Thread: Troubleshooting my WILD attempt

Hello my dear friends of DreamView. Today I come to you guys seeking guidance and help on my WILD technique so abby feedback is greatly appreciated.
I will start by giving a few details about me and my experiences with LD and I'll continue with my failed attempt to WILD last night:
I first heard about LD about 3 years ago but didn't really try to do it till last year. I did my research and practiced DILD for about 2 months, that just yield a tiny LD (if you can even count it as one?) where I dreamed that I was in bed but realized it was actually a dream because the colors seemed too vivid. After doing a RC I gained lucidity and proceded to check my phone while on the dream. Not much after that I woke up and thought that my first LD sucked.
I stopped trying to LD a few weeks after that and just started again a few weeks ago (april 2015)*
Now I will tell you guys about my failed WILD:
So now that I started trying to gain lucidity again I decided to try WILD and did my research.
I went to bed at*10:00PM*last night and set my alarm at exactly 5 hours.
I woke up naturally around*2:30AM*(not quite 5 hours) and decided to turn the alarm off and try the WILD.
I read from multiple sources that its best to wait aprox. 30-45 mins before trying to WILD but I thought I would just go for it given that I was very sleepy. I turned to the position I usually fall asleep to and proceded to count my breaths and lay still.
I counted to 250 before I had to roll to my other side. Once I turned to that side I was able to count to 400 and something. While counting I experienced multiple intense, but painless spasms and reflexes (such as swallowing.) I checked the clock after getting exasperated and just went straight to sleep thinking that I would try it again tonight.*

That's all pretty good. No one gets it on the first try. The best thing I can say is to practice again and again. The experience alone is good. In particular, waking up naturally and returning to bed, as you did, is in my opinion more conducive to success than using an alarm.

A few more specific things:

- Try this mindset: you are observing yourself falling asleep. Instead of trying to hold onto waking consciousness, just let it go, but watch it as it goes. Like with the physical spasms or any shifts in sense in your head. Just observe with an accepting openness as indicators of falling into sleep.
- Trying after 4.5-5 hours is fine. Also try the next REM slot, after 6-6.5 hours. Both can work but I think the later one is closer to the sweet spot.
- If you're counting, try repeatedly counting a smaller interval (say, 1-10) instead of counting up forever. That way, you lose track of time. A longer variation is to count in this kind of a pattern: 1, 2-2, 3-3-3, 4-4-4-4, and so on to ten 10's. If you lose track. Just start over. That's fine. It's even preferred. The goal is not to reach the end, it's to distract yourself.
- Continue DILD practice if at all possible in parallel with WILD. Even if just to keep a dream journal as a way to improve recall and condition yourself to wake up naturally.

Thank you very much for your advise. My apologize for taking so long to reply but I wanted to make sure I used your advise and weekends are the only days I can try to WILD.
I tried multiple scenarios and they all yielded 2 different results: I either fell asleep without noticing or could not fall asleep fast enough.
In one occasion I fell asleep but realized I was dreaming (because in my dream I saw a huge box on the roof of a house) and attempted to do a RC, I felt my arms were paralyzed and could not do it. I kept trying to move my arms which eventually led to me waking up. So i guess you could consider that more of a DILD since I wasn't conscious at all when I entered the dream.