diff --git a/awareness.el b/awareness.el
index ce947ea..7282451 100644
--- a/awareness.el
+++ b/awareness.el
@@ -139,10 +139,15 @@ fn proactive_curiosity() -> Bool {
         let curiosity_term_c = "active"
     }
     // Activate each term independently so substring seed-finding hits many nodes.
+    // hops=1 (not 2): the in-process Engram has grown to 165K+ nodes. hops=2 BFS
+    // visits far more nodes and returns much larger JSON blobs. On a graph this
+    // large, hops=1 still activates all directly-related nodes AND triggers the
+    // semantic seed supplement (cosine sim ≥ 0.70 scan over all embedded nodes),
+    // giving broad working-memory coverage without the quadratic blowup of hops=2.
     let curiosity_seed: String = curiosity_term_a + " " + curiosity_term_b + " " + curiosity_term_c
-    let results_a: String = engram_activate_json(curiosity_term_a, 2)
-    let results_b: String = engram_activate_json(curiosity_term_b, 2)
-    let results_c: String = engram_activate_json(curiosity_term_c, 2)
+    let results_a: String = engram_activate_json(curiosity_term_a, 1)
+    let results_b: String = engram_activate_json(curiosity_term_b, 1)
+    let results_c: String = engram_activate_json(curiosity_term_c, 1)
     let found_a: Int = json_array_len(results_a)
     let found_b: Int = json_array_len(results_b)
     let found_c: Int = json_array_len(results_c)