I am also unsure of exactly what it is, but I used to fairly consistently induce a similar feeling in myself with ‘mindful walks’, also inspired by Original Seeing. For me, it was closely bound up with getting curious about things I’m used to looking at without seeing—what are those marks on pavements? A lichen? Are they raised above the pavement? What do the different colours and shapes look like? Why are they round-ish and spaced out, rather than covering the whole surface, or some other shape?
This might not be ‘true’ curiosity—I never looked up other people’s maps for an explanation of the marks on pavements, for instance—but it does fairly often give me a feeling of ‘realness’. I was struck by how similar your not-a-SIM-key experience was.
Your example of a friend saying ‘let me be real with you’ reminded me of the concept of the ‘press secretary’. Asking the right questions, and having a certain emotional quality, seems to trip up my press secretary for long enough that I can query the things behind her a little.
EDIT 19/03/22: Maybe in future I should finish sequences before I leave comments on them
I am also unsure of exactly what it is, but I used to fairly consistently induce a similar feeling in myself with ‘mindful walks’, also inspired by Original Seeing. For me, it was closely bound up with getting curious about things I’m used to looking at without seeing—what are those marks on pavements? A lichen? Are they raised above the pavement? What do the different colours and shapes look like? Why are they round-ish and spaced out, rather than covering the whole surface, or some other shape?
This might not be ‘true’ curiosity—I never looked up other people’s maps for an explanation of the marks on pavements, for instance—but it does fairly often give me a feeling of ‘realness’. I was struck by how similar your not-a-SIM-key experience was.
Your example of a friend saying ‘let me be real with you’ reminded me of the concept of the ‘press secretary’. Asking the right questions, and having a certain emotional quality, seems to trip up my press secretary for long enough that I can query the things behind her a little.
EDIT 19/03/22: Maybe in future I should finish sequences before I leave comments on them