Dear lucid dreamers,

I am a total newbie. i had my first lucid dream this night. i ended up reading about LD some years ago or so and found it compelling, but didn't manage to keep disciplined to work on it. then i read about it again in 2010 after seeing inception. i wanted to start lucid dreaming and started systematically with writing a dream journal, because i felt i didn't dream enough, but after a few weeks i gave up because i couldn't attain lucidity. this was half a year ago.

last night, out of the blue, i had a lucid dream. it blew me away! so, my need:
I don't know how I managed to have a Lucid Dream:
Can somebody explain me the reasons why I dreamed lucid(see below)?

and

I can't tell the qualitative aspects of Lucid Dreams:
Can somebody put the "lucidity" of my dream into perspective (was it big lucid dream, good one, highly lucid one)?


I know the knowledge for this must be here, but I would be very grateful for if somebody could give me some specific answers!

How I dreamed lucid?
1) I was incredibly tired last night. Does being tired support Lucid Dreaming? I had a big lack of sleep for about 4 days in a row (work and fun related) and I was quite stressed for the last 2 days. I got to bed late and was very tired but couldn't sleep (potentially due to too much nicotine, I had smoked above-average during the day?). Anyway, after writing a long contemplative email about my life, I fell asleep and had a lucid dream within the first 30 minutes of falling asleep (i could check the send time of my email, but I don't know how long the dream actually lasted in real time). Does anyone know why I had this seemingly spontaneous LD? I would love to have another one soon, so knowing the factors for my first one might support it. I did not do ANY explicit exercises to attain lucidity (doing reality checks during the day etc).

How lucid was my lucid dream:
2) I wrote down my dream and remember the majority of it very clearly: I had some none-lucid dreams, ending in the situation where I was running away from people chasing me on a street in Zurich (actually largest city in Switzerland). When I passed the central square, I saw a guy sitting on a chair in the Café. He looked at me intensely and smiled, as if he was saying "we both know what's going on"). I looked at him and it was Steve Buscemi (NO idea why). I thought to myself "wait a minute, this must be a dream!". I instantly knew this was a dream. And i instantly remembered that now i could do whatever I want. So I said to myself: "I want to fly", I pushed and I starting taking off. I could see the city gaining distance under my feet in large detail. Then a tram started to take off and rushed past me, with the trian conductor smiling at me and saying "do you want a ride - haha -". He also knew this was actually not possible. Then i started flying above Zurich. I saw an incredible large amount of houses whe high detail, and funny things such as a sun-clock of exactly the same looks at every third house or so. I realized that this could not actually be true but at the same time I also believed it was true, it looked and felt completely real. I flew around the city closely above the tallest buildings and it was amazing.

Then I told myself. Ok, now I wanna do something else. I didn't want to fly anymore, instead I wanted to go into a house. A beautiful house. I started to spawn houses before me, but I didn't manage to create a good looking house. I had to take all my power and concentrate a lot, and about the 5th house was to my liking: An old beautiful house with decorations. I approached the house and looked into one of the windows. The window was too small to enter and the walls were thick. But I saw people inside the house and I wanted to enter. So I decided to just walk through the wall. It felt as if I was walking through chewing-gum when I walked right through the thick wall: Suddenly it became grey and fuzzy and quickly, when I had stuck my head through the wall, I saw clearly again.

Then, when I looked at one woman's face and looked more closely, the dream started to fade. I realized it's fading and remembered that to stay in a dream, it might help to spin around oneself. But instead of staying in the dream, I spund around, lost my balance and hit my head on something hard. I opened my eye and I was sitting on the ground. I realized I just had an incredibly amazing dream. I was happy but also shocked. At that moment somebody knocked on the door of my room which as dimly lit. Before I could say anything, a colleague of mine came into my room. She said "Sorry, I was out of nail polish so I took yours. I ate all of it. [she literally said I "ate" all of it] I'm sorry. But look I bought a new one at the corner shop". She left the nail polish on my table and some coins and left. Ans when she left I realized I was just wrapped in my red towel. Then, I woke up a second time. [this time fore real!].

I woke up and was totally fascinated by what just happened. I was still half asleep when I tried to run for a pen and paper to write down my dream, because I was so afraid I would forget everything. I scribbled everything down, still breathless. It was so amazing. Now I'm trying to find out what has happened last night to me. Well, I know what happened, but I want it to happen soon again. It was so incredibly fun and cool!

Thanks for providing inputs for my two questions!
h34dbanger