Ok, well I went out today and put my cd player back in without changing anything - I hooked up all of the wires the same way, even the dimmer wire to see what would happen. And guess what happened - all of the lights worked just fine. I must have reset something when I unhooked the cd player and then when I hooked it back up it was fine

Well anyway, I guess I have a cd player with a dimmer and all my lights for now. I suppose if my lights go out again I'll have a suspect.