You can enter a lucid dream without first going to sleep and then waking yourself up in an REM cycle. It's generally harder to WILD when you first go to sleep though. Probably because when you wake up in an REM cycle, you can fall back asleep really easily. I'd practice WILDing with the waking up in your REM cycle method first, until you feel you got the hang of it before trying it when you normally go to sleep.