Subcategories of "Fringe Consciousness" and Their Related Nonconscious Contexts

In Mangan's (2001) account of fringe consciousness there is a tension between the proposal that fringe feelings are often difficult to attend and evidence that detailed introspections of such feelings are sometimes possible. This tension might be resolved if we distinguish between two different components of attention. The ability to direct attention to fringe feelings is needed to fulfill fringe consciousness' functional role in the retrieval of previously nonconscious context information. The ability to hold attention on fringe feelings is needed to introspectively rate them. I propose that this ability to hold fringe feelings in focal attention varies, and that the "introspective accessibility" of a given feeling is negatively related to the accessibility of the nonconscious context to which it relates. Examples of fringe consciousness therefore differ along two dimensions: (a) on-line introspective accessibility of the fringe feeling and (b) potential conscious accessibility to previously nonconscious context information. These constitute two different dimensions along which it is possible to begin systematically exploring varieties of fringe experience.