It wouldn't be too far of a stretch. Starting simply with the knowledge that dreaming happens while in REM, someone could find it logically to switch to an Uberman-type Polyphasic sleep schedule, since one of the biggest advertised advantage of such sleep schedule is dropping into REM a lot quicker due to exhaustion. If Uberman doesn't actually help them in terms of the sleep they need, but they also don't want to give it up, hoping to get all that lucid dreaming, a student could continue it for a a few months, which coincidentally is a school semester. Now you've got a student who is really burned out, and once exam time will crash and burn. Depending on the program, university they attend, and the person themselves, failing a semester could really screw them over one way or another.