A Burning Man workshop turning dream/nightmare

50 women insulting 10 men for three hours

also available as podcast and video (Instagram, YouTube)

Since the lucid dreaming workshop I have obsessed on “how to make reality look like a dream” in an attempt to mix both dreams and reality in a permanent way.

I wondered “what are the scenes in my life that looked the most dream like” and Burning Man immediately came to mind. Everything looks like a dream there.

I was alone randomly biking around the camps and bumped into a “honor the feminine” or something like that workshop.

Here were the rules of the workshop for the men:
-the workshop lasts 3 hours if you enter you cannot leave before it ends
-men cannot move, only the women can
-men can only listen and “receive” from the women

I am not sure why I decided to come-in but I did.

There were about 10 men and 40-50 women. We were asked to stand up and make a line of men, standing in silence facing the women and not allowed to say anything.

The women went one by one in front of us, chose one men and could say anything she wanted to him. Only rule was no touching (and no hitting or slapping…)

The first woman chose me and started insulting me and releasing all her anger on me.

The words were very hard, expressing deep wounds through insults and almost hitting me on the face.

The women chose the man that reminded them the most of their ex, their father, their husband… and started insulting him.

I stayed there being insulted by about 10 women I did not know.

During three hours, I learned a lot about how women suffer from our behavior, learned to listen and receive.

We ended the workshop with a long eye-to-eye gazing without saying anything with every single woman stopping in front of the men in a circle this time and staring eye-to-eye, also in silence. Some cried looking at me, others looked even more angry. I cried too. I could hear them just by looking into their eyes.

One of the most memorable experiences in my life. I think about it very often.