Dream Recall and Dream Signs

[DrEaMeR23]

Since this is going to be a long post, you can skip the boring stuff if you want and I'll bold my questions. I just woke up and I wanted to start out by saying I REMEMBERED 9 DREAMS LAST NIGHT, 8 of which were very clear!!! I didn't try anything like telling myself "I will awaken and remember my dreams." I set my cell phone alarm clock to 6 hours after I went to sleep, to see if it would help my recall by waking up during a REM period, but by one hour into my sleep, I woke up and decided I really needed some extra sleep and would skip it that night. I guess I got lucky cause I didn't need that after all! All of my dreams seemed to be connected by some same storyline. Like one of my dreams was that I was on a city bus with my math teacher at night. Another was that I went to school and forgot my backpack. Why? I didn't even pack it or prepare anything the night before because I was on the bus! Another dream: I was late for my class... because I had to go back home and get my backpack! I'm not sure if there really was a sort of domino effect between my dreams or if I'm just trying to fill in the blanks and apply logic. Do other people sometimes have "connected dreams"? I'm trying to find my dream sign, and something I find consistent in all of my dreams is an impossible setting. Since it's spring break, it's unlikely that I'd be riding the same bus as my teacher. I haven't even been on a bus in almost a week. So that's how the bus is an impossible setting. And sometimes, even when I find I'm in my school, there's always a non-existent extra hallway, or the format of the room (is usually) different. Is an impossible setting a reliable dream sign? And a question about the time reality checks. You're supposed to look at a digital clock, look away and back. The time should be completely different. I don't have a digital watch, but if I saw a clock with hands in my dream, if I looked away and back, would the hands go in all directions or something impossible? And is using a non-digital clock a reliable reality check? Since I might not always see a clock in my dream, my usual reality check are just pinching myself to see if my skin feels weird and looking around for strange things. Will that work?