You never lose it, I guess

I stopped actively pursuing Lucid Dreaming approximately a year ago. No particular reason. For a long time, I lost most or all of my dream retention, and stopped having semi-lucid dreams

Anyway, last night I had the most Lucid dream in my life, and it strangely appeard after a year of not practicing LD techniques.

It all started out in a pasture, with a car-port next to the tank(pond)... Some guy pulled out an old car from the 70s, which for the sake of this dream, was my property. I looked at it and said "Well damn! This old thing's running? I'm gonna take it for a drive!" So I took the car for a drive, but quickly noticed that something was off about the situation, particularly with the fact that I was driving in the suburbs of Indianapolis when I just left rural Texas..

Anyway, at some point I came to and I said "This is a dream...". I didn't think Lucid, but for some reason I actually new FOR A FACT that I was in a dream... So I did what anyone would do -- whatever I wanted. I explored old places, got laid, tried to teleport, etcetera.

What's unique about this experience, and why I chose to come on DreamViews and make a thread: is that even though this dream came about long after I stopped practicing lucid dreaming, it was the most vivid lucid dream I've ever had. I was able to open doors and go places without losing my dream -- I became lucid again after the dream changed, multiple times. It seems like last night my mind was unable to fool me..

I still had trouble controlling my environment, and controlling dream characters, but I was close to it at this point... I think I'm going to start dreaming again!

So the question for you all is: Have you ever experienced a lucid dream when you were not prepared to have one? is it true that "If you don't use it, you lose it"? Or is there some level at which you will never lose your skills

You will probably never lose the skills. Once you are even slightly familiar with the techniques they will always cross your path at some point.
It's definitely not something you should want to forget, I'd say keep up the good work and get to it :D

While it is true that you never loose the skill all together, but I can attest to it that it is possible to try to return to lucid dreaming after almost two decades of not practicing it, and it taking longer to become successful at it than it originally took to begin with. Like you, I do not know why I stopped. Right now I am really wishing I never had stopped. I have had two lucid dreams since returning to the hobby in February, and while I don't remember how long it originally took me to become successful, I know it was less time than this because I was much less patient back then than I am now.

One of the people that got me into lucid dreaming stopped doing it years ago. He still does a reality check automatically when someone odd happens.

Due to university I haven't been into lucid dreaming for a long time and I do get the occasional DILD every one or two months, but my skills have faded away. I suck at stabilizing my dreams, my recall is practically non-existent and I usually wake up shortly after becoming lucid. I am trying to get back into it right now.