Welcome, NickSeagull, to the DILD class!
It sounds like you've had a great start already! Yes, there is a lot of material, and a lot of if can be confusing. Let me say, though, that if you have already found an approach that works for you, I would stick with it. Lucid dreaming is all about personal discovery: how you sleep, how you dream, your consciousness & awareness. Ultimately in the end you need to adapt everything to yourself. And if you like FILD/WILD and it works for you, I'd say keep doing it!
DILD is great, too, and has the benefit that every night we dream, so there's always a chance to get lucid even if you're not trying to WILD that night. And all the day and night work we do applies to both approaches.
Awareness: do what feels right / best to you. In short, the ultimate goal is to learn to *pay attention*, and not live life like a zombie. The issue many people have with "ADA" as defined by KingYoshi is that it focuses on the external world, not yourself. It is *self*-awareness that we're after in lucid dreaming practice (lucidity = self-awareness). So while you're practicing your moments of awareness, see if you can work in the notion of *you*: how do *you* feel, what are you thinking, how are you reacting, how are you affecting your surroundings (and how are they affecting you?). Paying attention during waking life also affects our dreams: they become much more vivid and you feel like you're really there, which I believe is one of the important precursors to lucidity.
Dream Journal / Recall: I'd suggest modifying your manta to be "I remember my dreams." Mantras / intentions are best kept in the present tense, so that your mind interprets them as "right now and always" as opposed to "some time later in the future". Congrats on your big recall night! Continue setting this intention, keep reaching for recall on every waking, and your recall will grow and grow. Recall does go up and down naturally, but with continued work the average night will keep getting better and better. I have a link to my recall tips on the top line in my signature, you may find some ideas useful there. You can always build your dream recall higher -- the more you work on it and consistently practice it, the better it will get, over time. Practicing and spending effort and time on dream recall *every single night* is one of the best things you can do.
Reality check and critical reflection: It sounds like you're doing both, which is great. I prefer to keep the notion of "reality check" to a simple, fast, clear check, like nose pinch/hand check. "Mental reality checks" I think are best decribed as "critical reflection." Usually it is the critical reflection & raised awareness that leads you to do a reality check to determine/confirm your state (waking/dreaming). It's useful to realize that at any conscious moment, you could be in the dream state. Never just assume that you're awake, because when you're in a non-lucid dream, you totally think that you are awake! The more you can do this all through the day, the more this kind of thinking will move into your dreams and you'll get lucid more. I'm not saying to ignore senses, just don't put *all* of your efforts into the environment around you, try to always include yourself in your awareness.
WBTB: good that you're doing this. You may experiment with gradually increasing the time of WBTB. I personally do like micro-WBTBs as well, but sometimes you can re-enter your dreams with even more awareness if you get up for longer periods of time. Experiment, keep careful records, and over time you'll discover the ideal length of time -- which may be different every night, depending on how you feel.
Dream signs: Don't get frustrated, everybody including very experienced lucid dreamers miss dream signs all the time. Dreaming about lucid dreaming shows that you're really close to lucidity, that the subject is close to your thoughts. I myself just last night in a dream thought I should change my job to "lucid dreaming professional" but missed it! As your dream journal grows, you will see patterns develop. When you detect these patterns, you can do daytime MILD practice: visualize your recent dream scene, imagine yourself there in the scene, then see yourself getting lucid in that situation, think/say "I'm dreaming! This is a dream! <the sign> means I"m dreaming!" You want to try to associate strongly experiencing the particular dream sign with the idea "I'm dreaming!" It's also good to associate anything strange, odd, surprising, or shocking with dreaming. "Anytime I see something odd, I'm dreaming!" "That's odd, I'm dreaming!" "That's weird, I'm dreaming!" Repeat these to yourself, try to imagine the feeling of experiencing surprising things, and immediately conclude "I'm dreaming!" I had one dream where I was looking at a weird device attached to a refrigerator (this is a dream-sign of mine, up-close inspection of weird little things/objects). Later I transitioned to a new location but I was still thinking about that weird little thing. "That was such an odd little tube, I've never seen anything like it before...WAIT! ODD THING?! NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE?! DREAM!" You want to build and strengthen associations like that.
So again, I think you're off to a great start, just keep doing what you're doing, and stay excited and never quit! If you keep at it, you will progress and improve steadily over time. Think of dreaming practice as a life journey rather than a fixed destination, and enjoy the journey!
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