So, yesterday, for the first time, I started trying the mantra part of DILD/MILD ("I am lucid dreaming." as I go to sleep, and "I look at my hands and realize I'm dreaming." as part of reality checks) and I noticed last night it was making me have some trouble going to sleep... For example, first, I couldn't get myself to fall asleep normally while saying it, (I tried breathing it to myself, mouthing to myself, and just thinking it to myself) so I decided I'd just say/think it to myself in the last moments before I fell asleep. However, then what happened was either I stressed about it and couldn't relax enough to fall asleep, or I remembered about it as I was falling into medium (whatever the second stage is called) sleep whether I wanted to or not and without even giving myself a chance to think about it, woke myself up to say the mantra. I woke up from deep/almost rem sleep at least three times last night and had each of these problems multiple times on each occasion.
Also, when I DID manage to fall asleep, either with or without the mantra, the split second I was at all aware of any activity in my mind, whether it was entering a dream or waking up for no reason, the first thought to cross my mind was that I could be lucid dreaming right now (as in have the opportunity to), so I immediately did a thorough RC, and woke myself up by doing it prematurely and not having a chance too actually connect to the dream. Once, I somehow kinda felt the dream forming and became pretty lucid before it even started, but then woke myself up by forcing consciousness on myself before fully transitioning into REM sleep...
I think I had a few FAs, but in those, I either accidentally woke myself up from doing too fierce a reality check, (stretching all over the place to see my clock, digging my fingernails into other fingertips to count them, flinging the covers off so I could see my hands, practically smacking myself in the face to pinch my nose shut, etc.) or, as morning approached, simply ignoring the fact that I might be am probably dreaming, and just going back to sleep due to sleep deprivation.
I've already considered that maybe I could or should lay off the RC's or anything else for LD for a day or two, but I'm almost sure that if I do, then I'm gonna end up sitting around paranoid that I'm losing progress for every second that I'm not thinking a mantra or doing an RC. So, uh, anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with this?
PS: I've never done really aggressive RCs like I described. I have no idea why I was doing that during FAs, but my guess is that I was just frustrated at the fact that I missed out on a lucid dream/some sleep, and that my covers and pillows were being really unmanagable.