selfexperience

Self-experience refers to the conscious experience of being an individual, including thoughts, feelings, sensations, and the sense of being a subject of experience. It encompasses both the immediate, first-person perspective on events and the longer-standing sense of personal identity that persists over time.

In psychology and cognitive science, self-experience is studied through introspective reports, experimental illusions of body ownership, and measures of metacognition and interoception. Researchers examine how the brain constructs a sense of self, with neural networks such as the default mode network implicated in self-referential processing and the temporoparietal junction in distinguishing self from others.

In philosophy, the topic is linked to debates about the minimal self—pre-reflective experiences of being a subject—versus the narrative or extended self, which draws on memory and social roles. Thinkers such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and contemporary scholars like Dan Zahavi have explored how self-experience grounds personal identity.

Clinical perspectives note that alterations of self-experience occur in conditions such as depersonalization-derealization disorder, schizophrenia, or dissociative disorders, with disruptions to agency, ownership, or continuity of self. Treatment focuses on symptom management, psychotherapy, and, when relevant, pharmacology.

In everyday life and cultural contexts, self-experience shapes how people relate to their bodies, thoughts, and emotions. Methodologies include longitudinal studies, neuroimaging, and phenomenological analysis, reflecting ongoing interest in how subjective experience arises from brain activity and social interaction.