Sesame, I'm not sure what parallel to draw??? I've dreamt many of times, and I've been altered many times...
That said, there are obvious parallels between the two. At my current state of consciousness, I can't always tell the difference. Let me explain...
I have always dreamed lucidly...My ability to differentiate the dream state from waking is something that seems to be a gift to me. In almost all of my dreams, I am aware on some level of the fact that I am dreaming. That said, I have had profound dreams...I have experienced prophetic dreams and dreams of exreme importance. For someone such as myself, the line between sleep and awake is often blurred...This is affected by my own tendency towards suffering from chronic insomnia...
Perhaps this is one reason that I gravitate towards altered states of being (and altered states of being asleep!). Just the other night I was in this weird state where I wasn't quite awake, nor was I entirely dreaming. I was aware of what was going on around me, yet I was in another world. THIS is what psychadelic consciousness is like to some extent. I found myself waking up at multiple points throuth the night...At one point I was reaching out (literally waking up my spouse) in an attempt to catch a ball...At another point in my dream state, I woke myself up biting my pillow, while thinking that I was fending off some attacker. Someone such as myself has a difficulty differentiating between a "dream" and "reality." The two concepts become an intermeshed perspective of the larger notion of TRUE consciousness...
Our discussion of consciousness and reality could probably eclipse any topic intended for this message board, but I hope that my cursory definition gives you some perspective regarding myself.
This said, I still welcome exploring at more depth ANY given topic of drugs or consciousness, it's one of the few areas that I feel to have lots of experience. It's one of the few areas that doesn't distinguish between our conceptions of male/female, rich/poor, black/white/brazilian/etc. Consciousness is a primal exploration of who we really are, and drugs are one of the more primitive means by which we get to this ends!