I think there’s a charm to the “utterly incoherent, but guided by the MC’s curiosity and the twisted interests of the maelstrom” approach to this.

If you had to, though, you could think of it as an intruding thought or concern on the part of the character. Like when you’re trying to do your work but you keep thinking about that time you saw your neighbour throw out a bag of stuff, and it’s bugging you now that you don’t know what was in there.