I'm new to this forum, but not entirely new to the concept of Lucid Dreaming. I can remember one instance in my childhood where I have had a lucid dream, and I also have very vivid dreams (when i can remember them). I have looked into learning how to induce lucid dreams a couple of years ago, but dropped it as I could not really keep a regular sleep pattern. Now the reason why I'm interested in the topic again, and dreaming as a whole is due to something that happened this weekend, which reminded me of something else that happened a few years ago:

When I was 16, I was visiting relatives, and they also had extra guests, so I ended up sharing a bed with my cousin. One night, in the middle of a dream I was being attacked by a group of people, and I was fighting back in the dream. At one point in the dream, someone was sneaking up behind me and was going to attack, and my natural reaction was to elbow the guy in the dream. I woke up right after that, and heard my cousin let out a small moan, and I realized at that point that I had just elbowed him in the chest while he was sneaking back into bed after he got home from his night shift. I apologized and explained what had happened, and we had a good laugh about it the next day. I thought it was some freak thing that wouldn't happen again.

This weekend, I was sleeping over at my friend's place (and i'm not getting into details about this relationship). This time, I had a short dream, and it was really strange where it was like a redish-brown colour was applied to a camera lens to give the image a different tint (like in the movie Traffic). Anyways, in the dream, this big guy jumped me and was laying on top of me and I could barely move, so my natural instinct to defend myself was to grab him by the neck, choke him slightly, and push him away. Like the first example i described, I ended up grabbing my friend's throat, and pushed her away waking her up, and waking me up at the same time. Luckily she didn't freak out, and I explained to her what had happened (I was also lucky that I had told her before about the incident with my cousin).

The first instance I laughed it off, but considering something similar happened this weekend, it freaks me out a little. Any possible explanation as to how, or why I am "acting" out my dreams, even if it's for a split second?