Was it a HH that I saw?

Hello, so I found out about LD yesterday, I've been reading a lot about the subject and did my first attempt yesterday evening. I attempted to do a MILD but because I'm new to this I think I kind of did some WILDing too. So here's the progress:

Started relaxing and started repeating "I will lucid dream in my next dream" in my head for approximately 5 minutes until I felt very relaxed and heavy, I started imagining a beach, tried to imagine feeling of the warm sand that covered my feet, the warm sun hitting my body, the beautiful blue water etc. After a while I started seeing some kind of colors swirling, I got really excited by this but my excitement made the swirling colors disappear.. So I rolled over and started the process from scratch. This time I did not get as excited when the colors reappeared, after a while of seeing the colors I tried to imagine myself spinning because I was curios to see what would happen, I felt dizzy as though I'd actually been spinning. But that was a huge mistake, because it brought the excitement back and the colors disappeared.. After this I kind of gave up my attempts and fell asleep as I normally do.
The next morning when I wake up I was able to recall 3 dreams and wrote them down in a DJ, but none were lucid.

Now after reading more I think that I actually tried to do a WILD without waking up or taking a nap, and that seems to be hard. Next night I'll set an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night and retry this attempt then because I suspect that I was close to succeeding. But I would like to know, was the swirling colors a HH? I did not notice any SP during this because I was able to roll over shortly afterwards.. I'll also combine this method with SAT.

Opinions and suggestions are welcome too, thanks! :)

Hi and welcome to DV!

Yes, what you saw is called Hypnagogic Imagery. It's basicly anything you see as you're about to fall asleep. Trying to WILD at the beginning of the night is almost impossible. You'll most likely lose consciousness, and if you do manage to enter a dream, it won't be in REM. It will be fuzzy and short. 4½ hours or 6 hours into sleep is the perfect time to try a WILD. The excitement will fade in time and you'll be able to relax.

Try all the techniques out and decide on one or two you will practice. We're all different and none of them is better than the other. It's all individual :)

Set up a few goals, always write down in your DJ and just stay as motivated as you can. I also recommend trying out the WBTB technique, it's amazing.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask. Keep on dreaming!

Those swirling colours are the first form of HH, apparently you shouldn't concentrate on them though as they are projected to the space slightly beyond where you look, which makes you concentrate on your body, so just relax and try and visualise a scene to go into, I recommend you read up on as much WILD content if you are wanting to perform one.

Source: Swirling colours video (Useful WILD Guide).

Thanks for the tips, they've been great help!

Darn! Was so close! Experienced vibrations while doing a WILD nap, but my eyes's started moving rapidly and I couldn't keep my eyes shut.. The vibrations ended quickly after my eyes opened. After a few minutes of nothing I got up and aborted my attempt. Any tips on how to keep my eyes shut? Thanks!

You shouldn't have trouble keeping them closed, just try to relax and don't focus on them. Good luck next time :) You're on your way.