Last few weeks + Brief Lucid

Last few weeks I was away and got more sleep consistently than I have ever got in my entire life as I can remember. 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 hours per night. I've always been interested to see if I get this much sleep if I will actually wake up refreshed in the morning and be able to get up easily, but alas that doesn't seem to be the case (that being said perhaps I would if it wasn't so cold).

During this time I continued to write down my dreams in the morning, set intentions before going to sleep and I even tried setting intention during Yoga Nidra and using a lucid-dreaming related mantra with japa meditation.

Dream Recall Patterns

I have been observing influences that seem to affect how many dreams I recall.

*Initially I thought the amount of sleep was an important factor in remembering dreams. Now while I think it may be important in how many dreams you actually have, I am guessing what point in the cycle I wake up actually has a stronger impact on remembering dreams. I've slept 6 hours and remembered many dreams, and other times slept 8+ hours and remembered virtually nothing.

*Stress seems to affect dream recall - as I was on a 12 day intensive course where we did stuff from 6am to 8pm I think there wasn't as much brain power left to remember dreams

*Most dream recall seems to depend on how many times I wake up during the night, and whether I take a moment to remember those dreams each time

I did have one brief lucid dream after I woke up then went back to sleep. It was the one morning I didn't have to get up for the 6am start, although some people did. I think I could hear them moving around outside and this kept me in a lighter sleep which made me aware that I was dreaming. The lucid only lasted what felt 30sec-1 min and I didn't take the time to ground myself or anything. Still happy that I experienced it though

Just wondering why I am so bad at taking the time to ground myself, perhaps I'm not doing reality checks slow enough.

Last few days practising sensory awareness meditation. I focused on sounds and it was interesting to be able to be aware of far away sounds, close sounds and the static of the room/in my head (?) all at the same time.