Do Atheists have mystical-type experiences?

Alice Herron talks about the research into mystical experiences and why even atheists have them.

It is well established that between 30-50% of the population have had at least one experience that could be described as mystical, transformative or enlightening. These experiences frequently have some sort of religious association: they may contain religious imagery; they may be interpreted as having a religious message or they may be understood to come from a divine source. Given that atheists do not believe in supernatural agency and do not use a religious interpretive framework, do atheists ever have these types of experience, and if they do, how do they interpret them and how do they affect an atheist’s life?
Alice Herron is studying for a PhD in Psychology of Religion at Surrey University. She is currently researching the spontaneous, transformative, enlightening and/or mystical type experiences of atheists. In this lecture she outlines the background to her research and presents some preliminary findings.

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