ICC & Ideasthesia Self-Study

Research status. This is a public description of a first-person self-study protocol. Private observations and relational source material remain outside the website.

Purpose

The protocol separates two co-occurring but independent traits:

1. Involuntary Contemplative Cognition (ICC) — continuous conceptual processing that begins without a deliberate task demand.
2. Ideasthesia — semantic meaning producing a perception-like sensory concurrent.

The working question is not whether the traits sound similar. It is whether they can be observed separately in lived moments.

The two axes

Axis 1 · Involuntary Contemplative Cognition

ICC is the engine: attention repeatedly returns to conceptual material, generates relations, and continues processing without a conscious decision to begin.

Observation focuses on:

• whether the processing was initiated deliberately;
• whether it stops when the task ends;
• what form the thought takes before language;
• how much active control is required to redirect it.

Axis 2 · Ideasthesia

Ideasthesia is the lens: the activation of meaning produces an immediate sensory or spatial quality.

Observation focuses on:

• the semantic concept that acted as the inducer;
• the sensory, spatial, or structural concurrent;
• whether the concurrent arrived before verbal interpretation;
• whether the same concept reliably produces the same form.

Method

The full protocol draws from descriptive experience sampling and micro-phenomenological interviewing:

1. Capture a specific moment close to when it occurs.
2. Record the trigger without interpreting it.
3. Separate conceptual activity from sensory form.
4. Mark what was voluntary and involuntary.
5. Revisit the moment and test whether the description remains recognizable.
6. Hold any explanation that is not yet real for the observer outside the load-bearing framework.

Why the distinction matters

If ICC is the engine and ideasthesia is one channel through which its output is carried, then they should not be collapsed into one trait. A person may have continuous cognition without semantic-sensory concurrents, or ideasthesia without a continuously active contemplative engine.

That distinction changes the architecture. It separates processing demand from processing medium and makes both available for observation without converting either into a diagnosis.