Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involves a subject to which various items are presented. In this sense, seeing a yellow bird on a branch presents the subject with the objects "bird" and "branch", the relation between them and the property "yellow". Unreal items may be included as well, which happens when experiencing hallucinations or dreams. When understood in a more restricted sense, only sensory consciousness counts as experience. In this sense, experience is usually identified with perception and contrasted with other types of conscious events, like thinking or imagining. In a slightly different sense, experience refers not to the conscious events themselves but to the practical knowledge and familiarity they produce. In this sense, it is important that direct perceptual contact with the external world is the source of knowledge. So an experienced hiker is someone who actually lived through many hikes, not someone who merely read many books about hiking. This is associated both with recurrent past acquaintance and the abilities learned through them.

प्रयोग अथवा परीक्षा द्वारा प्राप्त ज्ञान अनुभव कहलाता है। प्रत्यक्ष ज्ञान अथवा बोध। स्मृति (याददास्त) से भिन्न ज्ञान। तर्कसंग्रह के अनुसार ज्ञान के दो भेद हैं - स्मृति और अनुभव। संस्कार मात्र से उत्पन्न ज्ञान को स्मृति और इससे भिन्न ज्ञान को अनुभव कहते हैं। अनुभव के दो भेद हैं - यथार्थ अनुभव तथा अयथार्थ अनुभव। प्रथम को प्रमा तथा द्वितीय को अप्रमा कहते हैं। यथार्थ अनुभव के चार भेद हैं-