Nightmare or Astral Projection?

I've studied lucid dreams and astral projection for a while, I first learned about them whilst watching a video on YouTube. That being said, My boyfriend has always had pretty vivid or intense dreams and ends up waking me up with his body heat. But the other night he actually woke me up after what he referred to as an awful nightmare. He said he had to wake me up to make sure I was real and he wasn't still dreaming. So of course I reassured him I was real and it was not a dream. Basically what happened is he was out of bed looking at me and the tv was on in the corner but the whole room was very dark and he was trying to wake me up and turn on the lights but it wouldn't work and I couldn't hear him. He said he had "woken up" several times too and was stuck in this state. After he calmed down I suggested that it could have been an accidental astral projection because he could see light coming from the tv (he had left his xbox plugged in that night and it was glowing very brightly when we went to bed), and he couldn't wake me up or turn on the lights. I'm obviously not an expert so I'd like some more opinions because this had him very shook up for at least an hour after and he's usually the time to fall back asleep right away. Please let me know what you think. <3