lucid dreaming help plzz

ok so i just finished my exams at my high school a few days ago.
before the exams i studied heaps hard sometimes 4-5hrs at a time and up till late at night.
within those 2 weeks of exam period i had 3 lucid dreams. i forgot to mention that i have NEVER had lucid dreams before that i can recall and ive been trying for months now. i also may add that during that time i didnt think much of lucid dreaming.
so these 3 lucid dreams were the first ive ever had, i have a few questions:

1) does this happen to others? or is this possibly just a 1 off case?
2) why now? i mean is it because of my studies or change in daily habits?
3) is there a way use that experience so that i may have future LDs? eg study more?

thanks any help will be appreciated

To be honest, I've only got a tiny clue into how it happened.

Staying up later + Studying then going to sleep = More awareness when asleep?

Did the studying till late at night force you to take naps during the day at some point? If this is the case, then it is probably due to taking more naps. Naps=REM sleep, and are much easier to remember than standard night sleep. Actually, I have noticed that around 85% of my LDs come from when I nap.

If you did not take any extra nap time during the day, maybe due to your late night sleeping schedule every night, your body was making up for lost REM sleep. To make up for lost REM your body possibly could have had way more of it than usual, which would improve your chance to become lucid and/or remember them. Then again, I am not exactly an expert in the sleeping field, but I guess this could be a possibility.

Like Baggins said, maybe it was due to your conscious mind having to do some hard thinking for 4-5 hours before bedtime. Your conscious mind could have been in a habit of thinking critically about everything, and when you went to sleep, maybe it carried over into the dream world?

yeh you guys may be right. there may have been more awareness whilst dreaming as i noticed dream signs and and questioned whether i was dreaming.(DILD)

thanks guys this is good because i really need to start studying for my HSC and now i have some extra motivation xDD

Maybe you just finally got your first and from then on found it easier. I'm not 100% on this but from what I've read and heard most people do find it much much easier to induce a LD after their first. So hopefully, hard part's over for you : )

Now just practice practice practice. I wouldn't study more solely to increase your number of LDs, I personally think it would suck to pair the two together.. Then again if it was caused by higher consciousness from studying and then trying to sleep maybe you could study more later at night and have a lucid dream as your reward :D