I don't know why this came up as my first notification today, since I've never subscribed to this sub. Anyway, it's relevant to what I was discussing elsewhere, so I'll respond.

What I've found from trying mindfulness meditation is that for me there isn't such a thing as a feeling that results from a thought. There are ideas, and there are body reactions through muscle movements which can then be sensed, and can have some significance through why I think those reactions occurred, but for me, there isn't a feeling that results from an emotional idea or a feeling that results from an emotional reaction directly. There isn't any particular sensory quality of any emotional state I can be in, that differs from the sensory quality of other emotional states or preoccupations with particular sorts of ideas. For me, there's only a difference in my interpretation of the quality of the sensory experience, my interpretation of its meaning or value, between various emotional states or thoughts. I recognize that the sensations involved are exactly the same as the sensations caused by external temperature changes, food, and physical activity.

I recognize that as a fundamental observable in my experience, not a theory, not something as abstract as language, but what I observe and experience for myself, nonverbally and directly as I can. It's as much a matter of personal experience of reality for me as the difference that I suppose almost anyone who's not blind would be able to notice, that what you see with your eyes, the direct sensory experience you're having now, is different from words about it, and thus different from whatever words you might want to say about it, or what you might want to say to sound socially acceptable in your description of your experience. I recognize that what I'm saying about what my experience contains is not what many people consider a socially acceptable thing to say. I'm being honest about it anyway, because I think it might be important, and I think there shouldn't be too much social pressure to repeat dogma from various religious meditative traditions here about what the elements of one's personal experience are, when this sub seems to be something about rationalism.

So I have a question whether that's normal, and if it's not normal, is it healthy? If there's some part of my experience that's missing from what other people actually experience (not just say they have, but experience themselves) what is that part, and how would I recognize if and when I experience it?