I tried FILD and it sucked

Hi I'm new to this site and I'm looking for some help.
So I have been reading and watching videos about lucid dreaming and decided that I wanted to try it.
The method I decided to use is FILD since many people said it is the best way to start lucid dreaming.
So I went to bed at 12:00 and set my alarm for 3 O'clock in the morning with the intention of turning off
the alarm and inducing a lucid dream.
The problem is that for some reason I was having trouble falling asleep which is not something that happens
to me a lot. I think this was because I was thinking about it too much. Basically, After a long time that
I was trying to fall asleep I was able to do it but I got woken up by my alarm what felt like a few minutes later.
I Tried the technique but for some reason I could not fall asleep I kept trying and setting my alarm for later
but I ended up not being able to fall asleep at 4:00 in the morning and now I am exhausted.

I would be glad if someone can help me/ tell me what I did wrong.
Thank you.

Hi Enommer, :welcome: to DV!

First of all, nearly no-one gets a lucid after only one try, no matter what technique is used, so don't worry about it too much. Also, FILD is a sort of WILD, and WILDs are generally much harder to novices. So I really disagree that this is the easiest technique - despite seemingly being fast and straightforward, it takes A LOT of practice and personalization do get any of the WILDs to work. I think, for a novice it's much better to aim for DILDs instead, by working on better dream recall and awareness + reality questioning. You can do WILDs meanwhile, but mainly to get better accustomed to them.

Now specifically about your question - I see several places that you might want to play with in order for the FILD to be more likely to work:
1. timing - you tried the FILD after only 3 hours of sleep, but after little sleep it's harder to pull off (because the REM is shorter and more spread out the less you've slept). I would suggest trying to FILD after more sleep, between 4.5 and 7 hours of sleep. Everyone should find the best timing for them - just play around with it a bit...
2. alarm - personally, I don't like using alarm to wake up at night. I prefer training myself to do it naturally (which takes a week or two of practice). You can also drink water to wake up to pee (it's OK to get up off the bed for a few minutes in FILD), or you can try using a "custom alarm" - let's say a phone app where you can pick a nice ring, and set it to auto-shutoff after let's say 10-30 seconds. I have 3 problems with normal alarms. Firstly, they wake you up too much and tend to leave me more groggy than after a natural awakening. Secondly, they tend to kill off at least some / most of the recall I already have, and as I said dream recall is very important for LDing. Lastly, if you set it again to ring let's say an hour later, this makes it near impossible to fall back asleep (because the brain will rather wait that hour, than to be traumatically woken up again). Some people solve this by using custom alarms - you should see which solution works for you.
3. falling asleep maintaining awareness - this is the hardest part for people attempting the various forms of WILD. Novices (me included back in the day) tend to focus too much on maintaining their awareness, which might cause not being able to fall asleep at all. In my opinion, practice is the most important factor here - plus you need to realized that in order to have a lucid you need to fall asleep first, so if awareness is keeping you awake, let it go until you fall asleep. Even the tiniest bit of awareness left can cause a DILD later, and at least you won't be exhausted in the morning.

LDing takes time and practice for most people - it's learning to ride a bike or learning a new language. Which is why the most important thing is to stay patient and motivated and to have good expectations. It takes a lot of personalizing so keep adjusting things around. You can also start a workbook in the "DV academy" on this site or just ask questions on the Lucid Dreaming forums.

Hope to see you around!

Thank you so much, I think ill try FILD one more time and adjust it a little per your suggestions.
If that doesn't work ill take the longer DILD route.

You don't have to abandon WILDs entirely though, you can keep practicing them let's say when you'll naturally wake up at night or before a morning nap. Maybe if done on a more opportunistic and casual fashion, stress / over-thinking will be less of an issue (at least this worked for me at the beginning)!
But it's great that you're ready to take the DILD route - for me, this route was about 3 times faster to induce the first lucid than the WILD route. The combination of the two is what I use the most - I usually do very loose WILDs but in combination with DILD practice, I get a DILD soon after falling asleep from the "failed" WILD.