*This article first appeared on The Huffington Post, Science Section. Used with Permission, 2016

As a long time meditator and neuroscientist, my interest in the effect of meditation on brain function is both personal and professional. The benefits meditation has brought to my life mirror first-person accounts of other meditation practitioners–basically, a sense of greater peace and more joy.

In addition to being even-minded in the midst of life’s challenges, many meditators describe having experiences that might be called mystical–and not just in the state of meditation but also after their session of meditation has ended. Some individuals say that their awareness has been expanded beyond the stretch of their five senses; some say they experience the world to be luminous or to scintillate with light.