This is probably a completely wrong place to post about this, but I've always wanted to tell someone this story who has an open mind to strange experiences, and the 'magic' section on a Buddhist forum seemed like as good a place as any. It definitely fits in there with strange Jhanic phenomena as far as I am concerned.

When I was about 10 years old, I remember one particular evening when I was sent to bed very early. I was kind of annoyed because I wasn't at all tired. My mom used to send me to bed at like 8:30pm, because she wanted some hang out time with her friends. 

I was on a bottom bunk back then right next to a low window with yellow Disney curtains (I was born in the 70s). In my annoyance, I refused to lie down, so I just sat on the side of the bed, looking at the dark curtains only slightly lit up by the hallway lights shining under the door. I started to gaze at a picture of Mickey Mouse on the curtains and became extremely still. Then I noticed that I started to feel very warm and comfortable, like I was somehow ridiculously safe. It's hard to explain, but it was like being in a cocoon. I then noticed a small light right in the middle of the curtains, like an impossibly small dot from a spotlight very far away. 

I became completely absorbed in that light, as if it were the only thing that could hold my attention. I was still aware of the room and the curtains but the light was overwhelmingly compelling. It got larger and larger, but remained a circle, although it was a fuzzy circle as it got bigger. Finally, after some time the light completely filled the room and it was brilliant! Oddly, I wasn't even a little bit frightened. I felt completely safe and relaxed.

A few moments later, a large box shaped object appeared next to my bed, made completely of light. A better way to describe it was as an open elevator. Just 3 walls, a ceiling and a floor - but no front. There were no features; it was just made of light. Inside it was a woman wearing clothes of light. Her face was peculiar. She was beautiful, but the only feature that stuck out in my head was her mouth. It was small, and in a 'v' shaped smile. She had an almost Mona Lisa like expression. She held out her hand, which I took. Then I stood up and got into the box with her. 

She held onto my hand and looked me in the eyes compassionately for a few moments as to say, "It will be okay in the end."

After a short time, she somehow signaled to me that it was okay to sit down on the bed again. I watched as her and the box shrunk slowly until they were just a dot on the curtains again, then disappeared. Immediately afterward, I felt a rush of panic and my heart started racing. I calmed down pretty quickly, but I couldn't lay down for quite some time.

I have wondered about this experience for my whole life and now I'm in my 40s. I always knew that I was not dreaming and in fact was not even lying down. I have never heard anything like it from anyone else and was wondering if anyone on this forum of explorers have ever experienced anything like this before. 

About 4 years after this experience, I had an accident where I was locked in a garage with a gasoline spill where I breathed in the fumes and almost died. I was left with intense DP/DR that persists to this day. I've never had a moment since the age of 14 that I've not been in this state of derealization. I always wondered if this woman was some sort of premonition of the misery that was to come and she was trying to help me understand that some day things would be okay. The latter experience definitely led me to Vipassana, but I've yet to achieve stream entry after many hundreds of hours of intensive meditation on and off retreat. It makes me wonder if somehow I need to resolve the DP/DR before I can be able to progress in meditation. Either way, it would be interesting to here any members thoughts on my experience!

Thank you for sharing. That sounds like the kind of experience I could have done with as a child. As children, we are less susceptible to worldly conditioning. This makes it easier for a child to experience altered states of consciousness including jhana. As the child grows, name and form begins to take a hold. Name and form is, respectively: complex conceptual thought and dynamic material interaction. This is what blocks us from accessing altered states in later life mainly because naming and forming builds an internal make-believe world which causes us suffering.

I'm not able to interpret the experience you described but instead, I highlighted your interpretation above as it reminded me of a childhood existential experience I had when I was 5 or 6. This experience amounted to knowledge of human suffering and created a deep shift in me which produced many decades of episodic darkness. Fortunately, I'm now beginning to unravel it all and the revealing of something rather nice appears to be unfolding.  

Hey Ricky,

The quote above shows classical entry to first jhana via "full moon" nimitta. What you got there is what people are trying to achieve when they sit to do samatha/concentration practice. Kids have pliant minds and are open to novel experience so it is quite common that people have early concentration experiences in this way. This does sound pretty special, so treasure it.

What happened after with the alien woman... here is my take. I have often experienced, while doing concentration immediately prior to sleep (either at night in bed or more commonly in the morning while lazing) is that jhana can be attained but the state loses stability and bleeds into a dream. For example, I have had the nimitta (the bright light in the middle) turn into a sun, then I'm on a paradise beach. My point is, the mind creates visuals to explain the jhana phenomena (the good feelings and the light).

I basically stop paying attention to anything after the state destabilizes because it's just the mind doing its thing. Sometimes dreams are just dreams. That's my take on it, anyway.

Sorry for my delay. Thank you both for your kind responses!

Wow, interesting. I had never thought of the light being a Nimitta. It very well could have been! I did feel extremely concentrated. When I look back on and remember the experience, it is very similar to what it feels like now when I feel like I am making the shift into first jhana.

I still am not able to map any of my meditative states/attainments at all to be honest. At least since the experience above, I've never again had a 'nimitta' experience. What I think of as entering Jhana now I experience more as hard shifts in perception.

Eventually I'd like to create a meditation diary on here to simply track my experiences to see if they match up to anything that is mappable. After 2 10 day retreats, 1 four day, and thousands of hours of meditation at home over almost a decade I have still not gotten stream entry; at least as far as I can tell. I have gotten to a weird point in my meditation and everyday life where I feel perpetually stuck in a state of being trapped inside of my own body, like I and just at the verge of something that is always slightly out of reach. It is a very unsatisying feeling! I guess you could call me a dark night yogi.

As for the alien woman being a dream. I suppose it's possible. It's just really odd because I was sitting up on the edge of my bed the entire time, then I got up and stepped into the box; sat back down and remained seated until she left, then snapped out of it. I guess it could have been an extremely vivid daydream that I had while sitting up. I distinctly remember laying down and hiding under the covers after it happened. But to be fair, as you say it's just the mind doing its thing. Content is just content!