I believe that it can and should be logged as total time. I have found another reason to support my opinion and that is 61.57...the fact that you may log landings (night and day) for currency using a sim. If I can log takeoffs, landings and instrument time, then I am logging total as well. Anything that is loggable in the logbook, is loggable as total time. It is all aeronautical experience. Then you break it down into its subcategories; ie sim, pic, night, sic, x-c, etc.