why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?

[Alan V]

So here's the question-- are experiences "simulated" by the brain under normal circumstances more representative of reality than those deep experiences which occur under religious, drug, philosophical, or meditative states?

In a special state, you might have the experience of one-ness with the Universe.  This is a metaphoric truth, but one that probably accords better with a scientific understanding than our normal mode of experience-- i.e. that we are actually not distinct entities within a room called Universe, but we are regions of QM functions linked by a complex web with everything else in it in a mutual dance of interactivity.  The experience makes it crystal clear-- ego is not truth.  And if you think in evolutionary terms, ego is a very specific kind of illusion which has the property of sustaining itself through reproductive fitness (i.e. by magnifying the importance of one's own survival relative to someone else's), but survival and truth aren't necessarily the same thing.

You ask difficult questions, but I will offer my own perspectives.

First, so-called deep experiences are usually novel experiences, which is to say they are not typical of the kinds of experiences we usually have.  They are highly prized for their novelty, and many people assume they are more representative of reality for having happened at all, since they are thought of as cracks in the facade.  Personally, I trust repeated experiences as more likely representative of realities.  Again, my experiences with dreams were sometimes striking and beautiful, but they proved that human brains can manufacture information.  The question is whether any insights gained can actually be applied beyond the idea that our perceptions are simulations.

Second, I don't really agree that reductionistic interpretations are "more real" than emergent ones.  You offered the example of the flatness of a table.  Yes, at the quantum level there is no such thing, but other interpretations have real significance at their own levels too.  They are not just illusions.  So while we may be "one with the universe" in a certain sense, that universe still will not hesitate to kill us if we let our guard down.  Our selves are realities too.  Simulations are not the same as illusions, because simulations are of something else which exists.

I like to think of all truths as relative to specific contexts.