Okay, green tea, that's much better in terms of the detail I need. Now I have something to work with.
It does seem, from this description, as though what you are experiencing is equanimity within a state of
passaddhi. green tea:
I started meditating a while ago and have used all sorts of methods, though particularly noting, metta, and choiceless awareness practices. I had insights into non-duality and emptiness.
Recently I have been paying a lot of attention to when I start trying to 'conceptualize': judging, thinking about the past or future, having preferences, trying to understand my experience. I purposely let those things go. Once all or most or much of those concepts are gone, I enter this state where everything seems perfect, vibratory, and pretty selfless.
Your work in this area is the same as that of the person striving to achieve "bare attention" as that term is used and described in Nyanaponika Thera's classic book
The Heart Of Buddhist Meditation. Bare attention, in the same way that the practice of equanimity does, attempts to get the practitioner to filter out prejudices and biases in viewing phenomena in order to just see it just as it is, in plain unadorned terms, neither liking or disliking, with an evenness of mind and view in order to see it as it is: as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and without self nature.
This is not really a state
per se, but rather a new (different and more accurate) way of perceiving phenomena. Accurate in the sense that it does not bring with it preconceived notions about the phenomenon. Therefore, one doesn't develop what can sometimes be irrational ideas and reactions to the phenomenon, causing one to experience
dukkha.
green tea:
Sometimes it's almost like I don't recognize objects, though I seem to get along fine, even when doing highly technical things or interacting with other people.
Yes. This is just a phase you are experiencing. It, too, will pass given time. I used to have the same experience. You just have to become used to it, and the "feeling" of not recognizing things will also eventually pass. This is just your reaction to this new way of perceiving things. As it becomes a more familiar way of being, it loses that sense of being a special experience and becomes integrated into your normal view of things.
green tea:
I don't consider it an 'afterglow' because it happens for days and weeks at a time even outside of formal meditation.
"Afterglow," in the way I was using it, doesn't have a time limitation on it (unless the interpreter – oneself – wishes to place one on it). An afterglow, then, can last several minutes to several hours to several days to several weeks.