Generating ideas in your sleep

The past year, I've been working A LOT on my music production. What's been happening to me lately is that if I get good sleep, as I'm coming out of my REM sleep, when I'm still in the haziness of waking up (but eyes still closed) I get a melody popping into my head. It's always JUST 1 melody that, as I wake up, develops into 1 or 2 bars. Thankfully, my hazy brain does some of the work for me since these basslines are mostly "call and response" type melodies.

I've been able to continuously recreate the result after I've: worked on music for at least a week straight (at least 5 hours a day), not eaten 2-3 before going to sleep, and cleared my mind with some quiet time before actually trying to fall asleep.

Does this happen to anyone else? I've heard of other people generating ideas in their sleep, but I've never spoken to anyone about it.

Does anyone else get ideas from a specific source/ritual?

In all seriousness, I have nightmares about RCA connectors.

Before, when I was doing other things (physics, graphic design, music production) etc, I'd often wake up with fully-formed ideas in my mind. Meditating also achieved the same result.

You might want to read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_records

I would not rely on generating ideas in sleep haha. However, all of the things you said you do (work on music 5 hours per day, quiet time before bed, working on music as soon as you wake up) are great ideas in and of themselves for other reasons.