Subjective Experience

Subjective Experience

First-person, internal sensations and thoughts not directly available to others in the absence of a report by the experiencer. (Contrast with: Second or third-person accounts and objective experience.)
The personal awareness that one is experiencing or observing from a unique first person perspective. (E.g. the claim, “I am experiencing this.”)

Contrast / compare with our definition of Consciousness.

Related to the subjective character of experience, a term in psychology and the philosophy of mind denoting that all subjective phenomena are associated with a single point of view. The character of one’s subjective experiences has also been associated with the philosophical concept of qualia, i.e. phenomenal consciousness.

Related to meta-cognition (an awareness that one has cognitive processes).

Usage:

  • “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”) is a declaration of subjective experience.
  • The subjective experience of being “me” refers to what it feels like to be me, rather than, for example, a bat.