>Fast forward to present time (10 years from school), whenever I want to wake up i.e. after 6-7 hours of sleep I can't stop myself from thinking about the dream

>Fast forward to present time (10 years from school), whenever I want to wake up i.e. after 6-7 hours of sleep I can't stop myself from thinking about the dream. It's like I am in a half-awake and half-sleepy state and I can't control myself to get fully awake, I know for sure I am not lucid dreaming. You're lucky. It takes me much practice and cultivation to be able to have that kind of clarity in dream retention. I ask that people don't talk to me after I wake up, and I keep a journal close, and I work at it, and I'm still able to attain anything like what you're describing only sometimes. In programming terms, in your sleep, your brain runs a full reference check against all nodes, and the ones that fired the brightest are what you're seeing when you wake up. Don't let this valuable information go to waste.