Hypothesis: You could more reliably induce the sensation of realness in unfamiliar situations with unfamiliar sensory stimuli. (Your example of finally understanding how topo maps work seems like a possible instance of this.) There is a frisson of that going on in the examples you provide, and in my recollection of memories with a similar valence.
At the risk of being the Man of One Book (better than One Study, but still), I’m obsessed with Surfing Uncertainty by Andy Clark. One of the many tantalizing conclusions he points to is that your eye cells and ear cells and nose cells are always dumbly doing the same thing, perceiving bits or spectra, and your brain qua many layers of {bottom-up data feeds versus top-down prediction algorithms} is fiddling with knobs to make those streams louder or quieter at the conscious level.
And the main thing that makes them louder is that something unexpected is happening. Obviously, your car-driving example is the reverse of this. Mostly, nothing unexpected happens when I drive, and I drive on autopilot and don’t even make memories of the drive. I’m so good at driving that people swerving into my lane are almost never unexpected, because I know what that kind of person looks like and when they’re likely to do it and have it factored into my subconscious model.
But when I drive past an airstrip and there’s a big-ass helicopter 20 yards from me practicing hovering and landing, bouncing up and down and spinning 90 degrees while airborne, a little child hopping and spinning in place to learn mastery of zir own motor skills except the child is powered by 3000hp and rotors that are buffeting my car, the sensation is like being in a movie, or watching one, or something. Is that what “derealization” feels like?
I think when you stare at the SIM card removal ankh, you are forcing your brain to not merely predict that there’s a SIM card removal ankh there and fail to receive sensory data that it’s actually a snake, but to actually be surprised by the details of it. Forcing your brain to care about the details.
Hypothesis: You could more reliably induce the sensation of realness in unfamiliar situations with unfamiliar sensory stimuli. (Your example of finally understanding how topo maps work seems like a possible instance of this.) There is a frisson of that going on in the examples you provide, and in my recollection of memories with a similar valence.
At the risk of being the Man of One Book (better than One Study, but still), I’m obsessed with Surfing Uncertainty by Andy Clark. One of the many tantalizing conclusions he points to is that your eye cells and ear cells and nose cells are always dumbly doing the same thing, perceiving bits or spectra, and your brain qua many layers of {bottom-up data feeds versus top-down prediction algorithms} is fiddling with knobs to make those streams louder or quieter at the conscious level.
And the main thing that makes them louder is that something unexpected is happening. Obviously, your car-driving example is the reverse of this. Mostly, nothing unexpected happens when I drive, and I drive on autopilot and don’t even make memories of the drive. I’m so good at driving that people swerving into my lane are almost never unexpected, because I know what that kind of person looks like and when they’re likely to do it and have it factored into my subconscious model.
But when I drive past an airstrip and there’s a big-ass helicopter 20 yards from me practicing hovering and landing, bouncing up and down and spinning 90 degrees while airborne, a little child hopping and spinning in place to learn mastery of zir own motor skills except the child is powered by 3000hp and rotors that are buffeting my car, the sensation is like being in a movie, or watching one, or something. Is that what “derealization” feels like?
I think when you stare at the SIM card removal ankh, you are forcing your brain to not merely predict that there’s a SIM card removal ankh there and fail to receive sensory data that it’s actually a snake, but to actually be surprised by the details of it. Forcing your brain to care about the details.