In this article I argue for the importance of treating mental experience on its own terms. In defense of "experiential realism," I offer a critique of modern psychology's all-toofrequent attempts to effect an objectification and quantification of personal subjectivity. The question is "What can we learn about experiential reality from indices that, in the service of scientific objectification, transform the qualitative properties of experience into quantitative proxies?" I conclude that such

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... atment is neither necessary for realizing, nor sufficient for capturing, subjectively given states (such as perception, pain, imagery, fear, thought, memory)-that is, for understanding many of the principle objects of psychological inquiry. A "science of mind" that approaches its subject matter from a third-person perspective should, I contend, be treated with a healthy amount of informed skepticism.