I realize i'm dreaming and then my dream turns into a nightmare.

I'm new to dv and have never had a lucid dream. I have done a lot of research on lucid dreaming and been interested by it for a year or two. I have pretty good dream recall but nightmares can sometimes be a blur. Anyway, A couple days ago I was dreaming and I realized it. I remember I told myself in the dream "I'm dreaming" and I kept trying to attain lucidity but instead of turning lucid my dream turned into a nightmare of sorts. I felt cold and very scared, my vision went black and my body started to tingle(like when your scared). Then I got so scared I woke up. Their wasn't anything scary about the "nightmare" but I felt scared genuinely scared. It has happened multiple times and one time I tried to avoid waking up and face the nightmare and i started seeing a skull spinning slowly in front of me and my body just kept tingling more intensely before waking up. I have never had a nightmare like this(that im aware of) randomly it only happens when i tell myself I'm dreaming and i try to achieve lucidity. It's like my sub conscious doesn't want me to lucid dream. Anyway I've tried researching this and haven't found anything so I'm wondering what this means. I've come to the conclusion that maybe I'm dreaming everything and my brain isn't actually becoming active and starting a lucid dream I'm just dreaming that it is(If that makes any sense). Has anyone else experienced something like this?

P.S.- I don't think I'm becoming overly excited and the nightmare is triggered from my eagerness and excitement of realizing i'm dreaming because I stay relatively calm and relax myself as im trying to attain lucidity.

Yes it's called a simulated lucid dream or semi-lucid dreaming.

It means that you either dream that you lucid dreaming if that makes sense, you dream the scenario of being aware without actually being aware.

Or it means that you are aware but react totally on instinct and are not fully aware to actually know that stuff in the dream isn't important. Stephen LaBerge described it like this. In the non-lucid dream you might be chasing a bag because it was very important to you, but when you become lucid you still end up chasing the bag even though it's completely unnecessary.

When you start practicing lucid dreaming you first start to dream that you are lucid, then you start react on instinct and last but not least you become completely aware.

You can of course be lucky and go directly to the completely aware state, but it seems like you are experiencing a simulated lucid dream.

I hope this answer helped and here is the source of what I just described:

Stephen Laberge: Lucid Dreaming (excerpt) -- A Thinking Allowed DVD w/ Jeffrey Mishlove - YouTube

I'm kinda having the same issue. In my dream I think "I'm dreaming lets look at my hands" and then the dream starts to "defend" itself lol. I just can't look at my hands, everything gets blurry, the dream collapses and then I got lots of false awakenings and sleep paralysis in my dream where I'm trying to get lucid but cant T_T

I've heard of people having simulated lucids do to half-hearted reality checks. Describe your reality check rhythm and method. If you just go through the motions and don't truly question whether or not you are dreaming, it can result in simulated lucids.

1. Make sure you are questioning if you are dreaming
2. observe the details of your surroundings, observe your own thoughts, emotions, and physical senses.
3. Then do your reality check.