First off, let me explain my "anchor" that I have found to somehow retain awareness through the sleep cycles and then I'll get onto my experience.

I am a Medical Technologist working in a hospital laboratory, and part of my job entails looking at blood smear reviews under a microscope. I see hundreds of white blood cells every single day, each taking on their own unique shape and appearance. While I am performing this, I am always at an increased level of mental awareness, looking for any abnormalities in the smear that might indicate a disease process such as lymphoma cells or blasts from leukemia, etc.

As I drift off to sleep, I passively view pictures of white blood cells in my mind over and over again, and it is very pleasing to me, yet inquisitive enough to keep my cognitive awareness alert. I naturally get tired whenever I am at work looking at white blood cells in the microscope, but it's not a "sleepy" kind of tired but yet a rather quiet, passive, heightened sense of alertness and peace that I get when I look at the blood smears.

Last night at the beginning of the night, I was viewing pictures of white cells in my mind (atypical lymphocytes / monocytes / early monocyte precursors, cleaved lymphoma cells, band neutrophils, etc.) and as the serenity and peace but inquisitive attention continued to focus on them, I entered a kind of "lull" state where I literally felt so much at peace and my mental activity diminished to a point where it seemed that the only thing that was occupying my thoughts was looking at these white blood cells, dangling from a thread. I could not think too much about them, but I continued to passively observe what these white cells were, and then all of a sudden BOOM.. I "woke" up from the lull state (theta, K complex, deep delta sleep perhaps?) and immediately felt intense vibrations surge all throughout my body, and then recognizing this state for what it was. I then let a dream image form, and I kept jumping through mirrors to explore alternate dimensions. At some point during the dream, I lost lucidity because I was so engulfed in the dream itself, and then I woke up.

After waking up, I got up and went to the restroom, and then went back to bed and immediately started viewing these blood smear pictures in my mind, pictures of white blood cells and the different forms they can take, over and over again in my mind. After a few minutes I entered sleep paralysis and vibrations again, and started consciously dreaming again. No lull state this time.. it seemed to jump right into a REM period. I'll continue this story more as I experiment more but it seems like this might be a good anchor for people who work in the laboratory profession and are experimenting with lucid dreaming.