The music video for "A Looking in View" was shot in June 2009 and premiered on Alice in Chains' official website on July 7, 2009.
"A Looking in View" was Alice in Chains' first music video in 10 years, since 1999's "Get Born Again". And also the first music video to don't feature the band since 1994's "I Stay Away", which was shot using claymation dolls.
At the 6:55 mark of the video, a woman (played by Sacha Senisch ) is seen lying on a cracked desert floor similarly to the cover art of Alice in Chains' 1992 album Dirt.
Director Stephen Schuster talked to the band about "A Looking in View" and it became clear that the song dealt with the idea of people really struggling and dealing with intense psychological issues, finding themselves trapped within their own heads and often solely holding the key to their own freedom. After all the writing and research, the video ended up being about the lives of these three individuals all locked inside rooms of their own design with a single wall separating each of them. Songwriters Jerry Cantrell and William DuVall wanted to show this as a redemptive song and how, as individuals, we can find freedom from within ourselves.
"A Looking in View" was nominated for a Grammy Award for "Best Hard Rock Performance".