Rachel Carlson

For some people, inner speech is far less wordy.

So my inner experience isn't really word-based.

It's more like a moving landscape of images.

It's kind of like soaking in an emotional bath and like feelings.

Yeah, and feelings and images will rise and they'll fall.

But there's no words.

It's real silent.

Me, myself, and my voice.

Yeah, totally.

This is Russell Hurlburt, a psychologist at the University of Nevada.

And Russ is a legend in the field for being one of the first to gather data on inner experiences through a beeper.

So he ditched the questionnaires and instead told participants every time the beeper goes off, write down what's going on internally in your own words.

Russ called this technique descriptive experience sampling.

It was illuminating, sometimes even life-changing for the participants involved.

But Russ is the first to say how highly imperfect his method is.

Yeah, like how do you check for accuracy?

Like he believes that people do not fully know the characteristics of their inner experience, including me.

That was humbling to hear.

So today on the show, how far can the science go in the quest to know thyself?

Okay, short wavers.