Since you remembered to do a reality check in a dream, you might be really good at this.
I’m interested in learning WILD too, and it’s taking a long time. I’m really enjoying some of my practice sessions and just falling asleep in others, while sometimes I go into really weird altered states that are impossible to describe. In the past few days I’m getting closer. I’m good at seeing hypnagogia but lately I’ve been surprised to find myself seeing whole scenes. This is when waking up from a dream at night, because at that time I’m still in REM and I feel kinda buzzy.
I find there is a balance between focus and detachment when viewing images. At first I have to force myself to see dots and streaks and blobs, although depending on my state of mind when I lay down, sometimes I’m immediately kinda buzzy and images start swimming right away. You have to relax the eyes and know that the images are already there, it’s not you who has to create them, just learn to passively notice them. Start easy, it’s easy to notice that the blackness behind your eyelids is not black, and go from there.
I’ve been fascinated by hypnagogia for decades. Long ago when I was practicing visualizing an X for a long time while going to sleep, after weeks of nightly practice, I popped into the sweet spot and was amazed when the X turned into a shimmering, sparkling jewel. But you don’t have to visualize anything. That’s the hard way. I like to trade off listening to anything I can hear including inner body sounds, with watching images, and feeling all bodily sensations. This is SSILD and it hasn’t worked for me as far as I know yet, but it puts me into an altered state of consciousness right away.
In my opinion, simple images graduating into small screen dynamic images and then larger screen dynamic images come before sleep paralysis, then during SP come all the weird sounds and visitors and stuff. I am very inexperienced at SP and this is just my opinion from reading and keeping notes on my partial experiences. Also I feel that most people slip through SP unconsciously and don’t notice it, so it isn’t technically required to go through it in order to WILD.
When practicing WILD, if it’s images you are after, you have to stop talking to yourself and that will often make them start to bloom up out of the spotty darkness. Relax your eyes and practice looking behind your head where your eyes couldn’t see if they were open. That will help train you to look with your mind instead of your eyes. And since you’re trying to remain very still, I assume, be watchful for any sensation of motion in any part of your body. These can be so fleeting as to be easily missed. Hypnagogic twitches are sudden awakenings, so when your body jerks, ask yourself what just happened. Often you will recall a tiny dream scene with you and your dream body interacting in some way or even trading first person awareness back and forth.
I think WILD is so interesting to so many people because it is just one of those naturally appealing things to have for a goal. I hope to succeed soon, and good luck to you too.