So hello! This is my first post. I've been on here reading the tutorials on this site for about a month but I've had reservations about starting an account immediately. Now I'm in desperate need of some help.

After reading the articles on this site I have, like others, become very interested in WILD. I feel like I'm much more comfortable with the idea of a being able to discipline yourself in the waking world. Many many times, nearly one every night I've had moments where despite being a character in a dream I've been able to litterally see "Oh, I'm dreaming. This isn't real." but I don't become lucid at all, I just lull around wherever my fantasy world drags me. So the idea of being able to enter the dream with complete awareness was very appealing but a huge problem stands in my way: My summer sleep habbits.

I am writing this at 4:00 AM my time, and I'm just starting to get tired. I really have tried to change by hitting my alarm clock and limiting myself to only 8 hours of sleep, but it hasn't been working. I really would like to be tired enough to fall asleep at 8 PM and wake up at 8 AM with a full 12 hours rest. It would be very useful sleep wise and also because I would be able to try WILD effectively while it's still dark. Things here start to get light at about 4 to 4:30 and while light is an issue that's bothering this is also when all the birds in the woods outside our house wake up and their calls make it hard to even go to sleep let alone WILD.

If anyone has any remedy towards changing my sleep hours that I could try I'd like to try it.

My friend who has acheived Lucid Dreaming has been telling me that I need to figure out my sleep cycle. I don't remember the term he used but he wants me to try to find the point at which I enter a dream. He was in a rush but I was wondering if anyone could explain this to me or point me towards a tutorial about doing this.

Now, my actual attempts at WILD (which are all done BEFORE going to sleep) have for the most part been fruitless. I find I have a number of problems regarding...

-Wanting to open my eyes when they are closed
-having my eyes wander around under my eyelids
- It seems like there's this reflex, maybe I'm just ultra sensitive but it seemed like whenever I breathed my eyes twitch just a little. Not sure what that is.
- I don't think it should but it just generally feels unnatural and uncomfortable to go to sleep breathing with my mouth.

I think if this would fit anyone's symptoms that I did in some capacity come close to WILD last night, though I'm not totally sure. I started by counting over and over and after this became tedious it just melted into very precise concentration on my breathing, as I got more and more tired flashing white lights sort of appeared to my eyes and I struggled to keep disciplined to one spot for my eyes. Then I felt this feeling like my body was ascending up out of itself and I paniced not so much out of fear but of not remembering what I should have done next if it really was a WILD. I then moved my head and went right back to my posistion where the bright lights started, but this time I couldn't get the ascending feeling of the first time and I just gave up. Did I experience the beginning of a WILD or was I just overreacting to something that would happen when you're about to go to sleep?

Apologies for post length and general stupidity of questions, I just really do want to achieve LD but I'm not sure how to really do it.