CAN-WILD tips and questions

CAN = Custom Alarm Noise
WILD= Wake Initiated Lucid Dream

First off, I'd like to say I'm a little new here so any advice I have would best be researched or confirmed. Currently, I have had one lucid dream and I am in day 7 of the 90 day WILD journey.

I think I have some useful suggestions and open-ended questions that I will post at the end of this post that might help everyone on here.


Now, I'd like to inform everyone with an iPhone that the "Calender" at your home screen has the perfect CAN for this technique. Simply set an event for an hour after you want to wake up and set the notification for an hour before. The noise lasts 3 seconds in a "dee-doo dee-doo, dee-doo dee-doo" fashion. Try it. Set your alarm for 2 minutes after right now and see the noise it makes. This alarm is perfect for trying to WILD because it wakes you up but you don't have to to move to turn it off.

For me, I am currently setting it 5 hours after I go to bed. I am trying to consistently fall asleep at midnight, so I set the alarm for 5am. This consistency is because I want to move the alarm time around and see which works the best. I already experimented with 4:30am, but don't think that it is enough time for me at least. I keep waking up right before the alarm clock goes off and then I can't get back to sleep.

The best reason I can suggest doing this technique is that you are almost guaranteed a false awakening after falling back asleep from hearing the alarm. So, get used to doing RCs when you wake up in the morning or when this alarm wakes you. This way, you don't have to WILD into a random dream and hope the retain consciousness and ultimately either do a DILD technique anyway by recognizing the dream state or doing a seamless transition, keeping consciousness the whole time.

As for general tips:
1) Don't focus on having the WILD but mentally repeat the intention to lucid dream a couple of times before going back to sleep.
2) Don't move. Once the alarm wakes you up try to move as little as possible, or you can shift position, but then immediately stay.
3) Relax. You must fall asleep before anything can happen. The worst thing that happens to me on this journey is having to stay up for hours because I'm concentrating on my thoughts or focusing on something specific.

I'll definitely keep posting my findings/results when I get further down the line of this journey and start having LDs as a result of this technique. The above tips are compiled from other sources and have been the most insightful for me so far.

Questions:
1) For a WILD do you find that you are aware the whole time? As in, you are relaxing in your bed and you continue to be aware as you transition into the dream or is there a period of unconsciousness that leads to a short dream that becomes lucid relatively soon because of the increased level of consciousness present before going to sleep?
2) How much autosuggestion is too much before sleep?