so what do you want now…

Moving my answer from slack over to here to get this started:

It’s such a perfect simple question but a hard one to answer I think. What do i want? Idk. Thats my problem in life! The thing I told a few friends after MSE was that I really wanted the show to dominate me physically and emotionally and the closest I got to that was Morgan telling me to stand before all of my 11:30 group in the parking lot and challenging my personal views on monogamy. I didn’t change my mind but it did give me a platform to really think about my beliefs and even question them. I am still thinking about that question. I want to be challenged and made to think. I also really just want to be entertained but they already do a good job of that. (And I want Clint to pull my hair again ?) OK I’m done

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Candace.

I wanted novelty.

I think we all need novelty to grow and learn. Unfortunately, we are all wired to minimize stress and risk and as we get older, we become experts at doing what is routine, easy and safe. For example, how many times during the MSE did you catch yourself acting or pretending? – perhaps by giving the safe answer – an expected answer to a question you were asked. Did you tell a secret that was safe or did you tell a secret that was a real challenge to reveal? I found myself at times taking shortcuts or telling half truths because it was emotionally safer – I did or said what was expected and did not make myself vulnerable. In a way cheating myself of that opportunity to learn and grow.

I want a lot of things. I want an adventure. I want to be controlled. I want to be a part of a narrative that my actions and ideology affect. I want to be seen and known, and stop being afraid of being seen and known, or of expressing myself (just writing this post scares me). I want to be challenged and shaken up and made to reexamine myself. I want to be exposed. I want to feel.

During my first time through Sleep No More, I had a one-on-one encounter with one of the actors (who was extremely good-looking). He pushed me against a wall and removed my mask and stared at me intensely, his face a mere inch away from mine, like he was going to kiss me. It was the most erotic experience of my life and it completely shook me up, for days. I want to feel that way again, but without the frustration that comes from such a brief and tantalizing encounter. I want to understand parts of my sexuality, like why I find more satisfaction from these sorts of immersive theater experiences than I do from actual sexual experiences (though, at the same time, I find less satisfaction, because of their brevity and limitations).

I want to Experience.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Robert Fuller.

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• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by Megan.

Amongst other things, I’m fascinated that I keep processing last weekend in deeper ways as the days are going by. So here’s what I want now, perhaps more specific than before:

I want to be surprised. Specifically and directly surprised. I want the moments where something happens and it catches me COMPLETELY off-guard. That can be a good surprise, a bad surprise–I don’t really care which. But I know that I learn more about myself when I’m surprised than at almost any other time. And God, I could use something like that right now.

I want to be out of my head. That’s part of what surprise can do for me, but it’s more than that. I am enthralled by the ways this entire thing is playing with the boundary of fact and fiction. It’s practically destroyed it at this point. But I don’t CARE about it yet. I don’t FEEL it. I don’t have emotional skin in the game, yet. I’m getting closer, I think, but I’m really looking forward to a time where I respond to something here from emotions. Yes, I know–be careful what I wish for.

I want to be pushed. One of the biggest disappointments that I had from the MSE was that I never felt pushed. I never felt like I was being pressed to any sort of barrier. And I want that. I recognize that I’m going to have to be more aggressive on my end to get there–that’s something I did also realize about the MSE. But I’m hoping the pressure comes the other way, too.

The final thing I’d love from this experience is a pipe dream. So for the time being, I’m leaving it out–maybe someday I’ll say it. But I’m not yet that comfortable with just announcing desires on a forum post. In the meantime, the above would be more enough.

Surprise me. Get me out of my head. Push me to my barriers.
Once again, I wholeheartedly give my permission, knowing of which I give.

This question has been on my mind a lot this week. Whether due to the approaching New Year or what, this question has definitely been on the tip of my tongue.

I have avoided as much regarding Lust as possible since I left. When I left, I was not in a good place mentally. A lot of personal shit was happening out of game and cutting my involvement was the easiest thing in my life that I could control and eradicate. I swore to myself that no matter how weak I allowed myself to be, I would not get involved. And then, I was given a free ticket due to unfortunate circumstances that plagued a participant.

Now, here I am. Back on the forum. Wondering what I want from this experience as well as life itself.

I want to stop questioning. However, I want to continue to learn and, in order to learn, one must question things so that’s a bit counterintuitive. My desire to learn and to absorb what is happening is what keeps bringing me back, so…disregard.

This ties into my ultimate desire in wanting to get to the point in all of this where I stop looking at this as a long term event. One of the things I struggle with when I go through shows is observing things from an event management perspective. If I am challenged and distracted past the point where I can stop gazing at events with that particular gaze of mine, then I can consider myself truly immersed.

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• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by Megan.

The show gave me exactly what I wanted. I wanted to escape from reality, the norm of everyday life. To be taken out if just for a couple hours, no social media, no regularly scheduled events.

The show pushed me emotionally and physically and has been stuck in my head for weeks now. What was real, what was acted out. How did that one character read me like a book with only just meeting me. I was rarely on the forums or social media leading up to the event but she seemed to know everything about me!

Such a powerful show at least for me. I can’t wait to see how this progresses.

Question less. Embrace more.

Those words were said to me in private at the very end of 2017. They’ve been stuck in my head ever since, as if my brain is telling me to ditch all my resolutions for 2018 in favor of them. I’ve gone over so much of this experience ever since the MSE. I’ve reread things I’ve written (pages and pages that have never seen the light of day, posts on the forums, etc). I’ve had crazy-ass theories that were disproven almost immediately and others that are still possibly in play. Through it all I’ve been trying desperately to figure out what the fuck is going on.

Stop. Asking. Questions.

I have a need for information – for ALL the information. Letting go of that is hard. Not being able to protect myself from what might be coming at me is hard. Being possibly vulnerable is hard. Knowing that this is going to end with me being hurt…because that is what I signed up for and what I specifically asked for, choosing to let go and open myself up to that, is hard. Letting others take care of me, be concerned for me and step in to voice that concern, has been hard. Needing this has been hard. But I think that’s what this has always been about, my need for control and unwillingness to be vulnerable and therefore inability to actually be immersed and affected. Noah’s phone call at the end of July, whip or no whip, for all it did to create that metaphor was key. He was telling me I had to choose to let go. “Shut up, take in the world, let it whip you. Take it all in, don’t think.”

As of this posting I am no longer monitoring traffic on my website or blog. I’m not tracking IPs. I won’t know if you visit or read me or what you search for or anything. I’ve deleted all notes about those IP addresses so I no longer know yours (by “yours” I mean several of you). I’m not tracking when email is opened. This is huge, it’s not something I started doing because of Tension/Lust, it’s a level of control I’ve exercised over my internet presence for years now for reasons. You’ve got all my social media everything at this point, I believe. There are no more hidden profiles out there. I’m not looking for anything anymore. I don’t care who he is, whether he’s really this or that, where this is going, whether I’m safe or not. I don’t care about my shadow or the cave or Anoch, just this moment and trying to not control it and not needing the answers. I think I know what you’re doing and I’m walking into it willingly.

Let others do the thinking, theorizing, and figuring out. There are no answers for me. I’m here to feel, to let go, and accept the reality as presented to me, right now.

(And get through the next 12 days of nightmare projection design.)