On the plane arriving into Chicago, we touched down and felt the strong pressure of braking. I was just thinking that it feels like we are going to run off the end of the runway.
Within 10 seconds, a man in my row spoke to his companion and said, "A southwest plane crashed here in XXXX, you know. Yep, it was icy and it went off the end of the runway and through the wall and into the street. It killed a couple in a car."
I sighed inside. So much for the illusion of peace and privacy in my own thoughts.
This is a common experience for me — thoughts or feelings that seem to anticipate events before they happen. Sometimes these are trivial, sometimes they are profound. But they always leave me wondering about the nature of time and consciousness.
If thoughts can somehow precede events, what does that say about the linear nature of time that we take for granted? Or perhaps this was nothing more than coincidence, and my mind was simply fill in the blank with something that matched my mood.
But it happens too often to dismiss as mere coincidence. And so I continue to observe, continue to question, and continue to explore the boundaries of what we think we know about reality.