My first lucid dream which I've remembered better than mostly any memory since my childhood ended in my death, and I regularly feel pain in my dreams, is there a meaning?

I was spurred to ask this question because answers in another question suggest pinching yourself to be sure you're awake and not dreaming. My problem is, whilst in the dream my perceptions can at times be as vivid and lifelike as my 'real life' perceptions, including the pain from pinching myself.

My first experience with a lucid dream was when I was very young and it was very successful. Simple version I was out walking around, realized I was dreaming, and decided I wanted to mix up the scenery. I held out my palm to the landscape, and everything began to slowly ripple. The waves went through everything in my sight, simply like a warped / distorted view of the same objects in place, the landscape, and horizon, and passed between them without changing 'shape' or pattern if you will. The ripples hastened, and I appeared in a barn shortly after. A matter of seconds after arrived I was killed by a creature with scythes for arms (which at the time I likened to a Pokemon =]).

Very rarely since have I been able to reproduce the lucid dreaming abilities I had as a child, including voluntary flight and the sort. It seems my ability has worsened with time. Also worth noting, I used to regularly experience dreams where I feel sensory perceptions, particularly pain. Later during a darker period in my life (around when I came to these parts) my dreams were filled with lots of self mutilation, death, or general unhappiness. Most if not all contained some degree of sensory perception, some to a very extreme and agonizing extent. My dreams have since calmed down a great deal, mostly nonchalance not worth mentioning at the present time.