This study adopts a comparative approach to examine the relation between Avicenna’s notion of immediate self-awareness and Peter Carruthers’ Interpretive Sensory Access (ISA) theory in contemporary philosophy of mind. The aim is to articulate a possible integration between two distinct levels of consciousness: the foundational, immediate, and non-descriptive self-awareness in Avicenna’s Islamic philosophical system, and the interpretive, evidence-based, and socially mediated self-knowledge proposed by ISA. A reinterpretation of Avicenna’s “Flying Man” thought experiment reveals that the affirmation “I am” represents a minimal, pre-reflective awareness that constitutes the very condition for any subsequent reflective cognition. In contrast, Carruthers’ ISA model conceives self-knowledge as an interpretive and socially grounded process, in which inner speech functions as the main mediating mechanism. Methodologically, the research relies on conceptual–textual analysis of al-Shifāʾ (On the Soul) and al-Ishārāt wa al-Tanbīhāt in comparison with the theoretical and empirical framework of ISA. The comparative analysis across five key dimensions shows that the apparent tension between Avicenna’s presence-based transparency and Carruthers’ interpretive opacity is only superficial and can be reconciled within a layered and complementary model of mind. The findings suggest that by distinguishing between the minimal presence-self and the interpretive knowing-self, Islamic philosophy preserves the ontological and anti-skeptical foundation of consciousness while offering a conceptual basis for productive dialogue between existential reflection and empirical explanation in contemporary philosophy of mind.