Table 2.

Phenomenology of dreaming and the psychedelic experience.

	Domains of phenomenology
	Perception	Affectivity	Cognition	Sense of self	Behavior
Shared phenomenological features: Dreaming and psychedelic experience	Vivid, predominantly visual imaginary perceptive changes; bizarreness; symbol formation	Strong activation of emotional memories and affects (positive and negative valence); retrieval of fear memory: nightmare/“challenging experience”, “bad trip”	Decrease of logical and increase of associative reasoning; shift toward bizarre, symbolic and metaphoric thinking; insightfulness; primary process thinking	Disintegration of narrative and embodied (minimal) self, non-dual awareness, depersonalization/ derealization
Differences in phenomenology
Dreaming	REM dreams: mostly complex images; influence of external stimuli is marginal (“slamming door”)		No meta-cognition/reality monitoring; memory functions partly preserved; exception: lucid dreams		Lack of motor control; exception: lucid dreams (voluntary control of eye movements)
Psychedelic experience	Complex images and elementary percepts (abstract geometrical forms) mental imagery modified by external perception (e.g, synesthesia)		Metacognition/reality monitoring and memory functions mostly preserved		Motor control mostly preserved