Yesterday was the first day I ever really came across lucid dreaming. I always kind of thought about the idea of using my dream world as an alternate reality, but never really acted on it. Until last night of course… which was my first time ever trying to go lucid. So I looked up all the different techniques, such as WILD and MILD and WBTB and what not and read about everyone else’s first time experiences, and tried to apply these concepts to myself. I laid in bed and decided to shoot for the technique that seemed to make most sense to me, WILD. I got comfortable and relaxed myself as much as I could, feeling my muscles from toe to head. In the meantime I decided to count numbers to try and keep my mind conscious. This is a very hard thing to do. I noticed that I had a hard time falling asleep, because I had my mind working and thinking. I tried to just imagine the numbers, but i couldn’t without saying them in my head. Which i think kept me to conscious. After a little bit i started to notice lights behind my lids and formations of shapes. I thought in that phase a umm, HS? Where your sort of in between. I thought I saw a golf ball, which then exploded into a flower. It wasn’t realistic looking though, it was like on one of those toys with the light in the back ground and you put the colored pegs in and made pictures. I forget the name of it…
But i wasn’t sure if i was actually experiencing something, or making it up. I could still very much feel my arms and legs, and hear the fan buzzing in my room. I still felt the pillow on my face and the possibility of opening my eyes. It was hard to hold and I gave up and opened my eyes. From then on I couldn’t’ sleep well. I woke up at 5:30, to a time when i set my alarm so that i could write down my dreams. But it felt like i didn’t even sleep. like I had blinked. I could only remember fragments of strange dreams. But no more than 3 lines most consisting of “umm” and " I think… "
What do you guys think of this? What can I do to improve my dreaming ability? Was I just trying to hard? Should I rely mostly on the idea of getting into a dream and THEN realizing i’m dreaming. Or should I be trying to enter one conscious already?
Thanks for the input guys!! I’m really excited for my first lucid dream. I have trouble believing that they can be as vivid as a lot of you say they are. Most my dreams seem foggy and unpredictable when I get up. I usually feel like I was in first person when i was dreaming. But when I remember it, it was like it was third person. 
Edit** I should probably add that while i might have been in that HS stage or viewing HI??.. i felt like it was hard to keep my eyes closed. Kind of when there is someone watching you and you try to fake being asleep, and holding your lids down feels difficult.
If your WILD doesn’t succeed you could also try the WBTB method 
Your first attempt was actually pretty good.