had a nightmare while trying to shift

In the past few days I’ve been really researching ways and methods on how to shift. Last night I finally was able to lucid dream a bit after using the technique of thinking as your DR self right before falling asleep. (thinking the way your DR self would think. not “i am xyz, my friends are xyz” but more so of “ugh i have to do this tmr and i don’t want to” sort of emotional thoughts)

My dream started out with randomly seeing someone from my DR, not my SO but a close friend of theirs. Who, in my dream, called me and I asked him to help create a portal for me to enter my DR through. In my dream, I was in my CR room on the phone with him. Randomly the dream became a nightmare, specifically a nightmare that would trigger up my PTSD of having a stalker in the past. I was suddenly downstairs nearby my front door where I saw an ice cream truck park in my driveway. And a creepy clown man came out of the truck and started to wonder around my house outside. It was pitch black outside/ time accurate to when I had fallen asleep. I’m not even really scared of clowns?

At this point it no longer was a lucid dream but just a nightmare- which was completely unrelated to what my DR is. I woke up in a cold sweat in my CR. Idk if this is a good sign or not but it kinda scared me to try and go back to bed and to try shifting again. I think besides from the bad dream, I had gotten pretty close as I was talking to someone from my DR. Should I just stick to trying to use awake methods?