introduction & first lucid dream

Hello dream views!
I am just going to introduce myself, and to explain how I got to this site :)
As of late, I have been experiencing issues with dreaming. I have always had an excellent recall ability with dreams, and they have always facinated me- but due to my overactive imagination I am often partial to nightmares, and on a weekly basis I recall dream events and accidentally mistake them for reality. I've also woken up before and carried on with a dreaming mindframe: e.g. I was someone else. As well as this, I experience false awakening daily. In all honesty though, that has not really troubled me and I was not completely aware that not everyone was like that. This last week though, I experienced a natural lucid dream, and I experienced SP- which terrified me. I fell asleep with the knowledge I was sleeping, and then upon remembering my friend told me about the apparent negative effects of mirrors, I went to where I knew a mirror was.Though I woke up at the exact moment I reached the mirror, the entire experience was terrifying, and throughout it I felt like my real body was being watched. I woke up unable to move with lots of sounds that were not actually real, and it terrified me so much that within an hour of waking I began researching 'lucid dreams', and ended up here- which will hopefully be a place that I can learn to control my dreams positively, and avoid such a terrible experience occuring again :) (sorry my introduction is so long)

Welcome to DV, efflorescence! It is unfortunate that you were introduced to lucid dreaming with a scary experience. Most lucid dreams for most of us are highly enjoyable and do not have the scary aspect that you described. Therefore, I would suggest that you do not expect lucid dreams to be scary. In dreams often expectations cause results, so if you as a result of this experience were to expect your next experience to be scary, it would be more likely to be so, than if based on what you read on this site you expect lucid dreaming to be fun, and start looking forward to it in the future. Our perceptions can and do change potentially negative experiences into positive ones. Knowing that nothing can hurt you makes even a more negative dream more enjoyable, and can transform a potential nightmare into an interesting adventure. Good luck with your exploration of lucid dreaming!