Aware that I'm dreaming, but not 100% lucid?

I am very new to lucid dreaming, I have had spontaneous lucid dreams throughout my life, but they were always nightmares where I force myself to wake up by screaming as soon as I realize.

A few days ago I decided that I want to try it for real. Last night was my first "real" lucid dream. I became aware of the dream and instantly calmed myself and stayed dreaming. I almost came awake, where I 'felt' my body in bed, but continued on in the dream.

The problems were:

1) In the dream, I was on a pirate ship and a lot of people had been killed including my boyfriend. After I became 'lucid' (not sure if this is really considered lucid?) I became so concerned with knowing whether he was alive in real life, that I forced myself to wake up just to make sure!! I didn't have access to my real life memories. From what I've read, you should be able to remember this sort of thing, right?

2) I became aware of the dream as I was being led up a set of stairs by one of the 'pirates'. I calmed myself when i realized, I'm actually surprised that I didn't allow myself to wake up immediately. But then I just kept going along with the dream! I was too afraid to take control. Is this normal for newbies?? Anybody have any advice on how to move past the fear?

This is something newbies say all the time.

First, understand the definition of lucidity - it simply means the knowledge that you're dreaming while you're dreaming. So yes, you were absolutely lucid.

1) It sounds like you had a low level of awareness - because even though you knew you were dreaming (you were lucid) it didn't occur to you that the characters in the dream aren't their real-life counterparts. Don't feel bad - it's common to fall for this kind of stuff. It takes a very high level of awareness to make these distinctions, and most people don't reach that level very often.

2) Here you're talking about Dream Control, which is not the same thing as lucidity or awareness. Ironically, it's possible to have great control even when you're not lucid (ability to fly when you want to etc).

Keep in mind these are separate things. 1st, congratulations on achieving lucidity!! Did you use some method to get there, or did it just happen spontaneously?

Then, you should read up on stabilization and control methods. When you become lucid you should use Reality Checks to confirm that you're really dreaming, which will help to convince your mind that it's really a dream and that the normal laws of reality don't apply here (and that you don't need to worry about DCs being killed - it won't kill the real people they represent).

Then you should stabilize. This will anchor you in the dream so you're less prone to wake up or drift back into non-lucid dreaming. When yu're lucid and stable and have studied techniques and concepts of lucid dreaming, you'll understand that Pirates can't hurt you, and can't make you do anything you don't want to do. You can jump off the plank and fly around hurling firebolts at them if you want, or turn them into toads. (That's if you're good at dream control).

Look in the DV Wiki for tutorials - and as we always recommend - read Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming.

I'm not sure how I became lucid, really. I've mostly been trying to recall my dreams the past 3 nights because I'm told that this is the first step. I remember staring at the wood grain of the stairs that I was on, and it just hit me. I didn't do any reality checks, I was already certain it was a dream. Then I thought to myself "oh god don't wake up! Deep breath." And then I was wondering if my boyfriend was really dead. It wasn't so much that I thought that since he died in the dream that he was dead, it was more that I couldn't remember if he was alive or dead in real life. And I was trying so hard to remember. I couldn't remember anything about real life. And it frustrated me and scared me that I just didn't know. Which was maybe why I was afraid of taking control of the dream, because I couldn't remember my real life.

My awareness was definitely low. I think the dream was a little fuzzy. Time was jumping around too, I don't think I had completely stabilized the dream.

And you're so right about having dream control without being lucid. When I was in college I kept having dreams that someone was chasing me. A couple times a week at least. Different dreams, but same concept. I mastered the art of flying in those dreams. It was hard at first, the heaviness, the initial rise followed by a drop. It was a good learning experience for dream control though. After a while I was jumping out of windows.

I'm excited for the next one.

It is a confusing state of mind. It sounds like your dream memories are mixing with real life memories. As long as you realized it was a dream, you were lucid. We don't always have our full mental faculties, even after becoming lucid. With more practice, it should be easier to think straight.