[title]The History of LD4all[/title]
Author: pasQuale
This article was written on the occasion of LD4all’s 13th anniversary, 25 may 2009. The official anniversary date is the date the birth of the website now known as LD4all was announced in the newsgroup alt.dreams.lucid on may 25, 1996:
This site, which was called Through the Mirror in those days, is now known as LD4all. 
[title]How it all began…[/title]
LD4all started out as pasQuale’s graduation project at the Utrecht School of the Arts. At that time she had just discovered lucid dreaming - by reading Patricia Garfield’s Creative Dreaming. pasQuale thought lucid dreaming was so incredibly cool that she wanted to tell everyone! She also wanted to do something with the Internet because it was beginning to gain popularity and had grown out of text-only. (You could actually make backgrounds and display images in Netscape 2.0!).
So, therefore she decided to create a website about lucid dreaming.
[title]Through the Mirror[/title]
pasQuale chose the name Through the Mirror - Beyond Dreaming. “Through the Mirror” because she used to step through mirrors in a lot of her lucid dreams to explore the world beyond it. “Beyond Dreaming” because when you are lucid you can do more than dreaming alone. You can influence the dream as you wish and do whatever you want to do.
Since her project was all about lucid dreams, pasQuale decided to use her lucid dreams as inspiration. In the following lucid dream she remembered her intention to see her project:
I’m lucid and I’m standing in a hallway with doors on both sides. I remember wanting to dream of my project. So I say to myself: “Behind this door I will see what my project will look like.” I open the door, step inside and there on a table sits a computer. I look at the screen and there I see what my project looks like.
The way the first site looked was directly derived from that dream. She saw how to divide the screen into two equal parts. The left one for textual content and the right one for visual content.
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[size=70]This is the direct translation of the
image pasQuale saw in her dream. (click to enlarge)[/size]
[size=70]In the final version, the black vertical lines were changed into decorative borders.
This is the “how” section, explaining how to have lucid dreams…(click to enlarge)[/size]
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The site was divided into three parts: what, how, and beyond.
What: a short definition of lucid dreaming
How: several ways of becoming lucid
Beyond: things to do while lucid.
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[size=70]The navigation image. [/size]
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All graphics were either hand drawn or painted by pasQuale. She used her own paintings as backgrounds and as illustrations, to give the whole a dreamy kind of atmosphere. Since, after all, it was a website about dreams.
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[size=70]The intro page. (click to enlarge)[/size]
[size=70]Interactive reality check. (click to enlarge)[/size]
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[title]The Second Incarnation[/title]
As time progressed, and many visitors came, there was a need to add more information. The site only had the barest of information about lucid dreaming, it was meant as an inspiration. The web evolved, and more became possible. pasQuale decided on a total makeover. She started to sketch and dream again.30 july 1998, the new Through the Mirror emerged.
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[size=70]The welcome image in the new incarnation.
You will recognise some elements of the first design. (click to enlarge)[/size]
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The division in two equals was kept, but now there was a new navigation menu in the middle. The original navigation menu was expanded, and became a wing, spread at the top of the page, containing the menu items.
The text moved to the right and the images to the left.
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[size=70]The “what” section in the new incarnation.
(click to enlarge)[/size]
[size=70]To keep with the name “Through the Mirror”, the images at the left later had a border added, that resembled a mirror. (click to enlarge)[/size]
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After a a year, Phil Marley, maintainer of the online guide to lucid dreaming, asked pasQuale to adopt his content. She did, and this was the reason for a new facelift. More “feathers” in the navigation wings were added.
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[size=70]Revamped welcome page (click to enlarge)[/size]
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[size=70]More “feathers” in the wings. (click to enlarge)[/size]
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[size=70]Yet another version of the welcome page. (click to enlarge)[/size]
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[title]Third Incarnation: the birth of LD4all[/title]
Through the Mirror had a very long URL. It existed as a homepage with a very long webadress. pasQuale wanted an easier to remember URL. She decided to register a domainname. But throughthemirrorbeyonddreaming.com didn’t have a ring to it. TTM.com was already taken. She scrolled through a list of suggested domainnames and LD4all.com popped up. That had such a good ring to it, that she decided on that one. Through the Mirror was renamed to LD4all, and soon it was found on LD4all.com.
To match the new name, pasQuale decided to make a complete new site, incorporating all the previous content, but a complete rewrite of everything. New divisions. New layout. Ofcourse, guided through another series of lucid dreams. On august 24, 2003, pasQuale had a very profound lucid dream in which she not only saw the new design, but also the LD4all logo.
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[size=70]the new LD4all logo, as seen in pasQuales dream. In the dream the logo was golden and rotated in a starry sky. [/size]
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In the dream, she also saw the “aurora” in the background, and the idea to have pull down menu items. It took pasQuale over a year to bring her new dream into reality. The new LD4all launched november 27 2004.
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[size=70]LD4all new style: welcome page (click to enlarge)[/size]
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[size=70]LD4all new style: things to do while lucid(click to enlarge)[/size]
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A wing like theme was kept, with pull down navigation menu items. Also the “mirrors” where kept, this time floating in the page, with changing images as you clicked on a new item.
[title]Fourth incarnation[/title]
LD4all grew, and so did the community. A new look for the whole site was conceived, and the wings were brought back. Everyone missed the wings. A new welcome page was created, and a complete revamping of the forum layout.
1 september 2007 the new forum went online. Some time later, the welcome page followed the new design.
The “old” LD4all became the LD4all guide, still keeping the original design.
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[size=70]Restyled logo[/size]
[size=70]LD4all 4.0 landing page (click to enlarge)[/size]
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[title]The Lucid Dreamers Community[/title]
As her website grew in popularity, pasQuale began to receive lots of email of lucid dreamers from around the world. Asking Questions, or wanting to share their experiences. After a while, answering all those mails became too time consuming. pasQuale decided to create a place where all those people could share their stories with each other. She decided to create a messageboard for that purpose.
In march 1999, a discussion board was added to LD4all. It started out as a forum on network54, a free forum host. Chosen because there weren’t any annoying ads. But this changed, after some time network54 started to swamp the forum with annoying popup ads, flashing banners, and so on. It was time to move to a new webspace.
After a few tryouts, LD4all’s discussion forum became a PHPBB forum.
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[size=70]The first PHPBB forum skin. (Thank you, greendragon! )
(click to enlarge)[/size]
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[size=70]This is how the posts looked. (Thank you, moogle, for the screenshot!)
(click to enlarge)[/size]
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with the 3rd incarnation of LD4all, the look of the forum changed as well, to incorporate the LD4all logo. It wasn’t possible to keep the wings, so they were changed into a rainbow bar at the top of the site.
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[size=70]LD4all forum in 3rd incarnation. No more wings! (thank you, xx521xx!)
(click to enlarge. warning: huge image)[/size]
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LD4all’s 4th incarnation was actually a total revamping of the LD4all forum. New functions were added, and a complete restyling, most importantly WITH wings again!
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[size=70]With wings again. (click to enlarge. warning: huge image)[/size]
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[title]LD4all landmarks[/title]
25 may 1996 Launch of Through the Mirror
30 july 1998 new look, with the winged theme
26 january 1999 Graphics update and sections added; now the paintings have the mirror border with the eye looking over it.
18 feb 1999 Launch of Dutch version
around 1 march 1999 Launch of first forum (network 54)
30 june 1999: first (preserved) post in this forum.
4 may 1999 Adopted OGLD, added more content.
18 may 2001 Registered domain LD4all.com
27 may 2001 A facelift of the layout. More items in the wings, and information rewritten.
29 august 2001 New forum YaBB
30 september 2001 forum back to N54 forum (YaBB didn’t work out)
11 march 2002 forum to moves to an iconboard forum
15 may 2002 LD4all moves to phpBB forum.
8 august 2003 LD4all has now it’s own serverspace. Forum moves now to LD4all.com.
27 november 2004 Launch of LD4all’s 3rd incarnation, a complete restyling of the site.
1 may 2006 Launch of the dutch version of the 3rd incarnation.
5 may 2007 Launch of the French LD4all
1 september 2007 A total facelift of the LD4all forum.
28 october 2007 launch of greek LD4all guide