Thread: OPEN BETA - Open beta TWOTLD - Day 0

Originally Posted by cvdmehden

Good points! You've got it! A lot of the questions you ask answer themselves later in the book, so I won't address them yet.

What is the piece of science you're referring to?

The one with you can leave the first and last letter in place only, and people can read letter-salads perfectly well!

Originally Posted by cvdmehden

I'm a new writer, so it's nice to see the varied feedback. As this is the longest thing I've written outside of lab reports, I'm still discovering my voice and style. I feel some of the comments have been spot on, so editing is already under way. Do remember, this whole thing is a work in progress. I appreciate honest critique, bearing in mind that I'll be most interested in the beta experiences. Thanks for your comments, everyone!

You do a fantastic job - especially since you are open to feedback - lovely - looking into it further now!

It's hard to quickly summarize my thoughts. One thing that keeps reoccurring to me though is "it feels like an infomercial."

Maybe it's in the verbosity, maybe it's in the "[MILD/WILD] don't [really] work" (which is bound to raise some eyebrows with this audience).

But I will reserve judgement until I see the meat. In general I don't have a lot of patience with long prose that whips up the reader into a frenzy of excitement without actually delivering anything. In my experience, the longer such excitement-building sections go on, the less real the "meat" is later on (or it's non-existent entirely).

So, "where's the beef?" I'll wait for now

(And did you really spend 15 years of intense every-day practice with gurus, etc., and never got beyond 10% LD frequency? LaBerge himself after about a year of work got supposedly to almost "at-will" with "just" MILD. Is he an outlier?)

Originally Posted by FryingMan

It's hard to quickly summarize my thoughts. One thing that keeps reoccurring to me though is "it feels like an infomercial."

Maybe it's in the verbosity, maybe it's in the "[MILD/WILD] don't [really] work" (which is bound to raise some eyebrows with this audience).

But I will reserve judgement until I see the meat. In general I don't have a lot of patience with long prose that whips up the reader into a frenzy of excitement without actually delivering anything. In my experience, the longer such excitement-building sections go on, the less real the "meat" is later on (or it's non-existent entirely).

So, "where's the beef?" I'll wait for now

(And did you really spend 15 years of intense every-day practice with gurus, etc., and never got beyond 10% LD frequency? LaBerge himself after about a year of work got supposedly to almost "at-will" with "just" MILD. Is he an outlier?)

Laberge says that in his book, but doesn't he also say that he only had 100 and some LDs at the end of his first year? Doesn't sound like at will to me.

While I do agree, FM - the fact, that cvsmehden is convinced to be able to validate his extraordinary claims through us makes me look forward to where this is heading!

Originally Posted by StephL

WHY NOT GIVE OUT ALL THE TEXT NOW AND SPARE YOURSELF AND US THE TENSION?

Lots of reasons. A lot of people will be tempted to just read the whole text in one go, hoping for the "magic words" effect. They won't actually go through the process, and then complain that they read the book and nothing changed. The book is designed to be an experiential book, not a conceptual book. Also, I want feedback as we go. I know how the exercises worked on me and my local testers, now I want to find out how each exercise is for a much larger group, each step of the way. There's a certain order that everything is in, and in order to design the most effective system, it needs to be examined step by step. Also, doing the day by day method greatly increases the chances of people taking the time to actually try things out. I know if I had the book, I'd be tempted to get to the end to get to "the good stuff." But it's the journey that matters.

^^ So, will you be selling the book one chapter at a time as well?

Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

Laberge says that in his book, but doesn't he also say that he only had 100 and some LDs at the end of his first year? Doesn't sound like at will to me.

I'm pretty sure LaBerge says he can LD whenever he desires to, which could translate to 100% frequency if you squint a lot, but would indeed be literallly "at will," regardless. That aside, FryingMan's point still seems valid... 15 years of intense, often guided, study ought to have yielded much better results; perhaps you just weren't paying attention, Cydmehden?

I also think you need to provide some serious data backing up your assertions that:

+ MILD/WILD [and typical techniques] don't work for most even with years and years of focused intense effort going beyond 10% frequency is rare.

+ "The LD community" is content with 10% frequency

Who/what is your community of LDers you base this on? What population size are we talking about? Where are they from and what are their backgrounds? References to studies?

In our experience here, those who try to LD for a few weeks per year on and off then claim "they've been trying to LD for years with no results", which of course is not the same thing as really trying at all.

You also make the claim implying that trying for a few weeks is a long time. Are you suggesting that with your approach that 90% frequency (sustained for years and years?) can be reached with a few weeks of work?

I guess I'll have to wait for the secret magic.

And I think you need to make a distinction between "naturals" (those who have always LDed frequently but don't know why) and those who start non-natural and achieve "outlier" status. Perhaps some things can be learned from naturals, but by far more important is the study of people who started out at group 0/1 and made it to group 6, because they're much more like "the rest of us."

Looking forward to seeing future chapters for some firm content....