In constant dialogue with philosophy of mind, cognitive science and recent theoretical developments in lexical pragmatics, Chapter 3 turns again to the mind, this time to explore the significant role of perceptual or, more generally, phenomenal – as opposed to conceptual – representations in the human mental tapestry. The expressive difficulties that seem inextricably bound up with phenomenal representations, and the gap in expressiveness between what philosophy of mind has described as ‘analogue’ and ‘digital’ representational systems, force us to acknowledge that linguistic pessimism is to some extent justified, and to accept the relative ineffability of at least some of the contents of the mind. Linking the discontent with language of the modernist literary mentality to the ineffability of phenomenal states, this chapter argues that the challenges phenomenal experience poses for our communicative abilities are more pervasive than is sometimes thought, and reach well beyond the limited range of those expressions tightly associated with emotion and perception.