A common expression but curiously hard to explain!

It means that you are letting your emotions over-run you and your excitement/interest/etc is making you lose control a little. Only it is not quite as dramatic as this makes it sound. It means 'taking things too far', which is another idiom so perhaps not too helpful for you...

Examples.

'He got a bit carried away with the decorating'. (Perhaps he was meant to paint one room and painted the whole house, or perhaps he was meant to use cream paint but ended up with a bright red room with a mural all over one wall).


'She got carried away in the sales' - perhaps she went to spend £50 on new clothes but because of all the bargains in the sales she ended up spending twice that.