Phantom Dreams

I dream often. Especially in times of emotional stress. Usually I remember my dreams with clarity and can apply lucid dreaming to them. Last night I had a nightmare that I can only barely remember and it was far beyond my control. Like a bright flash it stunned me out of technique or memory. I have read deeply into both the theory and science of dreams, I have also read a variety of supernatural, mystical and new age writings on the topic of dreams. Never have I read anything about a perfect recall technique. (Some proof exists that hypnosis is effective in this regard.) Because of the nature of this dream it nags me what it means. I want to delve deeper into it's nature and try and understand my own feelings. I thought perhaps to try to meditate and try to release the dreams but after consideration I felt the possibility of "false memories" was too strong. The bits I remember are quite clear and I'll relate them with the names omitted.

I stood outside a clean and well kept morman church. It's fairly dark and their are various people milling around outside. Several of them I know personally.
Out of the corner of my eye I see two friends of mine who have recently started dating wander into the church. (People who have read my previous dream entries will know them better as the icy maiden and the conflicted assasin. Both of which have been a source of anxiety for me recently.)
I follow them into the church which is about as dark as it was outside. It's clean inside and the red carpet seems somehow darker and more threatening then it should otherwise.
The hallways twist and turn and over time it starts to become rougher and rougher until the walls turn into hewn rock. The ceiling and walls become dungeonlike and the carpet remains an ominous red. I come across an ordinary wooden door. I turn the handle but it's locked.
I feel something clawing at my leg. I look down but there is nothing there. Looking down the carpet appears almost liquid, I kneel down and put my hand into it. It's thick like latex paint but when I pull my hand back out it's clean. Slowly my feet are slidding into it. Then my legs. Behind the door I hear screaming. The voice is male but twisted somehow, tortured almost.

After this point I no longer have a clear idea of what happened in the dream. I do remember being chased by a taut skinned ghostly man with glowing green eyes. I remember desperately beating against the sides of a church door trying to get out, The doors are all shut against me keeping me trap inside. Everyone I come across is twisted. Their bodies are elongated and twisted in strange ways. They don't speak but instead stagger aimlessly.
I remember flashes of faces in anguish and pain. The faces taunt me with their familarity but it is no person I know. When I awoke I was terrified, It took some time for me to understand I wasn't being persued by monsters.

Lucid dreaming is best accomplished when you challenge reality. When your awake you should challenge reality, when your asleep you should do the same. If your dreaming you will realize it and your willpower shall awaken. In this dream I didn't challenge reality. I accepted the nightmare without question and was lead deeper and deeper into it. Mundane as it appears I take it very seriously: One should always know reality from fantasy (or dream.). What enables such effortless lucid dreaming is that I constantly and consciously attack reality... that is the first thing that bothers me about this dream.

The second thing is more symbolic. I was lead into that wreteched place. I followed without first thinking about it. If you choose to read deeper into it the church could represent organized religion as a whole (Which I detest on moral grounds); furthermore it could reflect my fears of unwilling or guilted conversion. On an emotional level it could be repressed feelings towards my two friends. The background of a tormented and haunted church would be fitting to such a dream. Being lead into a place of torment by people you consider your friends is appropriate symbolism, but I have to wonder if that is it. It seems too simple. A great spiritualist once told me "In a meaningful life nothing is accidental, in a meaningful life everything is an opportunity."
Well. I'm looking for the opportunity but it seems pretty much open and shut to me.

She hurt me, he enabled it and I already distrust their shared beliefs... things I already knew. The impetus to act doesn't and will not exist; No dream will change that. If the dream possesses a larger meaning then it is lost on me. Tonight I will dream of frolicing nymphs, meadows of green and azure rivers. They will be dreams of my choosing and to my liking.
I do not need false lights to distract me from my path. I do not need the heartless to trample my feelings. Nor do I need the callous and cold to tell me that I am wrong in my path.
Goodnight all.