1.1 [2:44] [I just caught sight of myself in a mirror in my sweatshirt. The bag over my shoulder was folded unflatteringly, sticking out over my stomach. I pulled it down and] thought Uuhhh, hope I'm not putting on weight.
1.2 [12:42] [I'm walking though London, seeing buildings built on top of rivers, and remembering that I had read a book that mention this.] At the moment of the beep I am thinking what book is that? Was it about London?
1.3 [33:44] I have two inner seeings. One is the WhatsApp screen with the messages that I sent to David. The other is one of the Love and Rockets (comic book) cover.
Pete 2 3/22/26 y Zoom
2.1 [0:48] I innerly see a browser displaying an article (that I had written (and was published a couple of years ago). The seeing is a black landscape-shaped rectangle; the seen browser seems to float above the left side of the blackness. I see perhaps 80% of the browser—the outer 20% has faded to black. I know myself to be seeing that exact article, even though it is not seen clearly enough to read it, there is no masthead, etc.
At the top of the article is a picture—I don't see the picture clearly, but it is clearly a turquoise-y color which doesn't seem quite right. I have just begun some kind of semi-cognitive is that the right picture process.
2.2 [11:40] I innerly see a browser window that contains a picture of three oil pumpjacks against an orange-y sunset. The browser window is only about 40% seen [that is, a narrower focus than in 2.1], and is seen to the left side of a black expanse [similar to 2.1]. The pumpjack picture is seen very clearly in detailed color and motion [much more clearly than the turquoise in 2.1.] [There had been a reason for seeing this image, but that is not present at the moment of the beep.]
2.3 [15:59] [I'm playing a computer game with my 5-year-old son. He has made a play that illustrates that he doesn't understand the game.] I feel a combination of frustration and a should-I-help supportiveness. This seems like one feeling with two aspects, and is experienced diffusely bodily—that is, it is not in any specific region of my body (stomach, heart) but it seems more correct to say it is bodily rather than mental or any other experiential mode.
2.4 [32:06] I 70% experience a tunnel-vision or cone-shaped region (where the large end of the cone is my face or the front of my head, and the small end is a portion of the replay portion of the game screen that I wish to inspect—the cone-shaped region feels almost physical but not quite, I feel almost as if I bodily lean into or tunnel into this region. [That is, this is much more than merely focusing on one aspect of the screen—the tunneling aspect has some directly apprehended quality.] I 20% see the screen. Simultaneously I 10% have a feeling of am I annoying the other player (by focusing too long on the replay and thus holding up the game). [This feeling is more mental or in my head than 2.3,] (like perhaps I have put words to it, even though I don't know what those words were).]
2.5 [44:55] [I'm sitting at my desk and I'm minorly considering whether to pick up my phone and look up a football score, and in doing so] I 40% innerly see my desk with all its stuff and the phone off to the left. [That is, I see in my imagination what my real eyes are seeing, but I recognize the experience as being imaginary.] [Furthermore, I do not experience myself as seeying my real desk with my real eyes, even though that stuff is doubtless falling on my retina.]
Simultaneously, I 60% innerly see the BBC Sports webpage (as my phone would display it). [I don't see the BBC masthead, etc.], (but I understand that it is the BBC site). I very clearly see the website-displayed picture of the current game, see two players bumping aggressively into each other, two players that I immediately recognize [I am a football nerd]. (However, even though the players are seen as recognized, I do not recognize them. That is, I see them clearly, and in seeing them I recognize them, but also in seeing I do not recognize them.) [This does not seem strange in the moment.]
Simultaneously there is a very faint feeling of should I check it (but I can't say how that presents itself).
2.6 [53:15] [I'm editing an article and finding the article disappointing. My eyeballs are aimed at a particular word (which had confirmed my disappointment) but I wasn't seeing it or registering it at this moment—the word and the article was entirely incidental.] At the moment of the beep I feel a cynicism/skepticism/disappointment (that if put into words would be something like is that right?!? Is it really?!?) and I innerly say (or ejaculate) hmmm! (which expresses or reflects that feeling). (The feeling seems bodily but not in any specific place in my body—that is, it does not seem mental.)
Pete 3 3/28/26 y Zoom
3.1 [0:19] [I'm at my computer and] innerly saying "scroll, scroll" in sync with my fingering the scroll button on my mouse. (This is a commentary-type speaking, not a command or instruction.) I experience the fingertip sensation of the scrolling perhaps more than the innerly speaking, but it seems like one action/speaking. There is also a sense of speed / rush; (this is not bodily and not mental, almost as if the rushedness is around me rather than in me). (I am also seeing the scrolling windows on the screen, but this is a very minor, if at all, part of this experience.)
3.2 [9:32] [A parcel has been delivered and I need to pick it up at the corner shop.] I am innerly speaking something to the effect that I need to pick up the parcel, but there are no words involved. That is, I experience myself as speaking, and I have some inchoate sense of what I am saying, even though I do not experience words being spoken. Simultaneously I experience myself as innerly seeing the shop, both its inside and its outside, but neither one seen at all. That is, I experience myself as seeing, and I understand myself to be seeing two aspects of the shop, even though I do not experience either one.
3.3 [19:22] [I am walking toward my office where I will write a review of a book on Artificial Intelligence.] I innerly speak "He does in paragraphs what others have struggled to do in books" in my naturally inflected inner voice. That is, except that there is no external sound or perceived action, I am speaking as if naturally speaking to another person.
Simultaneously, I am anticipating or at the beginning of some sort of cognitive examination of how man books on AI I have read, and what were they, and were they good—that is, I am in the beginning of examining whether the "what others have struggled to do in books" actually reflects what I think.
(My sense is that both these aspects are present at the moment of the beep, but the strength of the speaking had peaked slightly before the beep and is now waning, while the anticipatory examination was on the rise, as schematized in the figure.)
3.4 [32:10] I experience myself as at the transfer point between two experiences: (1) I innerly see myself pounding a chicken breast with a rolling pin, an experience in color and motion as if seeing myself actually doing that; and (2) I turn and externally see my cat Nicole while saying "Cat!" in the voice of my 2-year-old daughter [who calls Nicole Cat].
(My sense is that I am at the border between two experiences as schematized in the figure.)
3.5 [46:57] [I am reading in an AI book about reinforcement learning, and as I read] I illustrate with an inner seeing of a flowchart with red, yellow, and green squares / hexagons against a black background. The redness, yellowness, green-ness, and blackness are somehow a central aspect (or perhaps the central aspect) of this experience. I see this as if it is from a textbook—it seems professionally drawn in that way—and I inchoately see the legend (something like "Figure 1", but I don't see it clearly enough to read it. (There is no semantic detail in the seeing (that is, the blocks are not labeled.) (I understand that the flowchart does not actually represent what I am reading about.) (This seeing seems to occupy my entire visual field—there is no end to the blackness.)
3.6 [56:00] [I am reading in an AI book that is describing the work of Ray Kurzweil, and as I read] I innerly see a photo of Ray Kurzweil as if from a 1970s academic prospectus (a bit dated, a bit faded) (I see just Kurzweil, not the page around it). (I somehow understand that this is not a correct or recent photo.)
Pete 4
4/8/26
4.1 [0:15] [I had been thinking about the cartoon work of David Squires (a cartoonist that I like).] There are two strands of experience:
--I (sense myself as innerly seeing) Squires, as if in self-portrait—Squires drawn in the Squires style. This is an experience of seeing Squires, but the seen Squires is perhaps not actually seen. I sense myself to be seeing him drawn in his style, but I don't actually innerly see him
--I feel myself move my leg (around an object in my path) in a wooo! movement out and around. (This is mostly the experience of my leg moving in a swooping pattern, but there may also be some preverbal whoa! sense to this experience.)
(I experience this as the intersection of two experiences: The inner-seeing portion is currently more intense but is waning, whereas the leg portion is currently less intense but is waxing.
4.2 [13:51] Two strands in my experience:
--I innerly see a vibrating hand against a black background that filled my visual space. (The hand vibrates at perhaps 30hz, that is, faster than a tremor.) I (innerly) see this clearly.
--[I am looking out my window and] somehow registering the view. (This registering is somehow a deliberate noting or explicitizing the objects that I see—a tree, a window, a wall; but this is not a sequential noticing. That is, there is a this-and-this-and-this-ness of the seeing. This is not a cognitive or analytical noticing, but rather a specifying perceptual interest.
4.3 [26:09] Two strands:
--[I'm listening to a podcast, and] I have a sense of one of the podcast guests—a white man with brown hair, roughly my own age—but this is mostly a seeing without a thing seen.
--I feel some sense of kinship—like the guest and I have experienced roughly the same things. (Maybe this includes playing Sago games in the 90s, but that seems more like a post-hoc explanation rather than an at the moment of the beep experienced detail.
Pete 5
4/12/26
5.1 [0:23] [I was erasing a line in my notebook,] mostly focusing on the downward movement of the pencil eraser. This is a feeling of the movement, not a seeing of it, not an attention to the erasing. That is, I was somehow present in the movement of the end of the pencil.
Simultaneously I feel a very gentle emotion of was that a bad thing to have done? This was a diffuse bodily emotion (not specific like my heart sank, but somehow bodily anyway).
5.2 [9:37] [I was at my computer with a word document open, which display's my son's name.] I see the word "Elliot" on the computer screen, and simultaneous see it inside my forehead, as if the screen's "Elliot" had been projected and thereby expanded along a cone into being seen inside. (That experience is waning.)
Simultaneously I feel a physical shifting towards my right ear, where I am (beginning to hear) Elliot say "Can it say, can it say…" . Mostly this is a meta-experience of my physical focus shifting towards my physical ear (not merely a shift of attention, but of an aiming towards my ear). There is also some rising anticipation or awaiting how he is going to complete that sentence [it turns out to be "Pokemon"].
5.3 [25:22] [I am thinking about an article I will write about mass murderers.] There are three elements:
(1) I am innerly speaking "Anders Breivik, Anders Breivik" three or four times. [In reality it doubles happens very fast, bu tin my experience it is at normal speed.]
(2) I innerly see a skewed narrow strip of a screed or Internet manifesto posted by a mass murderer. This is a clear seeing, but I don't read the words. The strip is a surface of blackness, much like a redaction, that displays a portion of what I know to be an internet post (that is, the post is wider than what I can see of it). I see the blackness of the readacting cover—that is, the blackness is not merely background but a foreground element that blocks the view of the entire manifesto. This seeing is felt (experientially) to be in my head, front left, in the direction where I am actually looking.
(3) I feel some sense of frustration that the manifesto I am seeing/looking for is not by Anders Breivik—that is, there is conflict between what I am saying and what I am seeing/wanting. I feel that as a diffuse bodily it's not right. (This is not a cognition or analysis, but a feeling of it.)
5.4 [38:56] [My wife and I are talking about her father (Steve) who had visited and left a box on the microwave.] I have two simultaneous seeings, one imageless and the other clear and in motion:
(1) I see Steve without actually seeing Steve. I am clearly seeing, and I understand that way I am seeing is something like a standard portrait view of him, but I don't actually see that view. That is, this is an imageless seeing.
(2) I see Steve moving through the kitchen towards the microwave. This is a clear seeing where I see the elements of the kitchen and Steve moving through them, but Steve is seen more clearly or distinctly than the rest of the scene.
5.5 [48:33] [I am reading about Thomas Paine and his book Rights of Man.] I see the words "Rights of Man" on the computer screen and simultaneously innerly see it inside my forehead, as if projected through some cone-like region between the screen and my head. This is two separate, simultaneous seeings of the same words—the inner words are bigger but otherwise in the same font, etc..
Simultaneously I innerly see the car park in Lewes where I had once parked in the town that was important in Paine's history. I see it clearly (and in color), as from an elevated position above the corner of the car park looking out onto the car park.
5.6 [59:43] [I'm at my computer. My eyeballs are aimed at the left side of my wide monitor, where I have been reading. But I have a football (soccer) match playing on the right side, and the announcer has just said the name of a player that I like, "Archie Gray."] At the moment of the beep I feel my physical attention shift to my right ear. (That is, this is a meta-experience, noticing my attention shifting, not merely the shifting of attention. Furthermore, this is to my physical ear, not merely a metaphorical focus on what I am hearing.
Pete 6 4/26/26
[The beeper headphone wire is apparently broken, so Pete accumulated only five samples.]
6.1 [0:12] [I was looking at an email.] There are two strands of experience:
--I am very present in my eyes (as I see the email). This is experienced as being attentionally present in my physical eyes (that is, the eye-ness is not merely a metaphor for seeing), but it does not feel like a physical sensation in the eyes. I also see the words that my eyes are aimed at; I see this as semantically meaningful text, but I am not reading it at the moment of the beep.
--I innerly see "Jack" (who sent the email); I see mostly his face inside a more-or-less circular region, (but I understand this to be in a rectangular Zoom window, although I don't see the rectangle). I see him just as I did a few days earlier on an actual Zoom call. (I experience this seeing as being in the front of my cranium.)
6.2 [16:42] [On the screen was the cover of an (older) book by Lucy Hughes-Hallett.] I have two strands of experience:
--I am innerly saying "Lucy Hughes-Hallett" in a sing-songy way, enjoying the pleasant sound of her name. Also, I feel or almost feel that in my throat and tongue, as if my mouth is about to say "Lucy Hughes-Hallett"outerly [which it doesn't].
--I innerly see the cover of her latest book [which is about the Duke of Buckingham]. I see it both clearly and indistinctly—I clearly see the title (including the word "Buckingham") and the yellow letters and an old-timey image of the Duke. [I see it clearly enough that later I check to find that the title is not Buckingham but is The Scapegoat. It is not that the cover is blurry, and not that the cover is not seen; it is somewhere in between: I see the cover clearly but also not completely articulated. I experience my seeing as being clear, but I don't fully see the object.]
6.3 [25:59] [I'm at my computer working, and my son is behind me. He has asked something like why I have several pens, and at the beep I am in the act of responding something like "Because they come in packs". But my experience is not of speaking those words or of answering that question. It is difficult for Pete to describe this aspect of his experience—it is such a "plain" experience.] There are two strands of experience:
--I am monitoring, or supervising, or parenting, or interacting with my son. [None of those words convey the "plainness" of this experience. This is not experienced as a speaking-to my son, although that is in fact the behavior that is taking place.]
--I am becoming aware of the shades of black, from orange-y black to purple-y black. This is an experience of seeing without seeing, of my creating some sort of downward movement of shades of black, more-or-less as if I am scrolling through them. I have a sense of agency in the movement—I am making it happen—but not a particular sense of how that happens (I do not experience a literal scrolling, for example). That is, I feel myself to be downwardly presenting to myself a series of shades of black, but I don't actually (including innerly) see those shades. (This seems to be an increased realization of this variety of blacknesses.)
6.4 [41:24] [I was plugging the headphone plug into the beeper jack.] There are two strands to my experience:
--I am present in my fingers, expecting the click of the plug as the detent spring engages the groove of the plug. (This expecting is not cognitive—it is my fingers awaiting that click.)
--I feel a warm satisfaction about the long-term reliability of old technology. I feel this mostly in the back of my head, possibly a rising upwards toward the back of my head.
6.5 [53:24] Two strands:
--I see without seeing a football match between Chelsea and Leeds. This is a visual experience without experiencing the thing seen—I am seeing this match, but I don't see the match itself. Somehow I see a team wearing blue playing against a team wearing white, but I don't see (innerly or at all) anything, either blue or white.
--I innerly see the Leeds bench players, somehow ready for me to move them to the pitch. I innerly see the list of Leeds substitute players as it had been displayed on the screen; this seeing is clear but the names are not semantically realized. My experience is of seeing the players ready to be moved to the pitch, not names in the bottom list ready to be moved to the upper list.
Pete comments from chat gpt
Day 1
[0:00]: Russ clarifies that his inserted comments are provisional, interpretive, and open to disagreement or revision.
[8:23]: Russ notes that Pete's willingness to report an embarrassing thought suggests openness and likely honesty.
[16:51]: Russ suggests Pete may be inferring the presence of words rather than directly experiencing them, emphasizing uncertainty.
[32:48]: Russ explains that being "unconvinced" means neither believing nor disbelieving, but aiming for clearer, convincing descriptions.
[33:13]: Russ identifies the exchange as a good illustration of the core DES process and emphasizes that confidence should stem from Pete's own clarity.
[34:03]: Russ interprets Pete's pause as active effort to describe experience accurately, viewing it as positive engagement.
[36:38]: Russ senses possible unease in Pete when describing simultaneous images and notes the need to address it.
[37:52]: Russ explicitly acknowledges noticing Pete's earlier unease and the need to improve mutual understanding.
[45:57]: Russ observes that Pete is doing a good job describing a difficult "there-but-not-there" experiential state.
[53:36]: Russ explains he is encouraging important distinctions but remains unconvinced due to first-day limits, emphasizing iterative skill-building.
Day 2
[0:00]: Russ clarifies that his inserted comments are provisional, interpretive, and open to disagreement or revision.
[11:40]: Russ notes that precise technical terminology (e.g., "pumpjacks" vs "derricks") is not important as long as mutual understanding is achieved.
[13:55]: Russ interprets Pete's confident distinction between seeing a webpage and seeing an image as evidence that Pete is apprehending experience rather than fabricating it.
[16:01]: Russ suggests Pete's difficulty reflects uncertainty about what counts as "inner experience" in DES.
[30:02]: Russ emphasizes that iterative practice is necessary for achieving faithful descriptions of experience.
[42:43]: Russ observes that Pete is learning to make finer distinctions about his experience, which is central to the iterative DES method.
[47:11]: Russ highlights that inner seeing can violate real-world perceptual rules (e.g., recognizing specific individuals without identifying them), and stresses the importance of bracketing such assumptions.
[52:35]: Russ notes that having multiple simultaneous inner seeings in the same visual space is not problematic, despite being impossible in external perception.
[58:42]: Russ remarks that his summary omitted the fact that the "hmmm" was an inner (not external) vocalization.
Day 3
[0:00]: Russ reiterates that his inserted comments are provisional interpretations, open to revision, disagreement, or correction by Pete.
[9:32]: Russ explains that describing "spoken thoughts without words" reflects the need to bracket the natural attitude (epoché), since experiential phenomena do not follow external-world rules.
[10:44]: Russ notes approvingly that Pete is confidently describing seemingly impossible experiences, indicating progress in bracketing assumptions.
[13:14]: Russ again highlights Pete's confidence in describing experiences that violate ordinary expectations.
[13:51]: Russ explains that his "lecture" is meant to support Pete in bracketing presuppositions about inner experience (epoché).
[16:48]: Russ praises Pete's ability to bracket the natural attitude and describe experiential phenomena that would be impossible in the real world.
[18:44]: Russ reflects that people are often mistaken about their own inner experience, and notes that Pete's assumptions are beginning to break down through DES; he attributes this to non-confrontational guidance and careful joint inquiry.
[19:51]: Russ continues his explanation about separating aspects of inner experience (speaking vs. words), reinforcing the need to bracket natural assumptions.
[20:23]: Russ explicitly emphasizes that he is not imposing interpretations, but allowing Pete's experience to emerge—reinforcing the non-confrontational method.
[20:48]: Russ clarifies that DES samples need not be brief; experiences can be temporally extended even though the beep marks a moment.
[23:33]: Russ argues that Pete's report of unworded thinking is credible evidence of accurate introspection, noting its consistency, specificity, and conflict with Pete's prior assumptions.
[29:50]: Russ continues the lecture on bracketing the natural attitude, explaining how temporally compressed inner speech can still feel normally paced.
[38:49]: Russ observes that Pete's current difficulty is not about identifying experience but about articulating unusual experiential categories, indicating substantial progress.
[53:34]: Russ identifies Pete's focus on colors as an example of "sensory awareness," where sensory qualities themselves become the primary object of attention.
[57:54]: Russ notes that Pete clearly distinguishes between what is directly experienced and what is merely known about the experience.
Day 4
[0:00]: Russ reiterates that his inserted comments are provisional, interpretive, and open to revision, disagreement, or correction.
[0:33]: Russ notes that audio glitches in the recording make it difficult to hear clearly and easy to talk over each other.
[32:30]: Russ highlights that Pete has carefully described an experience that seems impossible in the natural world—clearly seeing without anything actually being seen—illustrating that experiential phenomena do not follow natural-world rules.
[38:43]: Russ clarifies that he has not articulated things well, and refines the key phenomena: seeing without something seen, speaking without words spoken, and recalling without specific events recalled; he notes these are often assumed impossible but are likely common and require careful methods like DES to observe.
Day 5
[0:00]: Russ reiterates that his inserted comments are provisional, interpretive, and open to disagreement, revision, or correction.
[2:46]: Russ notes that he slightly misstates Pete's description, correcting "did I do the right thing?" to Pete's actual phrasing: "was that a bad thing to have done?"
[5:15]: Russ comments on Pete's use of the word "thought," explaining that in DES contexts it often refers broadly to salient inner experience (e.g., imagery, feeling, sensation) rather than strictly cognitive or analytical thinking, and suggests Pete likely does not mean a cognitive/analytical process here.
Day 6
[0:00]: Russ reiterates that his inserted comments are provisional, interpretive, and open to revision, disagreement, or correction.
[0:00]: Russ notes that due to a broken earphone wire, Pete obtained only five samples for this session.
[9:58]: Russ clarifies that the experience of "eye-ness" is neither a literal physical sensation nor merely metaphorical, but an intermediate phenomenon where attention is directed to the physical eyes without sensory qualities like pressure or itch.
[18:38]: Russ explains that Pete's description of a visual experience as both "vague" and "clear" reflects the difficulty of describing phenomena that do not follow the rules of external perception, and suggests that clarity may be present without attentional engagement.
[31:03]: Russ notes that he may have misunderstood Pete's description of agency in the "scrolling" experience.
[31:54]: Russ again acknowledges not fully grasping the importance of the agency Pete describes in the scrolling phenomenon.
[34:08]: Russ comments on the ambiguity of scrolling direction, noting that moving a scrollbar downward results in the text moving upward, which contributes to experiential confusion.
[39:59]: Russ highlights that describing behavior (e.g., "I said to my son…") differs from describing experience, emphasizing the DES goal of capturing lived experience rather than external actions (an example of epoché).
[52:27]: Russ reflects that Pete's experiences of "locus of attention" (eyes, ears, fingers) may be more similar than Pete perceives, and contrasts this with his own experience of not locating attention in body parts; he emphasizes that DES aims to faithfully describe Pete's experience rather than compare it to others.
[55:55]: Russ notes his initial misunderstanding, thinking Pete saw players rather than a list of names on the substitutes graphic.
[56:53]: Russ explains that Pete's experience of seeing something visually clear but semantically indeterminate (clear yet unreadable names) is difficult to represent in the real world and differs from blur or nonsense.
[1:01:44]: Russ summarizes that Pete experiences a clear but semantically undifferentiated visual list that simultaneously represents players rather than names, highlighting a "doubly abstracted" form of seeing without meta-awareness.