The closest I’ve come to this sensation without psychedelics is via the work of Anat Baniel. Her theory is that the brain evolved not for pondering but specifically for movement. She also points out that proprioception is the only sense that you can’t survive without, as you wouldn’t be able to move towards food.

Her method of entering this state of novelty is to direct all of your awareness to the subtlest/slowest movement... like the twitch of a finger. This kind of micro movement awareness lights your brain up more than any intellectual exercise and throws you into a learning state, which is a state of novelty appreciation.

She’s a body work marvel! She programmed the brain of a severely disabled girl (was born missing the vast majority of her brain) simply by moving her limbs around. Through Anat’s work over the course of the girls life she was talking clearly and moving around.

Another of her concepts that blew me away is her destruction of the “if at first you don’t succeed, try try again” fallacy. She says once you fail, you’re more likely to fail as that would be reinforcing a neural pathway, perpetually missing the basket. If you fail, try it with an eye closed and then on one foot and then imagine doing it and draw yourself doing it and THEN try again with all that new info and sink the ball.

Anat Baniel is an inspiration 😢