Why can't they be the same thing? All my experience is processed information (see my other comment in this thread about qualia [1]); information processing requires hardware; the hardware is the brain. My report of my experiences is itself changes in a pattern of neuronal activity which is determined by changes in what it and other patterns are doing. I say 'changes' to emphasise that the precise medium I'm running on is not fundamentally important and I cannot perceive it (the neurons) without the aid of a brain scanner. In principle I could be scanned and modelled by a brain scientist whose 3rd person description of what's going on exactly matches my 1st person description. Would that convince you?
[1] though I didn't mention it there, a quale can't usually be pinned down exactly because most of the associated ideas are inexplicit (cannot be reduced to propositions in English). I think this is why people consider their experiences to be ineffable in some way. Daniel Dennett's talk on Edge.org provides a discussion ("A Difference That Makes a Difference", Nov 2017)
