Table 1.

Descriptive markers for qualitative analysis of self-descriptions of experience.

Themes (Nature)	Subthemes Descriptive Marker	Guide-Question: “Does the Experiential Description Clearly Refer to…
Time	Past	…an experience reported in past grammatical tenses?”
	Present	…an experience reported in present grammatical tenses?”
Direction	External world	…aspects of publicly observable objects, external to the subject, such as events in time and space, or the appearance of things, reported as though independent of first-person perspective?”
	Private	…aspects internal to the subject and only observable by him, such as characteristics of his/her own personality or the experiences he/she reports?”
	Public	…aspects of the subject himself/herself that define him/her as a social, publicly observable object, such as his/her own appearance, his/her behavior and ‘way of being’, his/her interactions with other people, or the perception he/she infers from others about himself/herself?”
Form	Undefined	…an experience that possibly has form, but for which the subject, for whatever reason, does not use specific or sufficient words or explanations to define?”
	Sensation	…stimuli perceived by the body’s senses, whether exteroceptive, proprioceptive or interoceptive?”
	Affect	…emotions, feelings or moods, regardless of cause or complexity?”
	Mental representation	…sensory and/or affective aspects of objects that are not actually present, or rather, are not being accessed by perceptive acts, but by acts of imagination or memory?”
	Verbal thinking	…more or less specific and ordered words and phrases, being experienced privately in the form of one or more voices, recognizable or not, that narrate thoughts, read texts, describe experiences and things, articulate reasoning, enunciate findings and interjections, and/or rehearse conversations that either already took place, are actually happening or could possibly happen?”
	Non-symbolic thought	…thought without clear form, to which pre-reflective, vague and abstract impressions the subject has only intuitive access, as when absorbed/concentrated on a task or event, developing a tacit understanding about something, or sustaining or precipitating some bodily movement, physiological reflex or very fleeting subjective experience?”
	Mind-wandering	…situations in which the subject understands that he/she was not having any conscious experience or that it was devoid of form and sense, and may even feel lost or out of time, as when he/she says that ‘I was wandering’, ‘I don’t know where I was’, ‘I don’t know where I went with my mind’, ‘my mind was a blank/black/blue canvas’, ‘wasn’t thinking/feeling anything’, ‘can’t remember’, ‘wasn’t here’, etc.?”
Sense	Pragmatic	...an experience that is actively sustained and directed towards understanding or eliciting aspects of the external world, such as problem and task solving, building logical reasoning, decision making, and/or planning and time management?”
	Self-regulation	...an experience that is actively sustained and directed towards controlling or eliciting aspects of the self, such as one’s attention, motivation, sensations, affects and affective responses, or the execution and adjustments of reflexes, behavior, and physical movements?
	Self-reflection	...an experience actively sustained and directed towards an epistemic and reflective interest in aspects of the self, whether psychological, spiritual, social, moral, or physical?”
	Observation	...a more or less active and sustained experience, directed towards observation, verification, apprehension, contemplation or appreciation of external aspects or self-aspects?”
Valence	Positive	…an experience occurring in the overall quality of a positive moment, or to affective states and/or sensations communicated exclusively by terms that are easily recognized in common sense as positive?”
	Negative	…an experience occurring in the global quality of a negative moment, or to affective states and/or sensations communicated exclusively by terms that are easily recognized in common sense as negative?”
	Mixed	…an experience occurring in the global quality of an ambivalent moment, or to some affective states and/or sensations communicated by terms that are easily recognized in common sense as positive, and others by terms recognized as negative, simultaneously?”
	Neutral	…an experience occurring in the overall quality of an affectively unimplicated experience, or to affective states and/or sensations communicated by terms that are not easily recognized in common sense as either positive or negative?”