The problem I'm having is that I know I control the outcome of my dreams but I still can't tell myself this while the dreams are happening.

Last night it was clear as a movie: I was invited to a stranger's house at night, with two girls accompanying me. As we all conversed and drank outside his home I told one of the girls to try to climb his neighbor's house, run across his 2nd floor patio and jump from there into our new friend's patio. She did exactly what I suggested and we all had a good laugh. But then she went over and started to scale his neighbor's house again. Fear struck me, and as soon as I said to stop his neighbor came out of his house and on to his porch.
I knew he would be angry with us. He came over to where we were and started questioning us. I started worrying that since there was only one of him he might call his friends over. Well of course this is what happened and soon there were pickup trucks full of big angry men. They got into our new friend's garage and started to smash every car in there. The whole time I was trying to reason with the neighbor who seemed completely calm and understanding now but his friends were the angry ones.

It wasn't an extremely terrifying dream but I feel like I had the lucidity to change the outcome. The problem was it was all so real that how am I supposed to tell if I'm dreaming or not? If only I could have attained LD it would have been much less strenuous. Any suggestions?