Russell T. Hurlburt and Amber Goto
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Tristan sought out participation in DES because he has constant debilitating pain in his head and elsewhere in his body. Spoiler alert: Pain was not present in most of Tristan's samples, leading us to speculate about the nature of Tristan's pain. ...
Tristan was introduced to DES by his brother Julian Bass-Krueger, who is the co-interviewer in Parts X and XI of this series of videos. Julian, who had learned about DES from reading Russ's writings, thought that participating in DES might help Tristan's pain, and so had, several years earlier, conducted his own version of DES sampling with Tristan as a participant. Part X had revealed that that Julian's version of DES was substantially different from the DES that Russ recommended, and Julian suggested in an email to Russ that Julian and Russ have another go at conducting DES with Tristan.
Here is Russ's reply:
Hi Julian--
RE "I'd like to start DES with my brother. My primary motivation there is that I think it could help him."
I think, as do most if not all ethics codes, that dual or multiple relationships are often problematic. Therefore I think it is risky for a person to be involved in the treatment of a family member—that's why psychotherapists decline to treat their family members—so your motivation to help suggests that you should not be involved in DES with your brother.
I think it is a dilemma to promote DES as a helping tool. It is indeed the case that many people who participate in DES find it helpful and/or therapeutic, but that may be a byproduct of the DES pure intention to be forthright about inner experience. By contrast, when the intention is to help someone, then one loses (or at least may lose) that pure intention to be forthright.
So I have to decline to be a part of the sampling that you suggest.
However, if you would like to suggest to your brother that he get in contact with me, I would be happy to talk with him. You should feel free to talk to your brother about whatever you wish, including characterizing me and DES in whatever way you like. But then if he decides to contact me, that should be between him and me, and if I/he thinks that we have the dual relationship issues under control, then he and I might decide to engage in DES. But that has to be between him and me.
--Russ
Tristan did contact me a few months later. He said he had been participating in orthodox psychoanalysis for several years and believed DES might provide a different view. He said he understood that DES was not a treatment and appreciated Russ's position on that front.
In sum, we agreed that we would undertake DES and that his brother would not be a part of it.
The interviews were conducted by Russ Hurlburt and Amber Goto.
This is the initial meeting between Tristan and Russ. They sketch out the possibilities of their meetings....
The conversation was not scripted, and so wandered around the topics of interest. They introduced themselves and their interests in the procedure.
Tristan's interest: He said he believed that he had constant pain in his head. He said that his brother had tried something like DES with him, and the procedure had not discovered thoughts about pain. However, Tristan believed that his brother's procedure had been flawed, that if he had been asked the right questions, the pain would have been evident.
Russ's interest: He said he thought that people were very different from each other, that that was under-appreciated, and that to provide instances of differences he might want to put sampling with Tristan on this website. However, Tristan had absolute control over that.
They agreed that Russ will send Tristan a beeper, and that eventually Russ and a graduate student will interview Tristan about his beeped experiences. Other than that, the details will need to be worked out.
Here, for reference, is a rough outline of topics covered:
[4:42]: Privacy
[13:32]: Procedure
[16:21]: Overall aim, and Tristan describes his pain
Because of difficulties in operating the beeper, Tristan collected only one sample. But that is adequate to get the iterative process started....
In general—sampling day 1: All DES interviews are some combination of iterative training (so that future sampling days can be more skillful) and description of experience. The aim of the first sampling interview (or the first several sampling interviews) is almost entirely iterative training. First-day sampling interviews appear to be inquiries into experience, but their fundamental aim is to facilitate discussions of how to apprehend inner experience with fidelity. DES recognizes that participants on their first sampling day are not skillful, so DES routinely discards first-day descriptions.
Tristan's samples:
Sample 1.1 [3:19]:[Tristan was a sentence containing the word "educators" that he had previously typed on his computer.] At the moment of the beep Tristan (perhaps) innerly said "educators." [Tristan seemed confident that this experience was of producing the word "educators" rather than passively hearing it. At the same time, Tristan felt an anxiety-provoking wrongness (that somehow what he had written is not right), a (perhaps) bodily feeling.
Sample 2.1 is our first brush with the phenomenon that we will later call latching onto. Here we call it "picking out the word." He also experience a bodily anxiety, which will turn out to be a frequent phenomenon....
In general—sampling day 2: All DES interviews are some combination of iterative training (so that future sampling days can be more skillful) and description of experience. The aim of the second sampling interview is a combination of experience description and iterative training.
Tristan's samples:
Sample 2.1 [2:38]: [Tristan was typing the phrase "All we imagine is light."] At the moment of the beep, Tristan innerly said "imagine". (Tristan innerly said "imagine" without any particular inflection. Tristan's inner speaking was of saying the word "imagine" not of hearing it.) At the same time, he (perhaps) felt a sense of urgency to get what he's writing right, (perhaps) a bodily feeling. [At the time of the expositional interview, Tristan was unsure whether the bodily feeling was localized somewhere in particular.] He also heard a jazz guitar line [playing from speakers in his room] and somehow cognized that the guitar line was intricate. [Tristan's inner speaking was the most salient in his experience. Followed by the sense of urgency, then hearing and cognizing about the jazz guitar line.]
Sample 2.2 [19:40]: [Tristan was reading a sentence that contained the word "it-itself."] At the moment of the beep, Tristan (60%) thought there was something he needed to get done. This thinking was present in Tristan's experience as both a cognitive thought and a bodily anxiety. Tristan was not sure what specifically the something was that needed to get done, but he was confident that it was a specific something. [Similar to beep 2.1] Tristan was not sure if the bodily anxiety was localized to any specific part of his body. At the same time, he (40%) innerly said/heard (a mix between the two, or something that was not quite either one) "it-itself." [Tristan described the "it-itself" phenomenon as somewhere between inner speaking and inner hearing.]
Sample 2.3 [37:57]: [Tristan was reading with comprehension.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan innerly said/heard "defensive." (Tristan described "defensive" as being clearly presented to himself, but how that word was presented was somewhat inchoately between inner speaking and inner hearing, or perhaps some way other than speaking or hearing.) At the same time, he felt annoyed/anxiety pressure to respond. (Tristan described this feeling as mental and bodily, but there was no specific region of the body involved])
In general—sampling day 3: All DES interviews are some combination of iterative training (so that future sampling days can be more skillful) and description of experience. The aim of the third sampling interview is a combination of experience description and iterative training.
Tristan's samples:
Sample 3.1 [2:05]: [Tristan was listening to his friend Danielle talking.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan (40%) felt anxious, was noticing that Danielle is using a lot of words, he was trying to keep up, and was figuring out what he is going to say. All those were separable experiences within the (40%) listening to Danielle—that is, there was some experienced cognitive / analytical processing simultaneous with the feeling (Tristan described this feeling as bodily and mental, but there was no specific region of the body involved). At the same time, Tristan (30%) was listening with comprehension to Danielle. [Tristan was unsure if his comprehension involved his having something to say and keeping track of Danielle's words to generate a response.] At the same time, Tristan (30%) innerly saw his friend Eiko dancing. He saw mostly her white dress; the remaining details were not articulated At the same time he externally saw Danielle. [RTH was skeptical about this, and it was not included in the original 40-30-30 characterization.]
Sample 3.2 [23:48]: [Tristan was listening to his friend Emily talking.] At the moment of the beep, he (40%) was particularly focused on his fries and gravy, as if they particularly stood out to him. (That is, this standing out was more prominent that merely making the fries and gravy the center of his attention, more prominent that a mere figure against the ground of perception.) At the same time, he (30%) heard "the last." (Tristan was particularizing the words "the last" and had somehow latched onto these words. That is, Tristan was not merely hearing a sentence with comprehension, but was actively, experientially latching on to a word, and then actively, experientially latching on to another word, and then actively, experientially latching on to another word that happened to be "the last.") [This seems to be an instance of what Hurlburt has called the doing of understanding.] At the same time he (30%) felt a need to respond, a what should I say next mostly cognitive apprehension without words.
Sample 3.3 [44:57]:[Tristan was driving while Emily was telling him about a news article pertaining to a gas leak that killed a bunch of furries.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan (60%) innerly saw several (more than 2, but less than 20) dead furries lying on the ground. Tristan also saw a pipe, though the location of the pipe was not seen (that is, he saw but didn't see the pipe). At the same time, Tristan (40%) saw a stop light and (perhaps) understood himself as cognitively registering the need to stop and feeling himself putting on the brakes. [Tristan was unsure of braking was an automatic response to having seen the stoplight or if the braking was present directly in the footlights of his consciousness. Though, if it was experienced, it was much less than prominent than seeing the stoplight.] At the same time, Tristan was hearing with comprehension Emily talking. [Unlike sample 3.2, this hearing did not involve latching on to particular words.]
There are more examples of latching onto, and the first sample that involves pain....
In general—sampling day 4: All DES interviews are some combination of iterative training (so that future sampling days can be more skillful) and description of experience. The aim of the fourth sampling interview is a combination of experience description and iterative training.
Tristan's samples:
Sample 4.1 [1:21]: [Tristan was watching a movie and one of the characters said "what do you mean, wrong?"] At the moment of the beep, Tristan innerly heard "what do you mean wrong?" That is, Tristan was particularizing "what do you mean, wrong?" and continuing to hear it moments after the character had said it. At the same time, Tristan felt anxiety, a mental feeling apparently related to an idea for a paper he was planning to write for a class. At the same time, Tristan both externally saw the movie and innerly saw a classroom where he was presenting the results of the paper he was planning. (Tristan understood himself to be innerly seeing a familiar classroom at the moment of the beep, but he was not sure about how much of the classroom he saw, or whether he innerly saw himself or simply knew that this was him speaking.) [He was unable to describe more specific details about what he saw.]
Sample 4.2 [16:47]: [Tristan was talking to his friend Emily. Before the beep, Emily had said "I don't want someone to lick my crack."] At the moment of the beep, was somehow keeping in mind the sentence "I don't want someone to lick my crack." He was confident that this sentence was somehow kept actively in the footlights of consciousness (but he was unsure of how that was experienced. Perhaps it had some auditory quality, [but it was not inner hearing as in 4.1]). At the same time Tristan innerly saw a (female) crack being licked (which seemed to be somewhere between a clear seeing and a seeing of some outline-y characteristics, which did not include the tongue doing the licking) and felt an icky/clammy-ness (of the crack). Simultaneously he saw (a real seeing before the footlights) Emily. At the same time, Tristan was focused on the sound of his voice as he responded "Don't knock it till," to Emily. (When the beep occurred, he may have been focused on the sound of his voice articulating the words (but was not particularizing any words or a specific phrase like in beep 4.1). [RTH is skeptical about this being a hearing experience, thinking that the interview was not adequate.]
Sample 4.3 [45:07]: At the moment of the beep Tristan innerly saw a female crack being licked. [This is apparently the same seeing as the inner seeing from sample 4.2.] At the same time, Tristan innerly saw Emily's genitalia, particularly the butt hole) in color and some (but not complete) detail. At the same time, Tristan felt anxiety that seemed to be linked to whether he should talk about the sample 4.2 experience in tomorrow's (that is, today's) sampling meeting. The anxiety included feeling bodily ache/pain deep in his mid-section. (It is possible that the stomachache was a separable sensory pain and as well as being a part of the anxiety; that was the focus of some iterative exploration.)
In general—sampling day 5: All DES interviews are some combination of iterative training (so that future sampling days can be more skillful) and description of experience. The aim of the fifth sampling interview is a combination of experience description and iterative training.
Tristan's samples:
Sample 5.1 [0:51]: At the moment of the beep, Tristan (60%) latched onto the words "significant event" and was somehow innerly articulating these words (they seemed to have inner speaking characteristics: he experienced himself as the producer; they unfolded over time, and so on, but they didn't seem to have a voice. It was definitely *not* a hearing phenomenon). Tristan was also (perhaps) reading with comprehension the phrase "our most significant event" [though during the expositional interview was unsure if this was directly apprehended at the moment of the beep.] At the same time, Tristan (40%) felt anxiety and (perhaps) a bodily pain in his stomach. (This emotional anxiety and stomach pain were somehow linked to each other, though they were mostly two separate phenomena. We spent perhaps a half hour trying to disentangle this. There was a directly apprehended anxiety; there was a directly apprehended stomachache; the stomachache seemed both a sensory experience and a part of the anxiety.) [We acknowledged that we were not (yet) very good at apprehending or describing this experience.]
Sample 5.2 [30:21]: [Tristan was reading something that included the words "won't be."] At the moment of the beep, Tristan (40%) latched onto an innerly articulated "won't be" (with apparently the same speaking quality as beep 5.1). At the same time, Tristan anxiously thought about the logistics of booking a hotel. This thought was present without words or images. (Tristan described his anxiety and thought about the hotel as separate but linked experiences that he could not disentangle, with the anxiety and the thinking about the hotel, each occupying 25% (RTH thinks that makes the anxiety and the thinking too discretely separate) of this experience at the moment of the beep.) At the same time, Tristan (10%) felt a pain in his chest/head that he understands to be part of the anxiety (the same link as he described in 5.1). [As a fact of the universe, Tristan understood himself to have pain throughout his body, but at the moment of the beep, he directly apprehended only the pain in his chest/head.]
Sample 5.3 [50:52]: [Tristan was reading something that included the words "just in case."] At the moment of the beep, Tristan innerly articulated "just in case" (with a speaking quality as described in 5.1 and 5.2) (but this was *not* a latching onto as we have described previously). At the same time, Tristan felt anxiety (manifesting itself as mental/emotional and perhaps bodily pain [RTH was not sure about this—he will check the transcript]) and thought about things going wrong and scheduling (with both anxious and cognitive aspects.) (Tristan's mental/emotional anxiety experience was more salient in his experience and separable from the bodily manifestations of his experience—or perhaps the bodily aspect was not at all present.)
Latching onto and diffuse bodily anxiety continues, and there is an instance of pain....
In general—sampling day 6: All DES interviews are some combination of iterative training (so that future sampling days can be more skillful) and description of experience. The aim of the sixth sampling interview is a combination of experience description and iterative training.
Tristan's samples:
Sample 6.1 [1:23]: [Tristan was looking at a lamp on Amazon.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan (60%) thought that the design and gold color (of the lamp) was good, a cognitive/analytical process without words or images, (and was not sensory awareness or feeling). At the same time, Tristan (20%) was wondering how much the lamp cost, a cognitive process without words or images. (The two cognitive processes were, experientially, the same, but were apprehended as separate cognitive processes.) At the same time, Tristan (20%) felt an internal bodily pain in his stomach and an internal and external I have to poop bodily sensation in his anus/colon region below the stomach—two separate sensory experiences.
Sample 6.2 [13:44]: [He was reviewing what to say about the previous sample.] At the moment of the beep the word "gold" was present in Tristan's experience (50%), not spoken, heard, or seen. [This was apparently part of an analytical process that was trying to figure out whether that was the best word, but that process was not directly apprehended at the moment of the beep.]. At the same time, Tristan (50%) felt anxious, both a cognitive and affective process, apparently an indefinite mix of trying to figure out the word that was present in his experience at the moment of the beep, whether there had been a word present in his experience at all was "gold" the right word, and so on (a cognitive process) and felt anxiety. This seemed bodily, but not a specific region; if it was bodily, it was a diffuse, throughout-the-body anxiety that could not be localized to one specific region. [RTH was skeptical about whether the bodily aspect was experienced; perhaps the anxiety was more the swirl of cognitions that bodily. He has no confidence about this—perhaps the iterative process will illuminate it.]
Sample 6.3 [33:12]: [Tristan was reading with comprehension.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan (33%) was reading a sentence and was interrupted by the beep while reading the words "shows how." (The words "shows how" were present in Tristan's experience, but did not have a spoken or heard quality to them.) (This was a panel-1 experience (see 5.1): a smooth-taking-in until interrupted by the beep at "shows how.") At the same time, Tristan (33%) felt anxiety, experienced cognitively (how much I have to read, experienced without words or images) and as a feeling (diffusely throughout the body [perhaps the same diffuse bodily sensation present in beep 6.2, but RTH has the same skepticism about it]). At the same time, Tristan (33%) was flipping the pages back and forth, experienced as a diffusely cognitive I've got a lot to read; I'm flipping back and forth; I should read this; whatever. [As a fact of the universe, Tristan has his fingers between two sections of the book he was reading and was still holding on to the pages but the pages were not moving at the moment of the beep.]
Sample 6.4 [46:33]: [Tristan was reading while on the toilet.] At the moment of the beep Tristan (40%) saw the word "resoluteness" and somehow particularized this word without a spoken or heard quality. [This particularizing seemed to be more than smoothly reading (panel 1 of 5.1) but less than a distinct saltatory latching on to (panel 2 of 5.1)—it is more than merely the beep happens to catch him reading the word.] At the same time, Tristan (40%) Tristan was thinking a semi-defined collection of thoughts: the reading was useless, the reading won't answer my question, I'd be better off reading cognitive science, this is not worth the effort. Which of those thoughts was present at the moment of the beep was hard to say. Taken together, they either were the experience of anxiety or were related to or part of the anxiety. Secondary to this thought process, was a diffuse throughout the body anxiety (RTH thinks we should be open to the possibility that the experienced bodily aspect is presuppositional.). At the same time, Tristan felt coldness/wetness on his anus, an external bodily sensation on his skin (part of the toileting).
Tristan's experience continues to be complex and diffuse....
In general—sampling day 7: All DES interviews are some combination of iterative training (so that future sampling days can be more skillful) and description of experience. The aim of the seventh sampling interview is a combination of experience description and iterative training.
Tristan's samples:
Sample 7.1 [0:35]: [Tristan was on Reddit and was about to click on the soccer subreddit.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan visually recognized the icon (of the soccer subreddit) and the word "Soccer" (recognized as itself something like an icon—as a clickable object more than as a semantically meaningful world) with an emotional anticipation of pleasure (to click on the subreddit link). [Tristan was unable to disentangle whether the anticipation of pleasure was part of the visual recognition experience or entirely separate at the moment of the beep. That is, no doubt these experiences were driven by the same context but Tristan was unable to tell if these were separate phenomena present in his experience at the moment of the beep.] At the same time, Tristan thought a series of unverbal worries about an upcoming film screening: did I get the time right? Is it going to get messed up? Is she not competent? These either were or caused a diffusely bodily anxiety/frustration (at the person he was texting). (By "diffuse bodily" Tristan means that it is somehow experienced as bodily but not as being in any particular bodily location.)
Sample 7.2 [13:58]: [Tristan was reading something he had written and was thinking about what to write next—how to revise it.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan was anxiously trying to summon the right words (to write next) without words or images. That is, Tristan does not yet have the words in his experience but is somehow trying to grab them. Tristan's "anxiously" referred to a diffuse bodily anxiety. [Tristan was unsure if anxiety was a separate experience or was just an aspect of the summoning of the words. By "diffuse bodily," Tristan means that it is somehow experienced as bodily but not as being in any particular bodily location.] At the same time, the phrase "assuming a body" was present in his experience (and was not spoken or heard). At the same time, Tristan visually recognized with comprehension the word "interoception" (without spoken or heard qualities). [The experience of "interoception" is somewhat different from the experience of "Soccer" of sample 7.1 in that "interoception" was understood as part of a comprehension whereas "Soccer," while understood as a semantically relevant word, was more grasped in its point-to icon-ness function.]
Sample 7.3 [28:11]: [Tristan was playing chess.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan saw and recognized his chess position (on the screen). At the same time, he (vaguely, incompletely, inchoately) innerly saw various chess positions to defend his back rank. That is, he was in the process of cycling through (or seeing simultaneously or overlappingly) inchoate inner seeings of different chess moves he could make to defend his back rank which may have involved moving his knight from one square to another. (Which of these inner seeings was present at the moment of the beep is hard to say. Also, it is hard to say the extent, if any, to which this is actually visually innerly seeing. For example, he says he sees the knight "moving," but he can't say whether he sees any motion; he sometimes says the innerly seen knight is the icon, but sometimes says it is a partial icon; sometimes he says he sees the rook he is taking but sometimes not.) Perhaps these various inchoate inner seeings were tied to a more cognitive but also emotional anxiety that none of the moves are good options. [Tristan was unable to distinguish whether his anxiety was experienced as part of the inner seeings or a separate phenomenon at the moment of the beep.]
Sample 8.1 [0:44]: [During this beep, we had some technical difficulties with Zoom. It was difficult for us to clarify faithfully everything (or perhaps anything) that was in Tristan's experience at the moment of this beep.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan was (perhaps) happily thinking that a sentence he had written was vivacious / good; this thinking was without words or images. At the same time, Tristan was (perhaps) feeling a bodily contentness. [Tristan described this bodily contentness as a sensation he experiences after taking his pain medication.] At the same time, he was (perhaps) hearing music (that was playing in the background).
Sample 8.2 [18:41]: [Tristan was walking across his kitchen to get a potato peeler out of the drawer.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan felt a bodily anticipation of getting the potato peeler; this was not merely a sensation of his body but rather some bodily anticipation or preparation for the getting the peeler. At the same time, and perhaps part of the bodily anticipation, was some kind of thought or mental anticipation or preparation to get the potato peeler (without words or images). At the same time, he heard music (that was playing in the background). At the same time, he was anxiously thinking about the beeper not working, about not having enough beeps, that everything is going wrong, about everything that needs to be done in the kitchen (all this was hard to describe, but did not involve words or images). Tristan also felt a diffuse bodily anxiety [but it was difficult to say whether the swirl of thoughts was related to or was the anxiety].
Sample 8.3 [38:01]: At the moment of the beep, Tristan was concentrated on filling his potato dish, a bodily concentration and thinking about the process of arranging these particular potatoes into those specific gaps, a mental / analytical (like which potato goes into which gap?) (or mental and bodily) process without words or images. [This is similar to the bodily anticipation of sample 8.2.] At the same time, Tristan is hearing with comprehension his parents' fussing-with-each-other conversation (in the next room). At the same time, Tristan felt a mental anxiety or perhaps an anticipation of anxiety –his parents' fussing with each other (like many other things they do) might be frustrating. (This was not a catalog of what they do that is frustrating, but that something of a recognition that many things they do are frustrating.)
Complexity, diffuseness, and anxiety continue. There is also an instance of pain, which is the last pain sample....
Tristan's samples:
Sample 9.1 [1:09]: At the moment of the beep, Tristan (40%) had an array of anxious separable thoughts without words or images. That is, if these thoughts were put into words, they would be something like I don't have anything interesting to share, how would I describe listening to the podcast if the beep went off, and what if it is embarrassing because I have to poop (that is, all the thoughts were related to some problems with the DES procedure).These thoughts occurred in a way that seemed both successive and simultaneous, though it was not possible Tristan to be specific in what order these thoughts were present in Tristan's experience at the moment of the beep. The figure schematizes that one thought starts, lasts for a while and then slowly wanes; during that time another thought starts and relatively soon stops; but during that time another thought starts slowly and lasts a while; and so on. The beep comes somewhere in there. At the same time, Tristan (30%) was slightly attending to an ongoing podcast but simultaneously noticing that he was not fully attending to that podcast (this second part was therefore a meta-awareness experience). At the same time, Tristan (30%) felt a bodily pain inside his stomach.
Sample 9.2 [16:17]: At the moment of the beep, Tristan had an array of anxious thoughts about sending an email with the wrong picture size, how he could shrink the image, did he have to convert the image, should he ask his brother to help. These thoughts occurred without words or images and in some type of succession / simultaneity and hard to specify order [this simultaneity of thoughts was very similar to 9.1]. At the same time, the words "make picture" were present in Tristan's experience. (Tristan understood that this was part of the process of thinking make picture smaller, but somehow the two words "make picture" (and not the word "smaller") were prominent at the moment of the beep. These words were present but were not spoken, heard, or seen. At the same time, Tristan experienced a bunch of words going by [from the podcast that was playing, but he was not attending to these words]. (This seemed more a stream of words than a worded arc of meaning.) At the same time, Tristan had a diffuse visualization of a search bar and download PDF button [there was reason to be skeptical about how visual this "visualization" was].
Sample 9.3 [31:50]: [Tristan's friend Emily was speaking to him. She had said something like I don't have a strong desire to go to the movies.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan (50%) latched on to the phrase "strong desire"—made those words more prominent--while comprehending what Emily said. At the same time, Tristan (50%) had overlapping anxious thoughts without words or images about whether it is worth it to go to the movies alone if no one will go with him (a process similar to those in 9.1 and 9.2). See figure at right.
Sample 9.4 [38:03]: [Tristan was reading with comprehension a text about cognition / philosophy—we didn't specify exactly.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan was thinking anxious thoughts (an experienced process similar to those in 9.1, 9.2, and 9.3) about the convoluted style of writing, thoughts in the ballpark of: The academic style is so convoluted; do I want to write like this? Can I write like this? Do I want to be an academic like this? Do I want this to be my area of expertise? There was a diffuse visual or spatial [RTH was skeptical about the degree to which the visualizing / spatializing was metaphorical] element of this—as if something was seen to be emerging out of something diffuse. (Tristan could not quite apprehend the visual element enough to describe it during the expositional interview). [This thinking had a meta-awareness element that involved thinking about his thoughts about the text.] At the same time, Tristan felt a slight bodily pressure/stuffiness in his nose (like he was about to sneeze). At the same time, Tristan was reading [without a meta-awareness of reading.]
Sample 10.1 [0:27]: [Tristan was swiping through Tinder; he was about to swipe on the pic of a woman.] At the moment of the beep, had four separable experiences. None of them was a clearly focused experiential event. First (perhaps 60%), Tristan was somehow analytically and emotionally evaluating the woman's picture, cognizing (without words or images) and affectively recognizing that she was attractive; and that she was young. Part of this first experience was the about-to-swipe aspect. (Was this primarily a cognitive or an affective experience—hard to say. Was the swiping part of the experience? Hard to say. Was the attractiveness and the youngness two separable strands or one? It seemed that they were separable—it was not merely that the face was youthfully attractive, but that the youngness was somehow being considered on its own. But does that mean that the youngness was primarily cognitive? Hard to say. In short, this first experience was all on the same topic, but there was not particular figural aspect.)
Second (perhaps 20%), and at the same time, Tristan felt a diffuse mental emotional and analytical anxiety that the person in the photo would not like him back, an experience that might have included that men typically like him back, but women don't. (Does this seem separate from the first experience, even though it seems that the anxiety is about the process that was underway? Mostly it seems separate, but not entirely. It did seem that the anxiety was present before this moment, and the Tinder swiping may have somewhat focused that already ongoing anxiety. Is the anxiety mostly a feeling or a cognitive/analytical experience? Hard to say.
Third (perhaps 10%), and at the same time, [Tristan was mostly not paying attention to a Podcast that was playing.] At the moment of the beep Tristan latched on to the podcaster's words "a year and a half earlier." (Those were the currently-being-said words, but it seemed that the latching-onto had happened before the beep occurred—that is, the latching onto was ongoing at the moment of the beep and was not brought into experience by the beep. The words did not have much or any semantic meaning.
Fourth (perhaps 5%), and at the same time, he innerly saw a man he had previously Tinder-matched with. The seeing was not especially clear though Tristan could see the man's blonde hair and the dog the man was holding.
Sample 10.2 [16:30]: [Tristan was watching a movie with comprehension.] At the moment of the beep, there were three separable experiences. First (about 33%), Tristan was visually drawn to the bright orangeness (of a lit cigarette in the movie). [There was perhaps some recognition that the bright orangeness was particularly a lit-cigarette orangeness, though Tristan could not be certain if this was directly present in his experience at the moment of the beep.]
Second (about 33%) and at the same time, Tristan, in comprehending what the movie character was saying, latched on to the word "lingerie." This latching-onto was hard to describe, other than the word was more salient, or perhaps more long-lasting; it was not innerly repeated; it was not heard louder than; etc.).
Third (about 33%), and at the same time, Tristan anxiously thought (without words or images) something about when to write a paper: something in the ballpark of should he write it over the weekend or on Tuesday or Thursday. This experience also involved a diffuse bodily anxious component—perhaps in his chest be he was not certain.
Sample 10.3 [24:12]: [Tristan had just read with comprehension a line in a Letterboxd movie chat that said about a character, "he's not going anywhere but at least he's not going alone."] At the moment of the beep, there were three separable experiences. First, Tristan was appreciating/positively evaluating that line—something about that it was pithy, that it somehow captures the core of the character; that it expresses authenticity; whether he should add a line of his own to the chat; whether what he would write would be cogent; would be as good as the original.
Second, he felt some diffuse bodily anxiety, which may have included anticipation that if should write something about the movie, it would not be that good. (It was hard to say whether this diffuse bodily anxiety was related to, overlapped with, or was completely separate from the thinking about the writing). The bodily portion of the anxiety seemed to be in his chest, but that was only diffusely recognized there.
Third, and at the same time, Tristan felt a bodily discomfort. This discomfort was in his chest (from his computer digging into it) and also in his bladder (from having to pee). Was that one discomfort with two aspects? Two discomforts that for the sake of narrative simplicity he lumped together? It was hard to say.
Sample 10.4 [42:09]: [Tristan was playing online chess.] At the moment of the beep, there were two experiences. First, Tristan saw the chess board, noticing that his knight was in a good position to attack his opponent's bishop—in some semi-visual and semi-geometric way imagined his opponent's move options. [We were unable to get further description about how the geometric imagining was present in the experience.] At the same time, Tristan felt dumb, a cognitive and affective anxiety/regret/cringy self-loathing about not being politically savvy enough.
Sample 11.1 [0:55]: [Tristan read online something about the movie "After the Hunt," "After the Hunt" were the last words he had read] At the moment of the beep, Tristan latched onto "After the Hunt"; this latched "After the hunt" had a slight innerly speech-y quality, though he did not (innerly or outerly) speak (or hear) those words.
Second, Tristan had the physical sensation of shaking himself after peeing. This is a physical sensation, perhaps including hand, penis, and wetness, but he could not be confident about which or all aspects were experienced
Third, Tristan had a vague visual cognizing about the Megan robot form the movie, Megan. [We did not (or could not) adequately discriminate what of this experience was innerly seen (even if inchoately) or was somehow visualized without being seen.]
Sample 11.2 [11:59]: [Tristan was listening to a podcast and cleaning his countertop.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan latched on to "spine-tinging moment" (from the podcast) with perhaps some heard-y quality. (The words "spine-tinging moment" were not the most recently heard words, but somehow perhaps heard-y continued in his experience.)
Second, Tristan saw a piece of a carrot (on his countertop) and felt a mental satisfaction (from the act of cleaning). Tristan's seeing involved a latching onto of the carrot with a bodily directedness.
Third, Tristan had a diffuse bodily anxiety and anxiously thought about watching and writing about the documentary (that was being discussed in the podcast). This thinking was a cognitive/analytical process without words or images.
Sample 11.3 [50:36]:[Tristan was listening to a podcast and was trying to figure out how to store parmesan cheese in his refrigerator.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan perhaps innerly saw brown and gray (of a lunchbox), ventilation holes of the top drawer, and the three drawers (from his refrigerator), and the lunchbox going into the drawer. [This sample was the occasion for a long lecture on the natural attitude, e.g., between seeing the lunchbox (which was brown and gray) and seeing the brown and gray (which happened to be of the lunchbox; and seeing the lunchbox going into one of the three drawers without needing to specify which drawer]
Second, he heard and registered the word "happened" (which was the last word from the podcast he was listening to, but he did not latch onto that word).
Third, Tristan thought (without words or images) that it was surprising how fast it was (that the filming of the Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night and the filming of the rooftop concert at the end of Let It Be) took place over four years.
Sample 12.1 [0:39]: At the moment of the beep, Tristan (40%) was reading and innerly saying "lawsuit," which was the last word he had read. [Tristan was unsure if there was a somewhat quality of mouthing (Tristan could not say more during the expositional interview) and was uncertain about latching onto "lawsuit."]
Second, he (30%) cognitively and affectively thought about the injustice of a lawsuit between CBS and Trump. That is, Tristan had a non-specific, cognitive and emotional diffusion of thoughts all related to the lawsuit—that it was unfair, that it had ramifications for other networks, that it had ramifications for the constitution, and so on.
Third, he (29%) felt a diffuse bodily nausea and diffuse bodily anxiety. (The nausea and anxiety were two separable diffuse bodily sensations).
Sample 12.2 [14:21]: At the moment of the beep, Tristan (30%) innerly said "hard." [There was more of a mouthy speaking quality to "hard" than in 12.1.] He also had the phrase "hard to work with" in his experience. (These words were neither, spoken, heard, or seen; [they may have been words that were about to be innerly spoken].)
Second, he (30%) thought that Anna finds Yasi hard to work with. (this thought was a cognitive/analytical process without words or images).
Third (20%), he was cognizing about his current (chess) position and other possible moves he could make. [Tristan could not say more about how this cognizing was present in his experience. Tristan was also unsure what exactly about his position he was thinking about, or whether his anxiety was somehow involved with the chess.]
Fourth (15%), Tristan felt a diffuse bodily anxiety. Fifth, Tristan heard (without comprehension) the voices (of what he understood to be a podcast). [As a fact of the universe, a podcast was playing.]
Sample 12.3 [40:22]: At the moment of the beep, Tristan (45%) innerly said, "thus animated."
Second, he (45%) felt an urgency about getting those words written down on a Word document
Third, he felt a diffuse bodily anxiety. The anxiety was perhaps at least in part related to the urgency but was not simply the result of the urgency. [It seemed that the anxiety had been diffusely present for longer than the urgency, and at the moment of the beep the urgency became somehow incorporated into the anxiety.]
Complexity continues. Sample 13.4 includes Tristan's clearest visual imagery....
Tristan's samples:
Sample 13.2 [1:09]: [Emily was putting out a cigarette on her shoe.] At the moment of the beep, first, Tristan was visually focusing on the glow (of the cigarette) and the pleasing visual scene/action of Emily's putting out the glowy cigarette on her shoe.
Second, Tristan felt a bodily frustration (and perhaps anxiousness) [which may have been from holding his breath, the result of, as Tristan understands it, cigarette smoke making Tristan nauseous, and therefore he had been holding his breath prior to the beep]. (The feeling was diffusely bodily (not aimed just at his nose).)
Third, Tristan was somehow contemplating (without words) asking Emily and Dylan to take a break from smoking.
Sample 13.3 [7:19]: [Tristan had just said something like "I don't think Emily has people over that much honestly."] At the moment of the beep, the sense of that sentence continued in his direct apprehension.
Second, Emily's apartment was in Tristan's experience, somehow in the realm of inner seeing but not unequivocally seeing. This (perhaps) involved the living area of Emily's apartment and (perhaps) involved a cat. [Tristan was not able to describe other details of Emily's apartment that were present in his experience at the moment of the beep.]
Third, Tristan [recognized himself to have said "honestly"] and the sense of that word was still somehow present. [This is not latching onto the word itself, but some is somehow a continuing recognition of the words sense or meaning.]
Fourth, (George was saying a sentence that included "Friday," [the beep happened to come at that word] and Tristan somehow registered that word. [This seems to be less than latching onto "Friday," but it seemed to be more specifically registering Friday than simply hearing George with comprehension.]
Sample 13.1 [19:16]: [skipped]
Sample 13.4 [20:06]: [Tristan was watching a YouTube video about a baseball bat.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan (in the realm of) innerly saw a yellow dented baseball bat. [This in-the-realm-of inner seeing was more unambiguously seeing than was the seeing of Emily's apartment in 13.2, though to RTH's ear there was still room for skepticism about whether this experience was of seeing.]
Second, Tristan saw the dented bat in the video and (perhaps somehow) was comparing it to the thumbnail of the video.
Third, Tristan heard "bat" (from the video) with comprehension. [The beep happened to come at the word "bat" it was not that Tristan had latched onto "bat."]
Sample 114.1 [11:05]: [Tristan has just successfully plunged his toilet.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan was somehow attending to what he was seeing (the water swirling down the drain, perhaps tinged with the notion of having been successful) and also possibly involved hearing the water going down the drain. At the same time, he was somehow thinking (without words) about how to clean the plunger, possibly about flushing the toilet again to use the new water to clean it (but that was more inchoate than explicit).
Sample 14.2 [15:46]: [Tristan was reading a post on Reddit.] At the moment of the beep, Tristan had latched onto the phrase "yeah the cat" (perhaps with some speechiness quality; he as not sure). (The phrase "yeah the cat" was the last phrase he had read, but his experience was not of reading it, but rather somehow holding it or extending it, which is what we have been calling "latching onto"). He also (somehow, without words or images) simultaneously recognized the phrase was a joke [which he didn't find particularly funny]. [Tristan was not sure how this recognition was present in his experience but considered this recognition to be separate from the latching onto.]
Sample 14.3 [24:17]: At the moment of the beep, Tristan latched onto the phrase "looks for trains on TikTok." At the same time, he was cognizing about the phrase (without words), trying to figure out what it means. This cognizing (possibly) involved something in the ballpark of innerly visual, which (maybe) involved a train and (maybe) a pinkish icon.
Formal description: When all the steps of the process (14 sampling days, green meetings, characterization meeting, rectification meeting) had been completed, we prepared a written summary of Tristan's experience. We passed that document back and forth for editing, etc., until we each were satisfied that we had described Tristan's experience (as evidenced in the samples we discussed) adequately, with this result.
We happily acknowledge that this is a snapshot at a particular point in time—Tristan's experience at different times or under different circumstances may be very different. That is, we are not claiming to have arrived at the essence of Tristan, or the complete Tristan.
