Thread: How do you no that it was a MILD.

Probably DILDS. with your attempts at MILD being good intention starters. I could be wrong but I think the way MILD is properly done is by incubating a certain scene in your head and actually appearing their once lucid. That and with the constant reassurance that you will constantly tell yourself that you will be lucid at that particular time.

Great question! Although what matters is achieving lucidity, it's always nice to see people evaluating their own practices even after they achieve results ^^

Short answer: you don't know.

Long answer: the main way to determine which technique is responsible for lucidity in a particular dream (if such is even possible, but we'll get there in a second) is to check the expressions you used (hopefully) in your DJ. Some simple examples:

Dream signs: "I saw a blue bus (which is one of my dream signs) and wondered if I was dreaming....I did a reality check and voilá!"
Reality check: "I saw a man wearing a super-man costume but with green pants instead and since it was weird I decided to do a reality check"
MILD: "I was walking around a football field and I remembered I had to do a reality check!"
MILD: "I was getting ready to have lunch with a friend and told him to go ahead, because I had something to do. Then I recalled that I had to do something...it was to check whether I was dreaming!"

First of all, as you realize, this is the extreme opposite of a black-and-white process: not only the wording you use can mislead you into thinking a certain technique is responsible when it fact another is, but in many situations, simple cues (that you haven't noticed/payed attention/were conscious to) might simply drive you to start questioning reality or recalling something.
In the case of DILD techniques, they can vary, but most of them go around this notion of questioning a particular element of the dream, as in, you start becoming lucid in response to something. MILD is one of the few exceptions: its basis refers to prospective memory, or your ability to recall future intentions/actions, even if you're not necessarily presented with the associated cue. But even then, things aren't that simple: if you're remembering out of the blue (in a dream and without any cues) that you should be doing a reality check, that is prospective memory, but it is not necessarily a MILD, because it seems that most of DILD techniques require this type of memory. Even in the case of techniques that don't (like dream sign association), prospective memory helps to a certain degree, in the sense that if you have the resolution to do a reality check (the future action) in response to a cue (whatever it is), seeing a a dream sign (which you previously associated with lucid dreaming), might be enough to trigger that intention, even if it isn't the scenario/object/cue you were looking for.

So MILD revolves around managing to recall your intent of becoming lucid, and it's a great technique because the more "pressured" you make yourself to become lucid (think of all the people that are eager to have a lucid dream), the more alert you will be to the cue, which makes inducing a lucid dreaming easier. You can still become lucid out of the blue or due other thing (like recalling that you went to bed a few hours ago), but even then, the fact that you've been trying to remember that you want to realize you are dreaming might be enough to increase the likely hood that you'll actually become lucid off other reasons.

PS: to keep it simple and raw:
MILD: you end up recalling your intent of becoming lucid.
Other DILD techniques: something makes you question whether you are dreaming or not.
So the majority of DILD techniques are more about self-awareness and critical thinking, and MILD is more about recalling (that you might be dreaming/need to do a reality check) and making use of anything of the dream to help you recall (which is why LaBerge presents MILD with visualization/picturing a fresh-in-your-memory scenario).
If you notice, most people at first need a big conscious effort to remember they want to lucid dream (while dreaming), and unlike them, veterans tend to react to multiple cues without needing to actively reminding themselves they might be dreaming (which is why at some point of skill even if you stop practicing you'll still experience several lucid dreams).