There are times when I feel totally disconnected from everyone and everything. Then there are other times when I am so connected that I’d swear I’m communicating with a higher source. Yesterday evening was one of those “oh so connected” times. I was driving back to Sarasota after having spent two weeks working on my property in Key West. I’d checked the weather before leaving and knew that part of the trip would take me through storms, but it was the ferocity of the lightning that took me by surprise.

It started at dusk, a frequent but harmless display on the distant horizon. They sky wasn’t black or threatening and I didn’t think much about it; in fact I was quite enjoying the light show, until I drove smack dab into the center of it. Suddenly, the lightning strikes changed from vertical to horizontal. Each bolt split the sky, traveling across my windshield at a height alarmingly close to the ground. The first time it happened I jumped in my seat. The second time I yelled “Whoa.” When the third one hit, the main bolt split into three bony fingers that curved toward me, as if attempting to reach through my windshield and snatch me up in its enormous skeletal hand. My hair stood on end. I felt cold all over. I am sure I stopped breathing for an instant. I have never seen anything like it.

I thought about pulling over to the side of the road but realized that stopping in the midst of a lightning storm would be decidedly foolish, and so I drove on. The lightning changed. Next, it drew a perfect circle overhead that spun around three times, like a celestial cowboy spinning his lasso, or a heavenly dog chasing his tail. Yet another strike made curlicues across the sky, a giant quill pen writing a message in an ancient Arabic. And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Lightning was still crackling across the sky, but it was the normal, everyday kind.

My gut unclenched, and that’s when things really started to get weird. In addition to the lightning, I’d been driving through pouring rain, but now a thought passed through my mind: “The rain is going to stop now.” Two seconds later, the rain was gone, and I do mean GONE. Not a drop. The road was bone dry. Despite the fact that the sky was now completely clear, a few miles further down the road brought another thought: “It’s not over yet; there’s going to be another big downpour ahead.” Sure enough, I drove into another deluge. In the heavy rain I had turned off my cruise control, but I forgot to engage it again when the rain turned to mist and my mind was so occupied by the events of the evening that I wasn’t paying attention to my speed. Another thought/command from out of nowhere: “Look at your speedometer!” Good Lord, I was going 85. I backed off immediately to 75, just before driving through an underpass. On the other side of the underpass, sitting in the tall grass on the far edge of the shoulder, a squad was car lying in wait. Somehow, I just knew he was there.

Coincidence? I think not. I do, however, have a theory (quick disclaimer here, I’m about to go all scientific on you). Quantum physicists believe that everything is interconnected. They call it the theory of “non-locality,” which postulates that one particle can influence another distant particle without anything passing between them, in an instantaneous manner, faster-than-light. They also say that the encoding for all information is contained in every molecule, and that we should be able to “see the entire Universe” in our thumbnail, if only we knew how to tap into this Universal consciousness. According to the physicists, we should be able to access all information across time and space. Last night I think the lightning acted like a catalyst that “connected” me to a higher source of information, albeit for a very short period of time.

Just think of the potential for this. If we could tap into this power, we could focus our thoughts to create world peace. OK, OK. I know some of you are going to write and tell me I’m crazy, but you’ll have to offer an alternative explanation for my short lived “psychic” abilities, because I’m pretty sure that God wasn’t speaking to me.