A method for illuminating a passenger compartment of a vehicle with lighting devices which each contain one or more diffuse and/or indirect light sources. The intensity and color of the light emitted by the light sources being set automatically as a function of specific operating parameters which are influenced by a vehicle occupant. The lighting devices which are respectively spatially assigned to an area of the passenger compartment of the vehicle in which there is a vehicle component with an operating parameter which can be set separately by the driver and which can act on a general operating mode selected by the driver, are actuated in such a way that their intensity and color indicate to the driver whether the current setting of the separately settable operating parameter has a positive or negative effect on the general operating mode selected by the driver.