Thread: Did it work? OPEN BETA TWOTLD of cvdmehden

I am not sure, if your whole program has been presented, cvdmehden - I think not, were there not all in all 20 sessions planned?
I would have left it be - but you seem to think, you were successful, and I'll try providing a little reality check.
Since you still want to publish the book and even mention your testing on here, despite a total fail in my view (measured against your promises) - I thought lets wrap up the affair properly and in the scientific spirit you invoked with calling it all "BETA Testing".
Here the initial poll, who would be willing to test the program: http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ta-twotld.html

This poll is supposed to be a critical analysis of results.
All in all 25 people were planning to take part at the onset, including myself - I wonder, how the others evaluate the usefulness of your contribution to lucid dreaming.

Personally I am very disappointed and what was promised just simply didn't happen.
I would be so free to venture, that this goes for everybody else besides me as well.
Because what was promised was a revolution in lucid dreaming - a secret key, no less, which would enable all of us to be extraordinarily successful lucid dreamers, who are able to LD at will and reach the level of the outliers on a bell-curve.
This would be easy and not take a lot of time on top of it all.

Most people with a positive mindset after the testing are only and exclusively reporting, that they would like the exercises and would feel they are more aware of real life now.
But that was hardly the point of it!

That's not to say, that your exercises weren't nice or probably useful - just that they are in no way superior to anything else.
I did some of them - but neither was there anything new - I have seen it all before, ideas and exercises in their basics - nor was there a secret revealed.


I'll cite you a bit, to put this poll into perspective:

Originally Posted by cvdmehden

Yet that road has been well trodden, and we know where it leads… to weeks of frustration with perhaps a moment of success or two, followed by an inevitable loss of interest as our minds find something else upon which to focus that gives more immediate rewards. I don't want to write another book on lucid dreaming. Those shores are well explored. For myself, having been chasing this lucid dreaming mirage for now over 15 years, I have come to one certain conclusion regarding the instructional materials currently available: they don't work.
Now, it's not that they don't work at all. In fact, many of the texts and techniques have withstood the test of time precisely because they do work. More specifically, they sort of work. Occasionally. Sporadically. For some people. And almost by accident. Many of the most accomplished lucid dreamers report success rates of about 5-10%.

Soo - all the available material - like ETWOLD and this forum and it's contents - only sort of work and are vastly inferior to your methods??!
And your methods are something revolutionary, secret and new??

Originally Posted by cvdmehden

Why have we come to believe that this is simply the way of things? If we applied those success rates to just about anything else (airplanes, medications, electronics, educational programs, etc), we'd quickly have a problem involving angry customers, lawsuits, and a search for a better product.

Yupp - you are bound to get it with selling the book: angry customers.
Since you gave us your text for free - there seems to be no relevant anger - but if I would have paid - I would be seriously pissed.

Where is the evidence, that your approach does work? How was your success rate over this testing?
I have looked through the threads, and I was actually surprised to only find one report of an LD, which is possibly being attributed to your method:

Originally Posted by dreambh

I've just felt like doing this second part of the exercise, so I performed it spontaneously a few times lately and I've had this lucid where I just knew I was dreaming and felt more "present" than usually. I think it might be related to the exercises for two reasons: I was having one lucid every two weeks but I've had two lucids this week while doing the exercises a little bit, and that feeling of "present" I didn't have for a while.

Correct me please, if I missed something - but for sure it can't be much.
I suspected, it would go that way - it's hardly ever sensible to start out with as much hyperbole:

Originally Posted by cvdmehden

Yet for some reason, 5-10% is acceptable in lucid dreaming. It's what's expected. Years of hard work for little to no pay off. So to me, rather than compiling yet another collection of random dream tricks and philosophy, it seems expedient that we first question the most basic premises of our lucid dreaming practices and procedures.

In our current view of reality, lucid dreaming is a difficult task. Except for a lucky few, it is a skill that requires extraordinary amounts of practice and dedication in order to begin to reap its rewards.

If there were a way to somehow discover the rug upon which our ideas of lucid dreaming are built, and then to subsequently grab ahold of that rug and pull with all our might, we might just reveal something: a secret door, a simple thing, an elegant thing through which we may step from being accidental lucid dreamers with minimal success to intentional lucid dreamers who confidently step from one realm to the next, at will.

Did somebody in the testing change her respective view of reality? Are you among the lucky few now, with his help?
It did not work - nobody reported something remotely similar to what you promised - can't see anybody reaching a different conclusion.

Originally Posted by cvdmehden

Now secrets are tricky things. If they were easy to discover, they would have been found out long ago and we'd already hold the keys to the dreaming realms. But, as their name implies, they are secret. They're hidden, sometimes in plain sight, and sometimes in forgotten places, under seas, or lost in time. To find a secret is no small feat. It requires cunning, and sometimes courage.

Well, well, well - bit more cunning wouldn't have hurt.

I understand your disappointment and appreciate your viewpoint. As you said, there are 20 chapters to the book, and we've made it to #9. Each chapter builds upon the last. If you stop a journey in the middle and aren't where you expected to be, that's because you stopped too soon. Maybe I stopped too soon as well, but the point of the beta for me was to get feedback. I think only two people actually commented on Exercise 9. There's a long ways to go, but I was wanting more of a group journey.

I too am curious to find out how many people actually did each exercise as written and made it all the way to #9. If there's truly interest, we can continue this thing. And if we do continue, I look forward to hearing your viewpoint again at the end.

With all due respect, Cvdmehden, Steph makes a good point.

Originally Posted by cvdmehden

I understand your disappointment and appreciate your viewpoint. As you said, there are 20 chapters to the book, and we've made it to #9. Each chapter builds upon the last. If you stop a journey in the middle and aren't where you expected to be, that's because you stopped too soon. Maybe I stopped too soon as well, but the point of the beta for me was to get feedback. I think only two people actually commented on Exercise 9. There's a long ways to go, but I was wanting more of a group journey.

Yes, but shouldn't there have been something new in those first 9 chapters, if only some strong hints about where the journey was heading? It seemed to me that the most common response from your dwindling group of participants (and my own consistent reaction as well) was "This is something I already do/have tried." You'd think that, with half your book traveled, something revolutionary would have been encountered by now, right? Perhaps you should finish posting the chapters, just to show us what you meant...They must be already written, right?

Could, perhaps, this whole beta-test idea of yours hint that you were not sure your method was quite as revolutionary as you thought? After all, if you know the program works, why not just publish the book with confidence?

I do still hope you prove Steph wrong in the end, but to date her comments are not at all out of bounds.

I've done all the exercises to an extent and most of them I do enjoy, I think it does help give me a clearer understanding of lucid dreaming even though it hasn't provided any. I do feel less inclined to practice the exercises every day though in favor of other techniques because there are so many of them and I don't know which ones to do, I guess usually the most recent ones since they build on each other. When I do practice them I usually just pick a few that I liked and ignore the others, or end up doing partial attempts. I think going through each of them at some point has helped me at least a little bit though, so I would like to see what the rest of the exercises are like to try them at least once. There's still 11 more exercises and if even just one or two can help me understand this skill better then I'd be grateful!

Tis true - it was the primary reason for the fail - people stopped following it - so what I would recommend is to not tell people, it would be an easy way and a fast one, as you did. If it should be so, that the effectiveness would need all 20 exercises followed - this should be clearer from the onset. While it is not a lot of time taken absolutely - it does require a lot of faith to invest a solid half hour a day, if doing this for 9 days doesn't yield a promising result.
I was sort of hoping for the real revelations coming later - but now this remains quite doubtful.
Well - if somebody on here buys your book after all - maybe we will hear of it again.
I should have put less sting in my opening post - sorry for that.

I just have not had time to do them all in a short time-frame, but I *do* intend to go through them all, so I hope that the journey is not stopped in the middle from your side, Cvdmehden. I think days 5 onward are much more interesting. Yes some is not new, but some is. Newness is not the only criteria I think for value, there is value in the collection of all the exercises and backgrounds in one place. One of the absolutely most difficult and frustrating tasks for new lucid dreamers is sifting through the mountains of material scattered all over multiple forums and internet posts and books, and trying to consolidate them into a single, unified and coherent practice. A book that presents such a holistic approach would be of great value to the LD community I think.

I owe much of where I am currently at with lucid dreaming to Sageous' tutorials and freely offered advice and answers here on the forums and I am extremely appreciative of his and Steph's contributions to the forums (Steph provides a substantial amount of interesting content throughout the forums). I hold them both in high regard for what they contribute to the forums. I do want to present another view in this discussion that seems to go partly counter to what they are saying and I would be truly heartbroken if it was taken the wrong way.

I will try to keep this short:

I agree that it may not be in the author's best interest to claim that the book will be revolutionary.

From the responses posted to the individual chapter's/exercise's threads, it doesn't appear that many people have really put in much effort into doing all of the exercises. I think that it is safe to say that all experienced people here on the forums know that consistent lucid dreaming takes significant effort. Even my beloved Steph admits that she only "did some of them" and I think that I understand why my experience was different. For one, I came to the thread late and got wind of some of the negative comments so I wasn't surprised when I saw the intro claims and just thought along the lines of "perhaps he is just trying to draw in the reader to read on." I think this helped me go through all of the chapters with an open, knowledge hungry mindset.

From the perspective of a many year journey to meet various "gurus" of all kinds, a 20 chapter book would be a much shorter journey if it achieved consistent lucid dreams for the reader.

The author is freely sharing his work with us as Steph pointed out. If we try to put ourselves in his shoes, it may be more understandable why he is releasing it bits at a time. He put up 7,8 & 9 all together in what I took as a gesture of good will at a time when he really wasn't getting a lot of feedback on people's experiences with the exercises and had seen a number of negative comments over mostly the early threads. Not even 10% of the people that "signed up" posted experiences for all of the exercises so far. I am not saying that I blame any of these members as there are a number of reasons that I can think of why they didn't follow all the way through so far. I am just pointing out that the feedback has been dismal and discouraging...but perhaps it will create a better book in the end.

I feel that I have definitely gotten something significant out of these exercises! Sure aspects of these exercises can be found in various places, but they tend to be places that I was not likely to seek out. They are also put together in a step by step basis, one building on the next or towards the next sub-set it seems. What I have gotten out of these exercises is most notably in waking life but I think I may be starting to see it in my lucid dreams after having a personally fascinating one two nights ago and generally noticing more vividness in my lucid and non lucid dreams. This combined with my base of generally good base of self-awareness (once I am lucid in my dreams, thank to Sageous) may be taking me to the next level. I am at the very least hopeful.

Gotta run...hopefully no major errors above...may edit/add later.

^^ Well said, Fogelbise, and I understand what you mean. But keep in mind that Cvdmehden wasn't offering a new tutorial, or a clever new take on lucid dreaming. No, he came out of the chutes telling us that all the things that we have been practicing for decades (or centuries, if you really stretch it out) are wrong, that to date those who could consistently LD were "outliers," aberrations who bumbled into their LD'ing success, rather than spending great amounts of time, effort, and personal growth to develop their skills. So, as one of those outliers, I guess I was a bit put off by such claims, and such easy dismissal of things that I know work just fine. So from the get-go he was welcoming negativity.

But you know what? That negativity wasn't the problem. Indeed, in a beta test, a little cynicism never hurts (Cvdmehden seemed okay with that as well, BTW). No, what bothered me was that we were told that everything we were doing was wrong, and that he, Cvemehden, had a revolutionary new system that turned lucid dreaming on its head. Okay cool -- where is that system? All I've seen to date is a version of ADA that focuses perhaps too heavily on the environment at the expense of Self. I was looking forward to new approaches, to turning it all on its head, and all we've gotten to date is more of the same. There's nothing wrong with that, indeed it was well presented and much ought to help, but when we're told that we are all wrong and Cvdmehden has a unique, novel solution, well, I want to actually see a unique, novel solution, and not stuff I've seen or thought of many times in the past.

So I guess if this were presented as a tutorial and not as the only "way," with an assumption that successful LD'ers are outliers and not mindful hard workers, I would have reacted differently... also, I think many more people would have continued the Beta, because their expectations would have been more realistic.

So that's where I'm coming from -- and I would be delighted to be proven wrong if the next 11 chapters reveal a revolutionary truth that proves that I am but an outlier.

Sageous, you make a good point about his assessment of the tried and true methods. I guess that is something that I ignored in my hunger for more knowledge. I can see that it is rather offensive and I think that it should be written differently.

I remain hopeful that we can continue the exercises and see what comes of them.

Thanks guys - and again I want to say, that I feel a bit bad and sorry, how offensively I put up the OP.
But it's really that point, which Sageous above formulated - the buildup - the appetizing was on the one hand belittling other methods and on the other promising us the moon.

Why not something like that:
Look - I have thought about all the available stuff and I have changed some aspects of the usual awareness exercises - and now I believe, I've got something special.
It will spare you a lot of time in the long run - but you need to trust me at the outset, because it will go over 20 lectures and exercises and you need to really invest the time to follow them, even while it doesn't seem to be something new nor is it effective after only a week.
But if you do this all - I believe you will ... lalalala

If it would have been in that vein - I would have said all the best for your book - shame it didn't yield the efforts on our side, which would be necessary - but maybe others are more diligent.

But it's as Sageous said it - I was almost directly from the onset in a negative expectation - because of the hyperbole and the slating of other methods, even while over 9 days it was nothing else than stuff from the other methods (ADA variations, mainly).
When I heard that about the 20 chapters - I also thought - ah - something will finally appear, which will justify this.
Well - that question it still open and I agree with the others, who have said, they would like to see the rest.
It goes so far, that I would take the exercises into renewed consideration, if I would stumble on something ringing "significant" by reading through it.

But I came across the fact that you want to mention us in the book - that sort of put me into action for the poll - not that our experiences are going to be sold as a success - I wouldn't like that - and why else mention it?

Hey everyone, thanks for the feedback. I started rewriting the book pretty much immediately after the initial feedback to my initial thread. The whole context of the book has shifted since my first post. In each revision, the rhetoric and hyperbole gets toned down, so your words in this regard are definitely heard and received. I think in my initial draft, a lot of my own personal frustration with the quest for lucid dreaming was echoed, and for that, I apologize. I spent a number of years fumbling with techniques that didn't seem to give the kind of long term results I was looking for. I think a number of lucid dreamers experience similar frustrations, and part of the book is about finding out why. However, I don't want to alienate the people who do have success with those techniques, or anyone for that matter, by any form of belittling or inviting negativity. Whoever said something about a more "holistic approach" has perhaps got the idea of what I'm going for. I also realize that my approaches, while taking things to a new level, stand on the shoulders of the giants before me. We're all forever indebted to the pioneering work of Dr. Stephen LaBerge and others.

So again, let me apologize to everyone who has taken offense at my words, and please know that I am making revisions to address your concerns. I will keep revising until it's something that invites no negativity.

Regarding the "nothing new" point, while some of the chapters induce a sort of ADA, I believe by doing exercises 5, 8, and 9, not only does it make ADA more accessible, but your experience of ADA will be taken to extraordinary new levels. Some of this is explained better in the current version, but even without rereading, I would encourage anyone who hasn't yet to thoroughly explore those exercises. By the end of exercise 9, it is possible to feel a oneness with everything around you that may be unknown except in high level lucid dreams. Some of you are having beautiful experiences with those exercises, and I'm curious to see how accessible those experiences are. My primary intent with the beta testing was regarding the exercises. I know that when I spend 10 minutes doing exercise 9, I am put into a state of consciousness that I had only previously come across in mystical texts and certain ceremonies in the amazonian jungle. That state of consciousness is used in the induction techniques later in the book. So, for anyone beta testing, I'm wanting to know if the explanation of the exercise gets you there. If only some of you have success with that technique, I need to figure out why.

Again, I regret the tone of my original opening chapter, and for anyone willing to forgive my unfortunate mood that day, I hope you'll give the exercises a chance.

To the OP, thank you for sparking this discussion, and I look forward to many more around this incredible topic of lucid dreaming.

Wow! You all make good points and I agree to a certain degree with all of you, but I do understand what cvdmehden tries to say at his intro.
Maybe I'm going a little off-topic here but: Many of us here at DV have this assumption that if someone does not succeed on LDing with the tried methods is bacause of one reason, they are not working hard enough. And it may be true, but I wonder, Are all these people failing only lazy teenagers unwilling to put any effort into it? Are all these people not succeeding in LDing people who have not ever successfully learnt a sport, an instrument, art form, or other hobby? I don't think so. I think the truth is that learning to LD with the tried/classic methods is harder than many people expect or are willing to accept, actually I've seen even people who are/were DGs here complain about the effort/results ratio.
I understand what cvdmehden said about the classic methods, and also that it may be somehow offensive for someone who achieved proficiency on those, but in my opinion the tried/classic methods fail to a certain degree, maybe not in achieving lucidity, but they probably fail in making LDing accessible to people in general.
So I'm supporting cvdmehden's project, and any other which might make LDing easier for us all.

Just a peanut gallery comment: you can pick up an instrument and honk on it after a few days, but in just about any field of activity (art, science, sport), the rule of thumb is that it takes about 10 years of serious, concentrated, effortful study and practice to become an expert in it. So if you want to do the same with lucid dreaming, one should never quit, because the goal posts just move farther and farther out (and probably resets closer to the 10-year limit every time a long break is taken). Does practicing an instrument and taking private lessons "fail to a certain degree" because they do not accelerate the process of mastering an instrument so that it is easier for all?

Now, you can argue that using exercise book A vs. exercise book B may have slightly different curves in terms of results averaged over a large population (e.g., "classical LD" vs. open beta for LDing), but you're not going to fundamentally change the truth that mastery requires effort over serious periods of time. And mastering dreaming is far harder than mastering waking pursuits because nobody can see inside your head while you're trying it to give you relevant feedback, and musical instruments don't have "dry spells" where you can't practice them for weeks at a time!

Anyway, I'm still looking forwards to seeing all chapters and doing all the exercises.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Now, you can argue that using exercise book A vs. exercise book B may have slightly different curves in terms of results averaged over a large population (e.g., "classical LD" vs. open beta for LDing), but you're not going to fundamentally change the truth that mastery requires effort over serious periods of time. And mastering dreaming is far harder than mastering waking pursuits because nobody can see inside your head while you're trying it to give you relevant feedback, and musical instruments don't have "dry spells" where you can't practice them for weeks at a time!

Adding on to that. Lucid dreaming is fundamentally difficult to achieve. It requires you to build up habitual awareness, and very precise unconscious bio-clock. Native tribe men from all over the world have always been renowned for their ability to tell the time so accurately. It's a skill which lies both within their body and their surrounding, but takes them decades to master. Similarly awareness is a skill that many monks and hunters have practiced all their lives, and they stay improving for more than half their life easily.

The reason they can fare so well is because it is their life to be proficient at these skills. This is what makes lucid dreaming so hard to attain, no matter what method you use. Any man can become an expert pianist by practicing an hour a day for 10 years, he can skip a year or two and pick up where he left because muscle memory and a deep understanding of the instrument still exist.
Anything oriented towards movement, can be easily stored into long term memory in humans.
The same cannot be said for lucid dreaming, if you skip a week of lucid dreaming practice you lose more than a weeks worth of work. To change the brains processes, to change the state it lies in most frequently to an active aware state has no purpose if you are not going to use it. Hence it get's scrapped, every week not being spent on lucid dreams is a week were the brain decides to scrap more of the habits you were trying to form.

The truest goal in lucid dreaming is, as you pointed out, long term constant dedication. All other factors straighten themselves out as long as you stick with it constantly and fervently.

As for the book, I've never heard of it and I'm fully willing to give it my absolute best shot. I will reserve whatever time is needed each to day to do the exercises starting in a week or so. Hopefully something can be gained from the experience.

So, Cvdmehden, will you be posting the remaining chapters/exercises? Looks like there is interest...

Well, Fryman, I'm not really trying to be an expert, so I expected LDing to be easier.
Sorry, maybe it's me having a hard time accepting reality. Maybe my expectations were not realistic.
Maybe to be good at LDing is more difficult than being good at playing guitar, drawing, or dancing, just as dutchraptor explained. Maybe I would like to see an easier method, because I'm dedicated to other things and can only take LDing as a hobby, and cannot give it "long term constant dedication" as dutchraptor pointed out.
Anyways, I thank you all for your help, insights and opinions which enrich so much this dedicated community

^^ Yes, Dreambh, the best things never come easy, do they? Even when those things are just hobbies.

I think you will find that upon trying it that Cvdmehden's process requires about the same amount of time, effort, and discipline before you finally achieve consistent LD'ing as those pesky "tried/classic methods". His method, as shown to date, really is not that much different from the traditional stuff, regardless of the fresh (and perhaps welcome) sheen he has applied to them. You still must have your mind in the right place to be ready to be self-aware in your dreams, and that is not an easy or quick thing to do, by any measure.

FryingMan and Dutchraptor are correct, unfortunately: consistent LD'ing is an art, and an often hard-earned art at that. Yes, like any art it comes easy to some (or at least they make it appear that way), but for the rest of us success requires some sacrifice.

I believe it is something of an art - a skill, which needs ongoing attention and practice - at least in order to reach a certain level, where you don't run the risk of loosing the benefits of prior endeavours just by taking a break any more.

But I very much doubt, that there is a methodical short-cut, a technique providing a "secret key", with which novices and the failfully striving could un(b)lock their way to lucidity with substantially less effort and time than the usual things.

Such an effect can probably be achieved by sensible use of supplements - my own experiments are still pending, though.

If one gives your claim credit, cvdmehden - what are 10 hours? Nothing, if they can transform you into a lucid dreamer of outlier qualities - namely to LD at will. So I am still a bit fascinated. It is true - it's not been really tested yet. So I would also want to ask you, if you could put up the rest-exercises, please?

And again - if I see more - it might be I'll be finally re-intrigued after all! cheeky.gifredface.gif

Just some questions:
How did it go with your real life test subjects - did they start to LD in the course of the first 9 days, or earlier - or even later?
Are they still practising and/or LDing superbly?
If there are - to what do you attribute the differences?
Have you got an idea, how to keep your readers having faith and putting in the 10 hours, being aware that these are no time at all, if it worked? Looks and feels like a lot to the sceptical or inconsiderate.

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Yes, Dreambh, the best things never come easy, do they? Even when those things are just hobbies.

I think you will find that upon trying it that Cvdmehden's process requires about the same amount of time, effort, and discipline before you finally achieve consistent LD'ing as those pesky "tried/classic methods". His method, as shown to date, really is not that much different from the traditional stuff, regardless of the fresh (and perhaps welcome) sheen he has applied to them. You still must have your mind in the right place to be ready to be self-aware in your dreams, and that is not an easy or quick thing to do, by any measure.

FryingMan and Dutchraptor are correct, unfortunately: consistent LD'ing is an art, and an often hard-earned art at that. Yes, like any art it comes easy to some (or at least they make it appear that way), but for the rest of us success requires some sacrifice.

Maybe the problem with this art that some of us have is, compared with other art forms, the daily practices and habits we need to cultivate don't feel that related and don't provide feedback as say, playing escales in order to learn an instrument.
I guess the bottom line is we should enjoy the the daily practices, the process of learning to LD. And maybe this TWOTLD can help some of us in that aspect.
On the other hand, I think StephL is asking interesting questions. If people would do these exercises for a few weeks and started having several LDs per week I would call this method revolutionary, as people would probably be motivated to stick with LDing.

Yes, and yes. It is challenging. Most worthwhile pursuits are. If there's a way to make it less challenging and make reliable high frequency high lucidity LDs more accessible, I'm all for it. I'm just not sure there is one. Prove me wrong, please!

dreambh, if you just scale your expectations of results to effort and practice and time invested, then I think you'll find that *we have* what you're talking about in the classical approach. I don't think many more people serious about this hobby take much more than a month to the first LD. It does take longer to build achievements in dreaming than in waking life pursuits. The brain is the most complex instrument there is, so it makes sense that learning to play the "lucid dreaming scales" on it takes longer than on the piano.

Seems that Cvdmehden has opted to discontinue his open beta.

Too bad; I was interested in seeing it all come together....

Originally Posted by Sageous

Seems that Cvdmehden has opted to discontinue his open beta.

Too bad; I was interested in seeing it all come together....

According to his profile he has not been here on DV for a long time, and his KS project looks a bit dead... I hope we still can hear about his method somehow...