Written for the psychologist, philosopher, and layperson interested in consciousness, Exploring Inner Experience provides a comprehensive introduction to the Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) method for obtaining accurate reports of inner experience. DES uses a beeper to cue participants to pay attention to their experience at precisely defined moments; participants are then interviewed to obtain high-fidelity accounts of their experience at those moments. Exploring Inner Experience shows (a) how DES uncovers previously unknown details of inner experience; (b) how the implications of this method affect our understanding of inner experience and the human condition more generally; (c) how DES avoids the traps that destroyed the introspections of the previous century; (d) why DES reports of inner experience should be considered reliable and valid; and (e) how to use the DES method. This book will be basic reading for all psychologists, philosophers, and students interested in consciousness, as well as anyone who is seriously concerned with understanding the human condition.(Series B)
“The authors' overexuberance notwithstanding their description of the DES technique is compelling, and their dedication, enthusiasm, and experience are beyond doubt. One of the book's central aims is to encourage further use of DES, and despite my concerns about the technique and the ease of implementation, I am inspired to try the technique out during my own research. I am optimistic it will reveal new and surprising information that I look forward to sharing with the authors.”
Stuart W.G. Derbyshire, in PsycCritiques, Vol. 51, Issue 50, 2006
Cited by (62)
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2025. A Body of Knowledge: The Role of Human Experience and the Living Body in Knowing. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 65:3 ► pp. 550 ff.
Peng, Rebecca & Amit Hagar
2025. Why Cognitive Science Needs Phenomenology: Rethinking the Epistemology of Consciousness Through Intuitive Dualism. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 55:4
Romano, Giacomo
2025. The nurture of unsymbolized thinking. Philosophical Explorations► pp. 1 ff.
Tempone‐Wiltshire, Julien & Floren Matthews
2025. The nature of nonduality: The epistemic implications of meditative and psychedelic experiences. Anthropology of Consciousness 36:1
Bass:Krueger, Julian L., Elisa G. Wiedemann & Ema Demšar
2024. Comparing Two Methods for Exploring Consciousness: Descriptive Experience Sampling and Micro-Phenomenological Interviews. Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 22:1 ► pp. 84 ff.
Demšar, Ema & Jennifer Windt
2024. Studying Dream Experience Through Dream Reports: Points of Contact Between Dream Research and First-Person Methods in Consciousness Science. In Dreaming and Memory: Philosophical Issues [Synthese Library, 491], ► pp. 85 ff.
Endicott, Ronald P.
2024. Inner speech and the body error theory. Frontiers in Psychology 15
de Rooij, Alwin
2023. Inner Speaking and Uncertainty during Idea Generation. The Journal of Creative Behavior 57:3 ► pp. 376 ff.
Høffding, Simon
2023. “What’s done is done, the bullet’s left the gun”: Questions on the Application, Origin, and Metaphysics of the «Course-of-Experience Framework». Adaptive Behavior 31:2 ► pp. 133 ff.
Jack, Anthony Ian, Angela M. Passarelli & Richard Eleftherios Boyatzis
2023. When fixing problems kills personal development: fMRI reveals conflict between Real and Ideal selves. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 17
Krumm, Alek E. & Russell T. Hurlburt
2023. A complete, unabridged, “pre-registered” descriptive experience sampling investigation: The case of Lena. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 22:1 ► pp. 267 ff.
Lumma, Anna-Lena & Ulrich Weger
2023. Looking from within: Comparing first-person approaches to studying experience. Current Psychology 42:12 ► pp. 10437 ff.
Rodax, Natalie
2023. Psychology Between Qualitative and Quantitative Phenomena. In Farewell to Variables, ► pp. 159 ff.
Cairns-Lee, Heather, James Lawley & Paul Tosey
2022. Enhancing Researcher Reflexivity About the Influence of Leading Questions in Interviews. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 58:1 ► pp. 164 ff.
2022. Cognitive processes in autism: Repetitive thinking in autistic versus non-autistic adults. Autism 26:4 ► pp. 849 ff.
Coupé, Christophe & Magali Ollagnier-Beldame
2022. Toward a phenomenology of taking care. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being 17:1
Coupé, Christophe, Magali Ollagnier-Beldame, I. Colón de Carvajal, B. Chalancon, J. Lascar & L. Maritaud
2022. La place du langage dans les premières rencontres entre soignants et soignés. SHS Web of Conferences 133 ► pp. 03001 ff.
Hurlburt, Russell T., Christopher L. Heavey, Leiszle Lapping-Carr, Alek E. Krumm, Stefanie A. Moynihan, Cody Kaneshiro, Vincent P. Brouwers, Dio K. Turner & Jason M. Kelsey
2022. Measuring the Frequency of Inner-Experience Characteristics. Perspectives on Psychological Science 17:2 ► pp. 559 ff.
2022. What Individuals Experience During Visuo-Spatial Working Memory Task Performance: An Exploratory Phenomenological Study. Frontiers in Psychology 13
Seifried, Jürgen & Andreas Rausch
2022. Applying the Experience Sampling Method to Research on Workplace Learning. In Methods for Researching Professional Learning and Development [Professional and Practice-based Learning, 33], ► pp. 19 ff.
Dulin, John
2021. Charismatic Christianity's Hard Cultural Forms and the Local Patterning of the Divine Voice in Ghana. American Anthropologist 123:1 ► pp. 108 ff.
ERCAN, Eren Ekin
2021. ERKEN CUMHURİYET DÖNEMİNDE HÜMANİZMA KAVRAYIŞLARI I: ADIMLAR DERGİSİ HÜMANİZMA ANKETİ. İNİF E - Dergi
Rigato, Joana, Scott M. Rennie & Zachary F. Mainen
2021. The overlooked ubiquity of first-person experience in the cognitive sciences. Synthese 198:9 ► pp. 8005 ff.
Frey, Felix & Benjamin Krämer
2020. The Methodological Intricacies of Researching Strategies, Modes, and Styles of Media Use and Reception. In How We Use the Media [Transforming Communications – Studies in Cross-Media Research, ], ► pp. 187 ff.
Lundh, Lars-Gunnar
2020. Experimental Phenomenology in Mindfulness Research. Mindfulness 11:2 ► pp. 493 ff.
Petrolini, Valentina, Marta Jorba & Agustín Vicente
2020. The Role of Inner Speech in Executive Functioning Tasks: Schizophrenia With Auditory Verbal Hallucinations and Autistic Spectrum Conditions as Case Studies. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Rimkevičius, Paulius
2020. The Interpretive-Sensory Access Theory of Self-Knowledge: Empirical Adequacy and Scientific Fruitfulness. Problemos 97 ► pp. 150 ff.
Song, Yang & Libo Yan
2020. “Who is Buddha? I am Buddha.”—The motivations and experiences of Chinese young adults attending a Zen meditation camp in Taiwan. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism 21:4 ► pp. 263 ff.
Avsenik Nabergoj, Irena
2019. Od religioznega izkustva do duhovne literature Svetega pisma. Edinost in dialog 74:1
Heavey, Christopher L., Stefanie A. Moynihan, Vincent P. Brouwers, Leiszle Lapping-Carr, Alek E. Krumm, Jason M. Kelsey, Dio K. Turner & Russell T. Hurlburt
2019. Measuring the Frequency of Inner-Experience Characteristics by Self-Report: The Nevada Inner Experience Questionnaire. Frontiers in Psychology 9
Vicente, Agustín & Marta Jorba
2019. The Linguistic Determination of Conscious Thought Contents. Noûs 53:3 ► pp. 737 ff.
Dickens, Yani L., Judy Van Raalte & Russell T. Hurlburt
2018. On Investigating Self-Talk: A Descriptive Experience Sampling Study of Inner Experience During Golf Performance. The Sport Psychologist 32:1 ► pp. 66 ff.
Fernyhough, Charles, Ben Alderson-Day, Russell T. Hurlburt & Simone Kühn
2018. Investigating Multiple Streams of Consciousness: Using Descriptive Experience Sampling to Explore Internally and Externally Directed Streams of Thought. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 12
McKelvie, Stuart J.
2018. Commentary: Can Inner Experience Be Apprehended in High Fidelity? Examining Brain Activation and Experience from Multiple Perspectives. Frontiers in Psychology 9
McKelvie, Stuart J.
2021. Classical Introspection Revisited: Implications of Research on Visual Imagery for the Functions of Pristine Inner Experience as Apprehended by Descriptive Experience Sampling. Current Psychology 40:5 ► pp. 2427 ff.
Russell, Ailsa & Mark Brosnan
2018. Habits and Autism: Restricted, Repetitive Patterns of Behaviour and Thinking in Autism. In The Psychology of Habit, ► pp. 343 ff.
Bellido‐Zanin, Gloria, Salvador Perona‐Garcelán, Cristina Senín‐Calderón, Ana María López‐Jiménez & Juan Francisco Rodríguez‐Testal
2017. Relationship between inner dialog and ideas of reference and the mediating role of dissociation. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 58:1 ► pp. 100 ff.
2017. Seeing Double: Exploring the Phenomenology of Self-Reported Absence of Rivalry in Bistable Pictures. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 11
Francesconi, Denis
2017. Qualitative methodological issues in studying First-Person Perspective. In Pädagogik - Phänomenologie, ► pp. 309 ff.
Heavey, Christopher L., Noelle L. Lefforge, Leiszle Lapping-Carr & Russell T. Hurlburt
2017. Mixed Emotions: Toward a Phenomenology of Blended and Multiple Feelings. Emotion Review 9:2 ► pp. 105 ff.
Lapping-Carr, Leiszle R. & Christopher L. Heavey
2017. Pristine Inner Experience and Descriptive Experience Sampling: Implications for Psychology. Frontiers in Psychology 8
Hurlburt, Russell T., Ben Alderson-Day, Simone Kühn, Charles Fernyhough & Frederic Dick
2016. Exploring the Ecological Validity of Thinking on Demand: Neural Correlates of Elicited vs. Spontaneously Occurring Inner Speech. PLOS ONE 11:2 ► pp. e0147932 ff.
Kordes, Urban & Florian Klauser
2016. Second-Person in-Depth Phenomenological Inquiry as an Approach for Studying Enaction of Beliefs. Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 14:4 ► pp. 369 ff.
Vicente, Agustín & Fernando Martínez-Manrique
2016. The nature of unsymbolized thinking. Philosophical Explorations 19:2 ► pp. 173 ff.
Hurlburt, Russell T., Ben Alderson-Day, Charles Fernyhough & Simone Kühn
2015. What goes on in the resting-state? A qualitative glimpse into resting-state experience in the scanner. Frontiers in Psychology 6
Hurlburt, Russell T., Ben Alderson-Day, Charles Fernyhough & Simone Kühn
2017. Can Inner Experience Be Apprehended in High Fidelity? Examining Brain Activation and Experience from Multiple Perspectives. Frontiers in Psychology 8
Gamez, David
2014. The measurement of consciousness: a framework for the scientific study of consciousness. Frontiers in Psychology 5
Kühn, Simone, Charles Fernyhough, Benjamin Alderson-Day & Russell T. Hurlburt
2014. Inner experience in the scanner: can high fidelity apprehensions of inner experience be integrated with fMRI?. Frontiers in Psychology 5
Sever, Jernej
2014. Modulation of Motoric Processes on the Basis of Taijiquan Movement Prinicples. Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 12:4 ► pp. 305 ff.
REY, GEORGES
2013. We Are Not All ‘Self‐Blind’: A Defense of a Modest Introspectionism. Mind & Language 28:3 ► pp. 259 ff.
Fisher, Cynthia D. & March L. To
2012. Using experience sampling methodology in organizational behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior 33:7 ► pp. 865 ff.
Heavey, Christopher L., Russell T. Hurlburt & Noelle L. Lefforge
2010. Descriptive Experience Sampling: A Method for Exploring Momentary Inner Experience. Qualitative Research in Psychology 7:4 ► pp. 345 ff.
Wooffitt, Robin & Nicola Holt
2010. Silence and its organization in the pragmatics of introspection. Discourse Studies 12:3 ► pp. 379 ff.
Wooffitt, Robin, Nicola Holt & Simon Allistone
2010. Introspection as Institutional Practice: Reflections on the Attempt to Capture Conscious Experience in a Parapsychology Experiment. Qualitative Research in Psychology 7:1 ► pp. 5 ff.
Carruthers, Peter
2009. Mindreading underlies metacognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32:2 ► pp. 164 ff.
Fernyhough, Charles
2009. What can we say about the inner experience of the young child?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32:2 ► pp. 143 ff.
Hurlburt, Russell T.
2009. Unsymbolized thinking, sensory awareness, and mindreading. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32:2 ► pp. 149 ff.
Hurlburt, Russell T.
2017. Descriptive Experience Sampling. In The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, ► pp. 740 ff.
Deterding, Sebastian
2008. Introspektion Begriffe, Verfahren und Einwände in Psychologie und Kognitionswissenschaft. In Phänomenologie und Soziologie, ► pp. 327 ff.
Hurlburt, Russell T. & Sarah A. Akhter
2006. The Descriptive Experience Sampling method. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 5:3-4 ► pp. 271 ff.
Robbins, Philip
2006. The Ins and Outs of Introspection. Philosophy Compass 1:6 ► pp. 617 ff.
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