I would like to share with the conference participants and discuss with them what I learned, what I discovered, what surprised me the most since I began to study lived experience concretely, with specific first and second person methods. I will emphasize surprises that are not only intellectual, but open a doorway towards an interior transformation. These surprises may be summarized as follows.
1) Lived experience is mostly pre-reflective, that is to say it unfolds below the threshold of consciousness. But it is possible to gain access to this pre-reflective part thanks to specific interior gestures. 2) This pre-reflective experience is not a “draft”, but has a very precise structure, and notably a dynamic structure. It is therefore possible to compare these structures in order to highlight, for a given type of experience, generic structures and variants. 3) The gestures that enable us to become aware of our lived experience and to describe it also have a structure. It is therefore possible to describe, to compare, to refine and to learn these gestures. This enables us to study consciousness in a rigorous, scientific way. 4) Finally, because lived experience has a dynamic structure, a genesis, of which it is possible to become aware, we can transform this experience. This opens new perspectives in the pedagogical, therapeutic and existential domains. We can transform the way we relate to the world, at a very deep level. This is why I have been devoting my energy to trying to refine first person methods for studying consciousness.