This is one of those ideas that came to me while I was daydreaming in the shower (read: the best kind of idea), so forgive me if things aren’t worded exactly properly or if this is all just nonsense. A few people in the chatroom seem to like the idea, though, so I figured I’d get the forum’s opinion as a whole.
I was dwelling on some of the questions we get asked by new people in chat. The number one newbie question is, of course, “How do I shot WILD?” [/badmeme]. I started typing a tutorial/rant on reality checks and visualization, but some other users were quick to point out that not all new WILDers read about WILD on our forum, so nothing can really stop that question. The other big question from new people is one that comes right after the first or second LD: “So I was lucid, and I tried to , but nothing happened…?” When we ask how they tried to do it, the answer is usually “I just tried to” or some other answer equating to trying to use pure willpower. Of course, this is possible, but even experienced LDers don’t use willpower every time, often relying on abstractions such as the lucid pill.
This led me to the idea of the Community Abstraction Project (henceforth, CAP). It would be a subforum dedicated to creating abstractions not just to which we can direct stuck, willpower-bent newbies (don’t lie by saying willpower doesn’t work, of course), but also as a way to inspire the community into new LD ideas and to create a system for every LD4All member to incorporate into his/her LDs if he/she chooses to. For example, I’ve typed a short example for the most famous abstraction, the lucid pill, with four colors and four effects. I would post it as a sample, at which point other members could expand upon it with more colors and effects. The ones users like most or find the most practical for LDs can be declared the official LD4All choices. Community topics like this would be stickied.
Beyond that, users could create their own topics in the subforum with their own personal abstractions that perhaps aren’t practical enough to fit whatever community topics are open, but may be of interest to other dreamers anyway or hold special meaning to the user. Other users can respond to these topics saying which ones are good ideas or reporting personal experiences with them. I would probably post a sample topic of a few of my own abstraction ideas just as with the community example, so that the format would be clear to all. Most individual topics would not be stickied, unless a large number of users find themselves using a certain person’s abstractions and having enjoyable success.
There are upsides for all sorts of users in such a project.* Newbies have an area to see different ideas beyond willpower (again, without ditching it entirely) for accomplishing LD goals, or seeing new goals altogether. Others in our chatroom have a quick link that they can show newbies to inspire them or to convince the more stubborn members that they should ease into it with abstract methods.
- The community has a resource for ideas on the tasks they’ve struggled on in the past, or for finding new tasks.
- Experienced users not only would be able to pass on some of their in-LD tricks to us lesser dreamers (where before the project, discussion would usually be about induction methods), but also gain insight into the dreams of others and attempt to use tools of other experienced dreamers.
The downside would be that it’s work for whoever’s running it.
There’s also the fear of somebody posting things that aren’t abstractions or generally posting stupidity, but the fact that the first response won’t necessarily be the official choice for community topics and the fact that personal topics wouldn’t be stickied leading to stupider topics falling to the bottom of the list should curtail such users.
So that’s my random idea of the day. Again, a few people commented in chat, but I’m looking for broader feedback as well in case this is something that really would interest the user base.
Otherwise, whatever board it’s mixed with could get swamped with topics, or in the opposite case, the project gets hidden in the depths of the board if it’s ever not active for a while and general knowledge topics are made that push them back a few pages.