Still Wondering Whether That Was An Out Of Body Experience!

Drama In Real Life:

The year was 2015. A team of functional heads from the Head Office visited one of our Breweries at Butterworth, near East London. We were all holed up at a bed & breakfast close to East London and had to drive up and down to Butterworth. 

Working a couple of days to complete our assignment, we all headed back to Johannesburg. The flight was late in the evening around 7:00 pm. It was an hour-and-a-half flight to Johannesburg from East London and it was a SA Airlink Jet, not a big aircraft and the flight was full.

We settled down on our seats and the first half-an-hour was an eventless flight. The flight path was clear when we started in East London. However, it being summer, the storms were always looming around. After a bit of nibbling, I eased into my default (sleep) posture to catch some sleep. 

Then, we were caught in a thunderstorm, sooner than expected. The captain advised us to fasten our seatbelts and instructed the crew to follow all mandatory steps to ensure the safety of passengers. Drowsily, I straightened the backrest of my seat while folding the tray table. The aircraft maneuvered through thick clouds amidst thunder and lightning. 

For a minute, I slipped into a slumber with my thoughts going through the incidents of that day. In an instant, the whole aircraft shuddered and all the passengers screamed when we heard a loud sound. At the same time; while my eyes were wide shut, I subconsciously felt like I was floating around the bottom of the aircraft. It was then that I could see the lightning strike near the landing gear, and that was the sound we heard in the cabin. The sight of the lightning strike was so vivid and it kept haunting me for days. I knew that aircraft were quite insulated from lightning strikes we were safe inside the aircraft cabin.   

The next moment, I was back in the aircraft, waking up with a jolt and fully conscious of the surroundings in the cabin. Those who tried to sleep were wide awake and I could see the fright and anguish on their faces.

Thereafter, wading through the thunderstorm, we made it safely to Johannesburg. None of us spoke of the incident as we were all too shell-shocked to talk about it. There was no rain (it had already rained here and I could see the wet tarmac) to greet us as we made it to the parkade where we got into our cars and drove away to our homes.

While I try to think of all the happenings on this flight, I don't know whether I can call this a dream (but then, how can I know where the lightning hit the aircraft) or was hallucinating (I wasn't on any drug or alcohol) or can it be ascribed as OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE? 

I have had my share of premonitions earlier in my life (a topic for another day). But this incident can't be considered as such, since I happened to witness this incident without any pre-warning. 

Fortunately, this incident neither deterred me from flying again nor caused any fear of lightning anytime thereafter and with the grace of God, I have clocked miles and miles of travel with a lot of smiles. 

My next write-up will be about my premonitions.