dream recall and rem cycle

Greetings Dream Friends!

I am trying to WILD. (Isn't everybody?) And I have a question.

I am trying to figure out my REM cycle so I can time my WILD attempt just before my main REM cycles start. So I have been waking myself up at different times in the night to see what is happening. So here is my question: when I wake up, are ALL the dreams I remember from just the last REM cycle? Stated differently, is it possible to remember any dreams from the REM cycle previous to the one you are waking up in? Or are all previous REM cycle dreams erased from memory?

For example, I set my alarm at midnight last night (I go to bed early and get up early so this was after four hours of sleep). When I awoke, I was in the middle of a dream but I also easily remembered two other fairly complete but seemingly unrelated dreams. Does that mean I was in a single long REM cycle or did I recall dreams from prior cycles?