Hallucinations: Toward a Dialogue between Phenomenology and Brain Imaging Research?

Hallucinations refer to a wide range of subjective human experiences. As a consequence, hallucinations constitute fascinating phenomena for the dialogue between phenomenology and neuroscience. We propose a summary of the possible strategies of this dialogue encompassing neurophenomenology or front-loaded phenomenology. We question the issue of the continuity of hallucinatory experiences, at both the subjective (phenomenology) and objective (brain imaging) levels. We also question the possible links between hallucinations and self-disorders, and discuss how these connections may add value to the understanding of hallucinations at both levels of interest. As only a very limited amount of experimental work has specifically focused on hallucinations based on this dialogue between phenomenology and brain imaging, we conclude by describing potential starting points for future studies.