People of every religious faith, people who are spiritual, but not religious, agnostics and atheists all have these experiences. Some atheists will just choose afterwards to interpret it as a brain event rather than a God experience. It's pretty difficult to have one of these experiences on command, let alone lying in a neuroimaging scanner. The temporal parietal junction is often associated with mapping the boundaries between yourself and everything else. And so, when people are feeling this sense of unity, that region is turned down.
More than a third of us admit to having had a spiritual experience. We might have been profoundly moved by a sunset or a painting; or felt that we've connected with our god or with the entire world around us. Such events can be transformative - bringing positive change to our lives and increasing our happiness - but some experiences aren't so great.
In front of a live audience in Washington DC, David Yaden of Johns Hopkins University tells Dr Laurie Santos about his work examining what effect spiritual experiences have on us and how things like meditation and psychedelic drugs can bring about these powerful transformational episodes.
David Yaden is the author of: The Varieties of Spiritual Experience: 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
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