The dream: I was just walking on a street from my childhood (maybe as a child) and asked myself what stops me from being infinitely happy. The answer came from out of blue: "nothing". In that moment, I felt an indescribable state of contempt and happiness and I started to glow a warm, encompassing and profoundly protecting halo of light.
As I was on the street in my dream, I wondered if bypassers will notice that glow and get shocked and maybe jealous for my unearthly hapiness which they don't have access to. Then I realised that the glow is inside me and no one will be able to notice it - which calmed me a bit, because I was feeling like I was doing a hybris of some kind for being happier than a god.
I woke up in the middle of the night as lucid as after a whole night sleep and days after I felt myself enhanced and enlightened just like after a strong LSD trip afterglow - squared. I still cannot forget that feeling. It must have been how Paradise feel like. It was infinite in time and depth, like getting to the ultimate fulfillment. My soul will always long for that state of mind.

So, what was that? Is it in any way related to a certain stage of unprovoked and spontaneous insight? How can I get to feel again that feeling? It looked like nothing better can happen to a being of any kind.

Thank you.

howdy,
very cool  peeeak experience.  is it lasting?  did you have any kind of consistent practice before this dream?  are you a contemplative?  has it changed the way you deal with people or the way you see yourself?  you compared it to LSD aftereffects which suggests you have some entheogen experience,, was this recent?  did you feel dull after your experience or unfocused? scared? paranoid?

peace\\tom

I'll just add that some of my buddies have a pet name for that kind of experience: we call it "the big wow." Actually, there are some of us who've gotten path, A&P, whatever without anything great like that, and who call themselves the "No Big Wow Club." In my case, I had a big wow while I was wiping out on the Massachusetts Turnpike at the age of 19. No meditation practice at the time, but an amazing peak experience. I wouldn't recommend that method, though. 

There is one thing better that can happen to a human being, and that's awakening. ETA: So don't spend your energy trying to get back to a particular experience. These things happen when they happen, and they are not the end of the story, or the goal. 

I am wondering if the meaning of life isn't figuring out how to unpackaged our dreams..

Excellent advice. I will say, also, that one of the biggest benefits of experiences like these (not to say that they're able to be put in categories), from my perspective, is that they give us direct knowledge that there is something beyond what we experience as the "normal" world, which nothing we hear by word of mouth could ever quite stand in for. It creates an inner drive to look into the makeup of our own experience, which we come to understand is much more malleable than we once thought. Investigation is the ignition to the vehicle of awakening.

In my experience, dreams can be almost absurdly useful, but trying to force them yields a pitiful result. They seem to come only when you are in some way ready for them, even if you're not explicitly aware.

Good call. Its like, before I went to sleep all was seen and understood somehow. Now I am awake. Why was that dream unsettling? Why am I feeling so awake? Is it right for me to post this?...there is a tremendous outpouring of new creative material. . .

Sounds a lot like my experience of first path, particularly the afterglow aspect. I did it on enthogens (2C-B & DMT) rather than while dreaming -- my mind felt incredibly powerful but also completely serene. Thing like being able to look at a rectangular painting and make my attention fit the shape of the painting exactly with only the barest hint of effort. My most enduring memory is of cleaning a friends kitchen. It was (objectively) in a disgusting state which is something that would usually bother me a lot, and yet all my mind did was go "aha, there is work to be done" and proceed to work on cleaning for hours in complete peace. It really did feel exactly like a low-ish dose of LSD, including the visual experience of the world e.g. if I looked at a bottle I'd see it more or less simultaneously filtered through the mental lenses of 'glass' 'green' 'container' 'pretty thing' etc. and each would have slightly different 'look'.

My biggest regret is that I didn't work on getting good at the janas and cessations while my mind was in such a good state -- it would have saved me a lot of effort later on. I'd recommend doing some candle flame kasina practice or something like that.

I got over confident in the durability of the state and did another dose of DMT 'for interest' after about 48h in that state which resulted in the most extroadinarily intense and difficult death-like trip that threw me right into a new dark night cycle and the start of a new path waaay before I was ready for it. I've learned that these post-path states are fragile and should be treated with respect. It's taken the best part of two years of cycles of various depths and intensities to get back to anywhere close to that original afterglow.