Altered state of consciousness or Lucid dreaming?

I have been lately trying to understand a lot about out of the normal experiences like - Astral / out of body experience, lucid dreaming and the like. I do think these are somethings that are for real and the only thing that stops us from exploring further is the fear of the unknown... like the fear of death for example.

I am a dreamer - literally and figuratively speaking. I have had dreams that have shown me what was going to happen the following day and dreams of more distant future, some of which i have seen happening either exactly the same way or as though the dream had given me a hint that situation was going to happen... so far i am an amateur in this and i am still learning how I could "control" this if it were an ability and use it like my sixth sense... well, i am writing this since I just wanted to share an experience with others who are interested in such aspects.

Last night in my dream that was rather meaningless sequence of events, i saw three buckets of dark turbid water. and when i put my hand in one of them and stirred it, the turbidity settled down (so quite opposite to what happens in waking reality). and that very moment i realized, "i am in a dream state!". i told this to myself, while in the dream!!! at that very moment something weired happened. I felt a switch in my state of awareness - a kind of loss of body consciousness we have when we are into shav-aasana yoga. then i asked myself would i get answers to my questions in life now? in that altered state of mind, i was conscious that i am asleep on my bed and had been in a dream state moments ago, but then my hands felt lighter and started to go upwards like a balloon goes up in air and slowly my whole body also felt lighter. i could not stop that floating feeling since i felt as though earth lost its gravitational pull to help me come down. i felt i was in a kind of suspended state and i was beginning to float upwards. when i looked around (not physically but in this altered state of mind) i could see that i was rising above from not my bed but a certain pattern (that resembled the Sri Chakra). I was scared a little about what might happen next and imagined holding the hands of my spiritual guru in India. I could see Him clearly with me, holding my hands and then we both were rising upwards from the Chakra pattern on the "ground". for a few moments the presence of my spiritual guru gave me some courage to let myself experience whatever this was. but at one point my fear caught up with me and i desperately tried to wake up. i felt trapped in the state for a few minutes as i woke up with quite an effort. infact i wondered if i would ever wake up!!! is this how we feel when we become aware or conscious in our dream state or was i experiencing the initial steps of astral projection? not sure. i had read a lot about astral projection and lucid dreaming and tried to deliberately project my astral self a couple of times (in vain). whichever this experience was, astral or dream, i felt a mixture of fear and thrill at the same time. Just that fear got the better hand over time as it many times happens and i pulled myself out of this. with a little glad and with a little regret. but i know the journey has just begun to explore the unknown.

i would be very glad and grateful to get a feedback on this, if you (those who were interested enough to read this far) have the time for such out of the ordinary things in life. Those of you who are trying astral projection, do remember to protect yourself with divine white light shield. It is very important (this i learnt only later and now I am glad that my initial attempts went in vain).