Shrink Exercise: Peel a Pomelo

“Peel a Pomelo” is a simple exercise allowing you to experience what it’s like to be smaller then you are. The trick is to hand-peel a pomelo while imagining you are peeling a mandarin.

The pomelo (Citrus maxima) is the largest member of the citrus fruit family and can have a diameter of up to 25 cm. Mandarins obviously are considerably smaller. To help the illusion rub a mandarin peel under your nose and on your hands so that the scent of the mandarin dominates the scent of the pomelo. Hide references that may disrupt your suspense of disbelief such as pieces of furniture or household objects that unwittingly remind you of your real size. This is all about using our body as a measure. Perhaps find an empty space, sit on the floor, face a wall. Put the pomelo in front of you while conjuring up an image of a mandarin. Perhaps squint your eyes to blur reality and fantasy. Touch, weigh, feel, use your hands to measure the fruit, and the fruit to measure your hands. Then, thrust your fingers into the pomelo’s thick skin. But continue to imagine it is a mandarin. Break through the skin into the soft layer just beneath. Experience its thickness, its resistance, as you encounter the bouncy juicy fruit body. Rip out a big fleshy part of mandarin. Use both hands to bring it to your mouth. Close your eyes. Bite into it, and feel your body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing.