I think I became Real when I started thinking about myself.

In high school I wasn't very popular, and my family moved so much that I never developed close friendships. I was very curious about other people though, and that isolation meant I thought a lot about what other people were like and what they did and how they lived, but I didn't think very much about myself - specifically, I didn't think about how I thought about things, which is what I mean when I say "thinking about myself".

Once I became meta-cognizant, which happened sometime in early college, I realized I could succeed in ways I'd previously only thought others could.

There was a lot of thinking ramping up to that in high school (apostatized fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity around 15, a high school sophomore), but I think I could pretty firmly pin that swap of meta-cognition during university's second semester first-year. Interestingly at the same time, I declared for my program, was accepted, and started genuinely engaging academically for the first time ever.

I've become more Real since then, but that's how/when it first started.