The best time to WILD is generally after about 5 hours' sleep, yes, but the best time specifically for you is one you might need to do a little experimenting to find.
Yes, if you are unable to get back to sleep after a WBTB, that is a real problem for WILD . How much time do you spend trying to get back to sleep? It usually takes me at least an hour (often longer) to return to sleep. Sometimes you just need to be patient. Also, are you avoiding becoming too awake when you first wake up? Maintaining a sleepy/dreamy disposition during WBTB, and avoiding things like conversation, TV phones, computers, etc, can be very helpful to getting you back to sleep. Also, you might shorten your WBTB a bit as well, though I would make sure you get up and move about for at least 5 minutes. (If you already covered all this, then never mind!)
All that said, REM periods do occur very close together during late hours of the sleep cycle, so they will be much easier to catch through WILD after 5+ hours' sleep, but they are still closer together after 4 hours than they are right at bedtime, so even getting a just a couple of hours' sleep before WBTB is more helpful than attempting a WILD right at bedtime. I would suggest you try rising a bit earlier for WBTB, maybe after 4 hours' sleep, and see how that works. At worst, you might find it easier to go to sleep, but might have to negotiate a few minutes of NREM before your dream starts (with which I personally have no problem, BTW!). It might just be that you haven't yet found that "sweet spot" of just the right time to wake up, how long to WBTB, and how long to maintain your WILD attempt; keep looking, and don't worry too much about the standards.
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