Woke in all encompassing light - building still there but no surrounding - just white light

About a decade ago I was on vacation in the Caribbean, staying at a hotel with a friend. We had a pretty tame night and went to bed around midnight. I woke up the next morning around 7 and noticed that it was extremely bright outside. I went to the balcony, opened the curtains and door and thought I was in the middle of a VERY heavy fog front or really a cloud. I thought maybe there was a fire next door spewing out tons of pure white smoke and I stepped out on the balcony and was totally disoriented and almost started to panic when I couldn't see the fence or pool just 25ft across the path, or see the ground and I was on the second floor! I looked to the right, where there was another balcony (disconnected) about 8ft from edge to edge and there was noting. There was NOTHING to see in any direction. I leaned over the balcony and waved my arms trying to feel something or move the air/fog/cloud or whatever was all white. At this point I REALLY started freaking out and thought I was dead. My friend was still there and I didn't know what to do. I thought I had to be dreaming so I got stuff out of the fridge, had a soda and tried to calm down.

Since I thought I might be dead, IDK how I would have died in my sleep, I was in mid 20's and in good shape at the time. I was scared to wake them because I thought if I wake them maybe something will happen and we will be stuck here forever, in this little room, forever and ever. I thought, well if I am stuck here, then I'll be here if I wake up again, so I decided to calm myself down and try to fall back to sleep. This took about an hour but I managed to sleep for another hour to hour 1/2 when my friend woke me up. At this point I walked over to the balcony quickly and could see the pool and felt immense relief and a huge settling in my stomach (I basically had a panic attack when I walked out on the balcony the first time).

I went over to the counter and picked up the soda can to confirm that I hadn't been dreaming and it was there, and we had not used anything from the minibar before this (at $5 per can) so I know that I hadn't been dreaming, unless I was acting out in my sleep, dreaming and drinking at the same time, but I've never had a dream I can remember 45 minutes of, the most is maybe about 5 mins.

I told my friend and they were upset that I didn't wake them and I said "I thought it might make us get stuck here or something! Could you imagine us being here forever in this room!?" They laughed and shook their head. I really should have gone out the door to the room and down the steps but I was too scared to to it and didn't want to "push" anything.

I've thought this might be a NDE and just as typing this I was wondering if this could be done by putting a large 1/2 bubble (like a hollow 1/2 globe) pushed up against the outer wall of the hotel (it was 2 floors, two rooms on the front, two rooms on the back, with entry on the inner center of each floor, so 8 rooms per unit). So it would be like a cup enclosing the balcony, not touching the ground, but touching the wall below the balcony. If this "globe" was a clear plastic with white tint or frosting, could lights be use to flood it from outside the globe to make it look like this? I've seen movie lighting like this, but this scenario sounds absolutely ridiculous and I have no idea why that would happen, how, and WHY!? It was just so freaky I still can't believe it was real, and I'm trying to figure out WTH it could have been.

The strangest thing is that the trip was free for me. I DID NOT want to go at all and did all I could to get out of it, I lied over and over, I just didn't want to go - and there were good reason, but I tried to bolster them with some lies and I got talked into going. Most people would have jumped at the chance to go where I went (and I really liked the Caribbean then!!!!!!!!!!). I had a bad feeling before I left, and I think this was the reason why - somehow I had pre-knowledge of it maybe.

Can anyone give any ideas of what this might have been, have any experiences like this or anything close? Any possible explanations of what may have happened?

I've tried to find other stories like this online but haven't had luck as it is a very difficult thing to explain and search for

Devil's Triangle. Twilight zone encounter. Lucid dream maybe.

Or perhaps just a Feasibility study

Well, people, animals and objects do disappear from time to time... so portals between realms might be as real as people have been saying since forever. Maybe you experienced one?

Or maybe you broke conditioning and saw reality as it actually is?

Or maybe you woke when "they" were transferring you from one terrarium to another?

Or maybe you were part of some cosmic version of 2 minutes in heaven?

Or? Maybe?