Guiding Lincoln to the last-16 of the FA Cup for the first time in 115 years was beyond the wildest dreams of manager Danny Cowley.
Cowley described beating Ipswich in the previous round as "climbing a mountain" and likened the challenge of repeating the feat against Brighton to "getting to the moon." It might take the 38-year-old a while to come back down to earth after what he and his team achieved on Saturday afternoon.
The Imps, Conference leaders and 72 places lower than their opponents -- the Championship front-runners -- in the football pyramid, had already accounted for Oldham and Ipswich from the higher tiers on their historic run.
Former PE teacher Cowley, who only gave up his day job last summer to manager Lincoln full-time, described the whole experience as "surreal" after Alan Power's penalty, a Fikayo Tomori own goal and a late effort from Theo Robinson all in the second half overturned the 24th-minute lead given to Brighton by Richie Towell.
"I'm surprised. It's not often football surprises me, but today..." Cowley said after the 3-1 triumph. "You always go into games thinking you have a chance, but this is beyond all of my wildest dreams.
"The boys were organised and motivated and I was really pleased that we were able to stay in the game after losing the goal. Half-time gave us a chance to regroup. We were brave all afternoon -- we wanted to press high and be committed to our style and what we believe in. I feel we did that.
"It's surreal, and it's been surreal for quite a period of time -- probably post-Ipswich, to be honest. The first Ipswich game, seeing those 5,000 away supporters and hearing the noise they made, from that moment onwards it's been crazy -- but a good crazy.
"I'm just delighted for everybody. I can't believe the scenes and the emotion and the support."
For Brighton boss Chris Hughton, twice an FA Cup winner as a player with Tottenham in 1981 and 1982, it was not the first time he had been humbled as a manager in the competition.
At the fourth-round stage four years ago when in charge of Norwich, who were then in the Premier League, he oversaw a 1-0 defeat at Carrow Road to Luton -- like Lincoln, then of the Conference.
Hughton blamed "elementary mistakes" for his side's demise at Sincil Bank.
"It's a result I certainly couldn't see at half-time," he said. "I thought in the first half we coped with them. Lincoln are a big strong side with a lot of energy and they play very direct, and we had our moments.
"What we spoke about at half-time was that we didn't give them the lift or the enthusiasm that they needed, but the penalty gets the crowd going.
"They were three very poor goals. You can't afford to make elementary mistakes like we did -- and that can be against any team. We got punished for it."