So you believe in little green men instead of little blue ones and that makes you an atheist?

If you see the experience as nothing more than a dream then that’s what it will become.

If you see it as something at least as real as this waking reality then the experience has impact.

Without belief in it, your experiences are meaningless. You will learn very little from them.

They are invitations that you have outwardly rejected in labeling yourself an atheist.

Atheists would take a research paper as truth over their own direct experience. They hold Science as most dear and most important and they label faith and beliefs and spiritual experiences as make believe or pretend fantasy.