Sometimes when I am bored sitting at my office desk I imagine swimming in the ocean at the South Coast. I can arguably do these in two ways. I can imagine swimming in the ocean from the inside. When I do so, I for example imagine feeling the warm water on my skin. I can also imagine swimming in the ocean from the outside. When I do so, I picture myself over there, in the water.

In this talk I explicate the distinction between sensory imaginings from the inside and imaginings from the outside. I take it that sensory imaginings from the outside are imaginings of mind-independent perceivable things from a spatial perspective, whereas sensory imaginings from the inside are imaginings of mental and often of phenomenal states. I reject understandings of the distinction according to which it amounts to a mere difference in perspective and skeptical accounts according to which the notions can collapse. One feature of my account is that imaginings from the outside and inside both can be de se but need not be. Another one is that the distinction is often only manifest in what I call the conceptual component of the content of the imagining and not in the sensory content.