Fear is preventing me from fully exploring my dreams

[mrboston9]

I am new to the site so hope this is an appropriate place for this question. I have always averaged about one lucid dream a month. Sometimes I go for months without one, sometimes have a few in a month. Because of my schedule sometimes I find myself sleeping odd hours or waking up and going back to sleep early in the AM (around 7 am, sometimes later). Typically this is when most of my lucid dreams occur. They always tend to be short. Usually, once I realize I am dreaming, I tend to do things that would give me an "Adrenaline rush" in real life and once this occurs it causes me to wake up. I have heard this happens to people often. My first question is if anyone has any thoughts on how to stop this from happening? I can feel my physical body start to wake up like grains of sand flowing through my fingers... I just can't stop that from happening. Long story short, I took a Xanax this morning by mistake and from 7am - 12 noon I experienced a series of lucid dreams. Most ended as I explained above but one was completely different. It was beyond anything I have experienced before. I would qualify it more as an out of body experience than anything else. I was fully away, fully aware and the intensity was so strong that I became afraid that I would not be able to "wake up" my body in "real life." So, I forced myself to wake up. I actually felt some resistance but after a short period of time I did wake myself up. I have always been able to wake myself up so on some level I understand that my fears are not justified. Here is the thing. For years I have tried to train myself to have lucid dreams and out of body experiences. Now I am almost 40 and I finally find that the "window" to that possibility has opened up but I am afraid to explore it fully. My fear is that I will "wander" so far off, or spend so much time in that state, that I will no longer be able to re-attach to my physical body. My belief is that lucid dreams occur on the same "level" as out of body experiences. This morning's journey brought me to that full level and frankly it scared the hell out of me. I recognize this as a mental block but I am having a very hard time getting past it. So right now I am looking for any advice or guidance from people who understand or have had similar issues. My dream this morning allowed me to have complete sensation, complete lucidity and complete control over my surroundings. It was amazing. I was there as much as I am here now typing out these words. I feel like my fears cut short what could have been the most rewarding dream experience to date. Thanks in advance Drake