Good question. When we ask for SUDS level, it is always because we want to know how disturbing it is right now, in this moment. So clients sometimes require instruction in this because they think you mean generally speaking, or historically, or at the time.

So if one simply says, 0 to 10, how disturbing is it in THIS moment they will soon get it.

Then the only complication is that people have it shut down, put away, compartmentalized, dissociated sometimes, so the SUD typically is higher in the middle of an EMDR than it is at the beginning, unless their "neuro net was lit up" fully at the beginning of the EMDR. In the latter case it starts up high and just goes gradually down over the EMDR session typically.