<p>I'm interested in how the human mind works, and over the years have experienced and took notice of a number of peculiar states of consciousness, thought patterns, dreams, etc.</p>

<p>While a lot of these states of mind are replicable, I do not know the correct English terminology for them, which makes it difficult to describe or explore them.</p>

<p>For example, if a person does not know the term <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deja-vu" rel="nofollow">deja-vu</a>, two people can give very different accounts of "experienced something that just happened again" and use completely different words, while if they speak of common deja-vu experiences, everything is much clearer.</p>

<p>It is even harder with more complex concepts, like <em>spontaneous, intuitive and non-verbal comprehension of a concept</em>, for which the word <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noesis" rel="nofollow">noesis</a> fits. Without knowing that word, it's really hard to convey or compare experiences. </p>

<p><strong>Is there a way to learn to better express what's going on in one's head in such a way that the experience can be compared with another persons?</strong> </p>

<p>Maybe there's a comprehensive list of words that describe subjective states of mind, developed to help people better express themselves?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-08-16T04:01:51.183Z
I would like to upvote this but can't be the one to cause you to beat me in [Chuckie's Race to 2K](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/2250?m=10634002#10634002) ;-)
Josh
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-08-16T17:47:01.793Z
Haha, I was not aware of this competition.
Alex Stone
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-21T13:29:25.220Z
@AlexStone I don't mean to be glib, but would you accept (a more elaborate variation on) "scientific psychology" as an answer? I would say that developing such a vocabulary is a primary aspect of what scientific psychology is in the business of doing.
Christian Hummeluhr
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-23T22:23:15.967Z
Sice it looks like you started the "scientific-psychology" tag with this question, perhaps you want to comment on the meta discussion about the tag: https://psychology.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2320/point-of-scientific-psychology-tag Also pinging @ChristianHummeluhr since he suggested it.
got trolled too much this week
<terminology><perceptual-learning>
How can people better express subjective conscious experience with words?
Alex Stone
# How can people better express subjective conscious experience with words?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-08-15)

I'm interested in how the human mind works, and over the years have experienced and took notice of a number of peculiar states of consciousness, thought patterns, dreams, etc.

While a lot of these states of mind are replicable, I do not know the correct English terminology for them, which makes it difficult to describe or explore them.

For example, if a person does not know the term [deja-vu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deja-vu), two people can give very different accounts of "experienced something that just happened again" and use completely different words, while if they speak of common deja-vu experiences, everything is much clearer.

It is even harder with more complex concepts, like *spontaneous, intuitive and non-verbal comprehension of a concept*, for which the word [noesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noesis) fits. Without knowing that word, it's really hard to convey or compare experiences.

**Is there a way to learn to better express what's going on in one's head in such a way that the experience can be compared with another persons?**

Maybe there's a comprehensive list of words that describe subjective states of mind, developed to help people better express themselves?

**Tags:** terminology, perceptual-learning

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I would like to upvote this but can't be the one to cause you to beat me in [Chuckie's Race to 2K](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/2250?m=10634002#10634002) ;-)  
> **username_0**: Haha, I was not aware of this competition.  
> **username_2**: @AlexStone I don't mean to be glib, but would you accept (a more elaborate variation on) "scientific psychology" as an answer? I would say that developing such a vocabulary is a primary aspect of what scientific psychology is in the business of doing.  
> **username_3**: Sice it looks like you started the "scientific-psychology" tag with this question, perhaps you want to comment on the meta discussion about the tag: https://psychology.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2320/point-of-scientific-psychology-tag Also pinging @ChristianHummeluhr since he suggested it.  

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