Sleep Cycle: How do you find it???

Recently I've started to try MILDs but with no success. These were all my errs and I realize that.
1st: Didn't know I needed an alarm
2nd: Didn't wake up when alarm went off but still turned it off.
3rd: got up and I think became too awake after peeing.

that has fairly nothing to do with sleep cycle but for my next attempt I think if I knew a little bit more about my own sleep cycle then I might not have too much problems on the timing.

Any help?

The great thing about MILD is that you don't have to know anything about sleep cycles. You're going to be putting in effort during the day working on your prospective memory, and when you go back to sleep you're going to want to be able to remember your last dream. Besides that, all you have to do is wake up, and then fall back asleep (or even just fall asleep once, like for a nap or if you don't remember awakening in the middle of the night). Unlike a WILD, it's ok if you're a bit too awake, as long as eventually you can fall back asleep. It's a DILD method... you just have to be able to sleep in general :)

If you read that link it'll tell you the actual technique. So you'll want to either be using alarms or waking up naturally after dreams for optimum success, and it'll be ok if your alarm is loud or across the room to force you to wake up just a bit. You are going to want to be laying in bed visualizing, so getting up to go across the room should make you wake up just enough to visualize and then easily fall back asleep.

Thanks