The Specifics - What exactly am I supposed to do after I wake up?

Simple question. Most of the tutorials I've found kinda gloss over probably the most important part of WILD. They're like, "Wake up in the middle of the night, then go back to sleep, and boom you're in a dream" or something else like "be conscious while falling asleep".

I don't know what being conscious while falling asleep means.

All of my WILD attempts boil down to going back to sleep and hoping for the best, recently while reciting my mantra. It feels like it's random, and I've only gotten 1 WILD ever to work, so I feel like this aint it. I want WILDs to work because DILDs are literally just rng and WILDs were appealing to me because it seemed like you have more control. However, out of 11 LDs, 10 have been DILDs! The only way the more RNG intensive option is more reliable than the one with more control is if I'm doing it wrong.

Here's what happens in an IDEAL scenario:
Set auto dismiss alarm for 4:00am, sometimes 5 depending on when I get to sleep.
Get in bed usually around 10:30pm. I usually won't actually be asleep until 11 or 12.
Wake up at desired time, after which one of 2 things happen:

Either I fall asleep immediately while reciting my mantra, and nothing happens. I really try to feel it, too.
Or, I can't go to sleep, and I stay up for another hour, then the first thing happens.

This is what worked the first time but never again for some reason.

I don't know what to do.

I'm not too much of an experienced LDer, but here are some tips I can give :)
- set your alarm later. I've read that it helps to have more hours of sleep before trying a wake back to bed method. I wait around 6 hours before waking up. Remember, every REM period is longer than the next. So, the later into the night you wake up, greater chance you'll experience a more quality REM period. Better REM = more likely to LD
- bedtime routine is HUGE for going to bed when you want. Do you have a routine? Or do you just slide into bed after watching TV or youtube? Avoiding screens before bed, and doing stuff to make you more tired, like reading, both do wonders for going to bed and getting good sleep.
- after you've recited your mantra, and gotten a good feeling about recognizing that you're dreaming, stop. I know alot of people say go to bed saying your mantra, but that has never worked for me. Instead, try really feeling that you can have a lucid dream, and then just let yourself drift off to sleep.
Hope this help! Lmk if it does (or dosnt haha)

I have a routine that I try to stick to. (but I have been failing lately)
I'll try to set my alarm for a later cycle and see if it works. I've tried doing this in the past though and it seemed to make going back to sleep harder. I think I woke up too late during my cycle and my body was too refreshed to get back to sleep so i just laid there... I'll see though.

....okay

WILD is very hard to explain, but it's easy once you know what it ACUTALLY is. A lot of them already imply that you know the basics of what they are doing so they don't actually go deep in depth as to what they are doing.

WILD IS MEDITAITON. MEDITATION, MEDITATION, MEDITATION. Get it through to yourself over and over again and realize that it's just that.
When they say "be conscious while falling asleep", this is exactly what they mean in some way.

WILD is a balancing act of keeping your awareness (meditation) and actually going to sleep (purposefully losing awareness), you want to get to a point where you loop between purposefully going to sleep, and keeping some level of awareness. I'd describe it as floating on a cloud.
GO TO SLEEP a lot of WILD guides don't even say this, or probably do it's just not clear. Yes the purpose is to go to sleep, DO NOT try and keep yourself super duper aware thinking it helps, because it doesn't, its gonna keep you up, find the balance.

The whole point is to take awareness with you at the start of the dream instead of loosing awareness, and then gaining it in the dream (this is called DILD)



"I want WILDs to work because DILDs are literally just rng and WILDs were appealing to me because it seemed like you have more control."

you would probably want to stay with DILD more if you want more LDs soon. Only reason I say this is because you don't want to technique hop, stay on one and naturally rotate to the next, and eventually you'll learn how to do all of them.
Really when you become consistent and good enough, there won't be a difference between a DILD and a WILD, it would be the exact same vividneess, control, ect.. just different points of starting.
and also, when you're really know how to use DILD, it won't seen random either, so I highly recommend before even trying to go for WILD, you keep working with DILD and MILD + WBTB, because jumping here out of slight annoyance will only make you even more annoyed because for a beginner a WILD is gonna prove to be a real challenge than DILDs


"Set auto dismiss alarm for 4:00am, sometimes 5 depending on when I get to sleep.
Get in bed usually around 10:30pm. I usually won't actually be asleep until 11 or 12.
Wake up at desired time, after which one of 2 things happen:
Either I fall asleep immediately while reciting my mantra, and nothing happens. I really try to feel it, too.
Or, I can't go to sleep, and I stay up for another hour, then the first thing happens."

I'm assuming this is what you do for your WBTB right?
There are probably a few things wrong here, your timing seems to be off when you wake up if you stay up for a pretty long time after waking, sleep cycles and all that mess, blah blah blah, i recommend naturally awakening and using that to do your WBTB, it will be MUCH smoother, and if you can't naturally awake during the night, you do, you just don't remember it, or you stay up for like 1 nanosecond and fall asleep and you don't remember it at all.
You can train yourself to wake up naturally with MILD btw, just do the same thing you've been doing just with "I wake up naturally" or something as your mantra.
if you want a more detailed guide on WILD i suggest reading my MILD guide
https://www.dreamviews.com/attaining...pers-mild.html

the basic rule of thumb for you when you are able to wake up naturally, is this:
if you wake up and you immediately fall asleep, stay up for longer
if you wake up and you can't get back to sleep, stay up for shorter
a WBTB is WAKING up...staying up for x amount of time.. (usually for some sort of awareness boost), THEN going back to sleep.
so it always always depends on when you wake up, and how long you actually stay up for



I've left a lot out and there's a LOT more you can do and try...
I tried to make this simpler and easy to follow for beginners, but this should provide a lot of insight to you....or maybe a lot of questions...

Thanks for the advice! I've incorporated meditation into my nightly and daily routine, so hopefully that will help with it. I figured that it was similar to meditation, and that when people say that meditation helps LD, I'd assumed that's what they meant.