout my life, never fails. It's supposedly pretty eerie for others though when I just sit up in bed in the middle of the night, proclaim "I'm having a nightmare" and then promptly going back to sleep.