Quality of awareness

(Writing is thinking; reader beware, this isn't for reaching out.) Unfolding ways of being have qualities, qualia I guess, a "what it is like" that's similar to texture, color, viscosity.

There's a state of receptivity to experience which lets in sensation so openly that the past slips away every few seconds, letting go of stories and thoughts and reactions to stay present with the newness of sensing the stimulus (which sometimes includes the whole system of a human attached to the stimulus).

The geared machinery of the analytic thought engine is definitely still, turned off, resting quietly. But it's the memory circuitry that's now affected too? The lack of a minute-level story anchoring that accumulates the interaction into the conversational narrative (like a memory palace) - that is a quality of this state that feels like even more fully being present with the other. It's a "no thoughts, just vibes" kind of presence, but thoughts still happen, rapidly in fact, almost a new story every second but then they just get released as each new moment of sensation flows in. "No story-building" might be more accurate.

The quality of emotional attunement is quite high, very high... is it at the cost of normal functionality? Some of the slipped-away sentences and story are accessible or at least reconstructible with some intentional looking. But it seems unbalanced, though pleasant. Not a thing to maximize all the time, perhaps. It is a tool that can bridge the gap when words and worldviews and intellect are all not connecting. And it's also a good awareness-of-awareness zone, when you can almost see the stories slip away and sense the sensing of new sense data bubbling up so rapidly.

The couple times I've really noticed this so far, both took about 45 minutes of relational presence practice before this flow-zone-state kicked in. Maybe I can remember the qualities when this state of awareness would next be useful.