What counts as a lucid dream?

As a child I suffered from nightmares, which, at the time, I had a difficult time explaining to others.

One time I dreamt I woke up in the middle of the night, and all the lights were on. I opened my door and walked down the hallway to my parents' bedroom, to find they were lacking in attendance. I walked back to my doorway to discover the lights in my room had shut off. Frightened, I ran downstairs. When I was approaching the bottom, I could see all the lights upstairs had turned off. At this point I subconsciously knew I was dreaming.

Screaming, I ran into our living room, where an episode of Full House was on without anyone watching. I shut the door behind me and sat on the couch. Immediately the lights turned off, followed by the television. I screamed again, and the door opened. I didn't look directly at the doorway, but I could tell the lights were all off outside. Somehow, though, a shadow darker than the darkness stretched into the room and began to approach me. I picked up the stuffed animal that was next to me and covered my eyes. The shadow then took my fluffy friend from my grasp, revealing his disfigured face.

He told me not to scream. I tried to scream. I tried to kick. I tried to thrash my arms. I couldn't move. I realized I was dreaming. I still couldn't move. I thought hard about waking up, but the shadow told me not to dare try to leave. He strangled me for half a minute. I woke up in real life, crying and screaming for my parents.

These nightmares where I became paralysed and couldn't wake up happened much too often.

Are these considered lucid dreams or night terrors, and has anyone had similar experiences?

I guess if you became aware that you were dreaming consciously it would have been a lucid nightmare. And I'm not quite sure what you meant with "I subconsciously knew I was dreaming", maybe you meant you kinda knew you were dreaming, but didn't know how to do any reality checks by the time? Paralyzes happen mostly WITHIN the dream, but sometimes you can experience this while still falling into the sleep and then it's called Sleep Paralysis, which makes the subject see frightening hallucinations and hear scary noises, but if you truly believe they mean no harm to you and can't do anything to you, they'll disappear sooner or later when you fall to the dream state (unless you are already in the dream). Lucid dreaming can help you get rid off these types of dreams, check out some dream control threads they provide good help :)
Oh, and don't be stressed when going to sleep, it usually reflects to dreams and can cause nightmares, If I ever feel stressed I listen to music I like and it helps too.

Many kid's first lucid dream was when in a nightmare they realized they are dreaming. At first, you could be paralyzed by fear. It is true, that when we dream, our bodies are paralyzed, so we don't act out our dreams. But inside of a dream, we are in our dream bodies and it doesn't matter, what our physical, sleeping body is doing.

If this happened again, and you prepared yourself for it, then you would have easier time moving. Because our dreams are directed by our thoughts. If you think something scary will happen, then if very likely will. Like being scared that lights will turn off.

So if you know, that it's your dream, and you can do anything in it, it should be better next time.

And yes, when you realized you are dreaming, that is a Lucid dream. Good luck :alien: