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?