What exactly is a lucid dream?

I actually was also intrigued the first time i heard about lucid dreaming. I began experimenting and researching it as well. With me, I did eventually get to the point where i could somewhat control my dreams. With me, I didn't have much of a sense of fear in my dreams at all. There's always alot of just confusion at first, then at random points you'll be like "oh crap, i'm dreaming!! I know i'm dreaming!!" for me, at first when this would happen i'd almost imediately wake up everytime upon realizing this. Eventually certain tips like spinning in circles when u "feel" like ur waking will keep u in the dream. It's a really nice experience. Flying is really cool and funny feeling but nice. THe only thing i experience that was a pretty negative thing was i started to get episodes of sleep paralysis where i'd wake up during a dream and i'd be lying and bed and couldn't move. But your eyes open and you can see everything in the room you fell asleep in. Often during these episodes you feel hugely strong vibrations and feelings of terror. You hear loud , scary noises see bright lights, feel extreme vibrations, and You often hallucinate and see things like ghostly figures or nightmare type monsters just because your in such a state of shock of not being able to move and the mechanism in ur brain thats connected to dreaming hasn't shut off yet which is to cause for the temporary paralysis. Your brain shuts off ur ability to move during certain states of dreaming in order to stop you from acting out ur dreams. SO with this in play and u being fully aware of ur surroundings, its mostly a frieghtening experience.