Monthly Task Off Topic.

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Originally Posted by gab

Daniele, Beginners, Basic... those are just names for categories.

You obviously don't pick your tasks by name. You pick by your ability and interest. Just because someone just started with lucid dreaming, he is not confined to beginner tasks. And just because someone is LDing for some time, he is not forbidden to pick from beginners. As I said few times, beginner category is for those with super short, less than a minute long dreams. That is the defining point.

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I understand. The point I'm making is that frequency is a factor that prevents someone from accomplishing a task within a month. If a beginner (or anyone) has a frequency of 1 lucid every three months then they are rarely going to accomplish a task, especially when they keep changing, which is demotivating. Which category do they choose from? Frequency is an inhibiting factor along with short lucids. If you set tasks according to a single defining point you're excluding a whole category of people.

Yeh,but the tasks aren't a requirement . I'm eager to participate ,and intend to go for the advanced(aswell as the beginner,if I complete all the advanced within a month). But as you mentioned ,frequency is an issue. Yet frequency can be an issue regardless of your skill level.

I was originally going to post it here but knew I had already brought it up previously. In fact, perhaps Gab should read some of the suggestions people gave here when she asked for ideas to attract new participants. Some of them came from people's personal experience as beginners and of what does and doesn't keep them motivated, the very people you're trying to attract: http://www.dreamviews.com/tasks-mont...ml#post2209219

Otherwise if you continue to define ability by the length of a dream alone (which is overly simplistic) you will have the same regular participants every month because the system selects for them. But perhaps I've just missed the point of it all and it's just not meant for me, in which case I apologise. I'll focus on my personal goals and when my frequency reaches the required level I may come back.

What Gab is trying to do is to keep (some) very basic tasks every month, the same. Focused on "mini-lucids tasks" for tiny lucid dreams. These are common in beginners.

However, your point Daniele is also great, since some people might lack a massive ability in dream control (hence, being a beginner also) but being able to pack 5-10 minutes worth of lucid, where longer (but also basic) tasks could be attempted.

So I will add some more extra beginner's tasks next month's, sort of a second set of tasks so there are more options :)

We'll have Gab's and then a second set, this way, both groups of beginners will get the most of them.

This way is a win win for all of us!

Feel free to send me a PM if you have any further suggestions or just post them here :)

Daniele,

One of the ideas behind having the montly tasks, besides varierty, is to actually stimulate people to try and accomplish them within one month. This is what makes the lucid count increase and has proven effective. I can attest that this can be a very successful strategy because then people (myself including), try hard to do them. This is in a way similar to the competitions we have, where you have only two weeks or so to score as many lds as possible.

As far as montly tasks go, even if the month expires and you miss the task you wanted to do, you can still do it in your next ld. Yes, you won't get wings for that - but in the end it's the accomplishment that counts.

Finally, I cannot stress enough the tremendous positive effect of having a task that you want to achieve on your frequency as well as dream control. If you are very determined to do this task, you will literally be having non-lucids thinking about lucidity, false awakenings, non-lucids performing the task, etc. All of these, until one moment you find yourself there - in your dream, fully aware that this is it, you are lucid and now you are going to finally do this task and post in dv afterwards :).

On the surface, it may seem like tasks are only done by a bunch of seasoned dreamers here. But think about it. Where did these seasoned dreamers come from? They came from dreamviews. We grew up here, with frequent practice and thanks to these tasks.

I like that you mentioned that,as some of the Totm are awesome ideas,I still intend to do them even if the month has expired.

NyxCC,

I agree with all you said. All I and some others have tried to point out is why the participation rate among beginners will always be low and the dropout rate is high. You point to another important factor which is determination. I wouldn't still be here and have made the progress I have if I wasn't determined. But most people can't sustain determination long enough to see their own progress and this accounts for the drop off among new members in general. And when you add a time constraint it's just another roadblock that demotivates them. You and I may be able to stay focussed on a task beyond the end of the month (and I certainly don't care about wings :O) but for the rest it seems insurmountable and they give up. The Task of the Month will always appear to be an intermediate and above skill competition to the average beginner. No amount of fiddling with beginner tasks will change this. As you know achievement drives motivation so what some of us are suggesting is that a separate proving ground with apparently surmountable tasks that develop the skills that lead to lucidity and higher rates of lucidity will improve the retention rate. Something like Spellbee's Spring Competition should be the first round competition for the beginner where a sense of achievement will allow them to graduate to the Task of the Month. They need to be connected in a way that makes the progression obvious.

I see it as a tiered system with one stage opening a gate to the next level. Think about how addicted people get to video games, trying to get from one level to the next. Determination doesn't seem to be a problem then. I'm also reminded of the Wipeout gameshows where the first obstacle course is the qualifying round that gives access to the the next, only in our case we want everyone to qualify.

The human brain likes to fall back into old habits, the path of least resistance, but there are ways of tricking it into believing it can do something. Dreamviews would be an amazing training ground if the competitions were linked together in a progressive and cohesive way rather than stand-alone clubs.

Daniele,

I don't know if you are aware but we also have a thread with lucid tasks that don't have time constraints. It has been a bit quiet for a while, however, I still think it's a great place to pick up from a large variety of tasks and also interact with others as you can set personal tasks for them.

http://www.dreamviews.com/lucid-chal...cid-dares.html

Finally my first lucid of the month and I flew right into sleep paralysis dammit, I don't get SP often enough to use it to my advantage and wound up fighting with it until I woke up :yddd:

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Originally Posted by woblybil

Finally my first lucid of the month and I flew right into sleep paralysis dammit, I don't get SP often enough to use it to my advantage and wound up fighting with it until I woke up :yddd:

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That sucks but better this close and tomorrow full on lucid than just foggy fragments of recall ;)
even tho in my beginning phase of lucid dreaming i messed around a lot to induce lucids and tried wild i only remember one or two times i woke up (not even sure it was a FA) and couldnt move. another one or two accounts of HH (hearing a jet turbine next to my ear..) expect of this i never have weird sensations or sounds or anything... i think i might be happy but would be interesting anyways.

tonight i also finally had a not too long lucid. i wanted to talk to my dad from the past in his 25-30´s but he looked more or less like now and he refused to have a proper deep convo... he prefered to go to a disco with me and then run away from the police.... also not very satisfying. especially i only did one totm this month and i could use the lucid time to do those... ;)

^^Even though he wasn't looking in his 20s, he seems to have been in the mood. :laughhard:

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Originally Posted by Daniele

... why the participation rate among beginners will always be low and the dropout rate is high. ...And when you add a time constraint it's just another roadblock that demotivates them.

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Dropout rate is same as dropout rate on the forum participation. People come and go for all kinds of reasons.

There is 14 tasks for beginners. 7 of them are same every month. No time constraint. And even if they changed, it's not like you start to build or work on a task and if it takes you longer than month, you have to throw all the effort away and start anew in a new month.

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Originally Posted by Daniele

The Task of the Month will always appear to be an intermediate and above skill competition to the average beginner.

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That's why we added the whole new beginner tasks.

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Originally Posted by Daniele

As you know achievement drives motivation so what some of us are suggesting is that a separate proving ground with apparently surmountable tasks that develop the skills that lead to lucidity and higher rates of lucidity will improve the retention rate. Something like Spellbee's Spring Competition should be the first round competition for the beginner where a sense of achievement will allow them to graduate to the Task of the Month. They need to be connected in a way that makes the progression obvious.

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Well, anybody can start with Spring competition who wishes to. But that's a different cup of tea. Plus, TOTMs are not a competition.
There is no obvious progression in lucid dreaming. Somebody who only started out may be able to control his dream perfectly, and someone who already had dozens of LDs, may not. Even people with many lucids under their belts can have a bunch of short ones, or fail to have one for a while. How do you compare them to those that have consistent, 5 sec lucids? Is one better than the other? No, they are just different.

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Originally Posted by Daniele

I see it as a tiered system with one stage opening a gate to the next level. ...only in our case we want everyone to qualify.

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Everybody is qualified. There are no tiers per se. There are only levels of perceived difficulty. What is hard for some, maybe the easiest for the others. Basic may differ from advanced and bonus only in complexity and how long it may take to do, but not in difficulty, as difficulty is again, subjective.

We added beginners to totms and not to a totally separate club/competition, exactly because I wanted everybody to be together in one thread, one club. Able to share and help each other.

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Originally Posted by Daniele

Dreamviews would be an amazing training ground if the competitions were linked together in a progressive and cohesive way rather than stand-alone clubs.

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It's about diversity. Freedom of choice. You can't force everybody to start at the bottom which you determine as a bottom, and allow them to progress when they graduate by your standards to next level.

What is a bottom? What is next level? It's all subjective. Can't compartmentalize people. That's why we have all these choices and it's for everybody out there to decide what task they want to do based on their ability and interest.

Last thing. Everybody is able to suggest tasks. It's completely up to members which tasks they will do. If someone loses interest in TOTMs, it's not because of tasks, it's because of their lack of interest in this kind of a thing.

And even if task someone suggested is not picked, they can always be done as a personal task. We all have them. Plus, if we only do tasks we want to do, meaning in our comfort zone, we would never know what else we are capable of. Do something you would never pick, you may surprise yourself.

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Originally Posted by gab

TOTMs are not a competition.

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Right :wink:

Yay...My email notifications are back :) I need those to keep me on my toes :yddd:

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Originally Posted by gab ..
TOTMs are not a competition.

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Sometimes they are :yddd:

Just adding a little humor.

7/29
3:00 pm After buying cat food and a box of nutty ice cream cones at Walmart I ate a sandwich and took a nap, I saved the cones for tonight, but!... There were somehow two beds in the living room of my apartment instead of the bedroom with me in one and a woman and her young daughter in the other (This aint right, it must be a dream :P ) I got up and went to the freezer in the kitchen and opened the box of nutty cones just to be sure using the tear strip but ripping the box top in the process. Inside were 5 unwrapped cones instead of the usual nine wrapped ones...They were smaller and flat on top instead of round and full and they didn't taste very good either, I said "These aren't as good as the last ones" as I munched one and gave the woman one..She said "I don't think they would even melt" We sent the young girl for her own and she came back with two, I told the woman to take the last one and we fussed a bit over it then I woke up..
I jumped up almost in a panic and went straight for the freezer to check the box, it was not opened "Whew" so I opened it just now being careful not to rip the top like in the dream and got one of the "nine" cones out and unwrapped it and...
They taste just fine :yddd:

Okay, I voted already! I hope people who have wings get a chance to vote for the next tasks of the month before it is too late.

I was wondering if there could be a way to allow those who have missed out on a task still get a reward.
For instance a basic task could give you ten points, but only five if you complete it the next month.

Just saying.

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Originally Posted by naturespirit

I was wondering if there could be a way to allow those who have missed out on a task still get a reward.
For instance a basic task could give you ten points, but only five if you complete it the next month.

Just saying.

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Sounds like fun and a good idea but I think it may further complicate an already complicated process .


And I'm prolly in trouble with "anderj101" now..... We did it on the bacon table :yddd:
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/wobl...f-topic-81948/

I have two more Task of the month tasks to go.

I've got an increased amount of "semi-lucids" and some false awakenings lately, which means I'm on my way to rock through ToTM again.

And tis nearing the dark of the moon so i'm on my way also :yddd:

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Originally Posted by Snehk

I've got an increased amount of "semi-lucids" and some false awakenings lately, which means I'm on my way to rock through ToTM again.

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Good Luck! :D

"Here wingy-wingy"........ "Here wingy-wingy .. :yddd:
Oh-the shame of it all.. Only one lucid this week and no tasks at all for me...Sheesh

"Here wingy-wingy"........ "Here wingy-wingy .. :yddd:
Oh-the shame of it all.. Only one lucid this week and no tasks at all for me...Sheesh