Whenever someone mentions they had an eye-opening experience, I'm always skeptical of this assertion. It's vague and raises a ton of questions. How much did it open your eyes? Why did it open your eyes? With how much intensity did it open your eyes? Not all eye opening experiences are created equal and I'd like to differentiate between the different levels.
Level 1 eye-opening experience:
--Having conventional wisdom flipped on its head. AKA a stoned thought or "highdea."
--OR it could be a literal eye opening experience such as going to the eye doctor or riding a motorcycle without a helmet.
Amount eyes have been opened: 10mm.
Level 2 eye-opening experience:
--Being immersed in an entirely new culture and expanding your worldview. It's easy to get caught up in our own societal bubble that we assume the rest of the world follows our pattern. Coming to these realizations can open our eyes a decent amount.
--Studying abroad, traveling the world and backpacking in a foreign country are other popular level 2 eye-opening experiences.
Amount eyes have been opened: 14mm
Level 3 eye-opening experience:
--Experiencing a eureka moment of the highest degree. The entire way you look at the world has changed based off of a SINGLE idea. Level 3 eye opening experiences are notorious mind benders. Ex: the first time you watched Inception or when you learned about the potential for past lives.
Amount eyes have been opened: 19mm
Level 4 eye-opening experience:
--Questioning your entire existence. You've just watched Waking Life, and you wonder if we confuse consequentialism for realness. Is life ACTUALLY supposed to be our spirit floating around to different scenarios as depicted in the movie? Are we just assuming that our current life is “real” because it's a sequence of logical events? We go to sleep in our bed and wake up the next day in the same bed. This leads us to believe the plot of waking life is “fantasy” and our life on Earth is “real reality.”
Amount eyes have been opened: 22mm
Level 5 eye-opening experience:
--Questioning not only your own existence but the existence of everything. If we are truly living in a multiverse, who’s to say that we’d be the ONLY multiverse or even the FIRST multiverse? What was that first world like which then branched off into limitless ideas and existences? Why even have life in the first place? Whose voice am I hearing in my head right now?
Amount eyes have been opened: 50mm. Fully realized eyes.