LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 65-68 (Days 82-89)
Juliet arrives at the 815 camp with Jack, Sayid and Kate. But the camp distrusts Juliet. Kack explains that he cut a deal with them by helping Ben. He says, "I did what they told me and didn't ask any questions." Kate is skeptical that it was that simple, but leaves it alone. Meanwhile, Sayid questions Juliet about who she is but she refuses to tell him anything. She says he would kill her if she tells him everything he wants to know. He bluntly implies that he will kill her if she doesn't. Jack returns and tells Sayid to leave Juliet alone, and that she is under his protection, because the Others left her behind. But we will learn that is not true. Claire is stricken by a mysterious illness as Juliet rushes to save her, which is part of the Others plan to gain Juliet trust.
Desmond has flashes or visions. So he coaxes Charlie, Hurley and Jin to go with him into the jungle to find his vision of a stranger arriving on the island. As they make camp, they see a parachutist crash onto the Island. After Kate sees Jack and Juliet together, she has sexual relations with Sawyer.
Sun allows Juliet to take her to the Staff medical station to check on her pregnancy. Juliet reveals to her that pregnant women die on the island. Patchy returns from death to make a deal to treat the injured parachutist, Naomi, in exchange for his freedom.
The Others offer Locke the chance to join them if he shows his commitment to them. Apparently, the killing of one’s own father is such a commitment. Unable to do what they ask, Locke recruits Sawyer to do it for him, with the help of the mysterious Alpert. Meanwhile, Desmond questions whether or not the the camp survivors trust Jack enough to tell him about Naomi. Sayid questions Naomi for information from the outside world. What she tells him everyone on Flight 815 died.
Science:
The traditional ultrasound procedure involves placing gel on your abdomen to work as a conductor for the sound waves. Your healthcare provider uses a transducer to produce sound waves into the uterus. The sound waves bounce off bones and tissue returning back to the transducer to generate black and white images of the fetus.
An ultrasound determines the age of a pregnancy by comparing measurements against a standard. Given the dimensions of the entire embryo (whole length) or the diameter of the abdomen, the head, and the length of the fetus' femur (thigh bone) doctors can estimate the age of the fetus. Therefore, the determined age of a pregnancy is only an approximation. Information about a woman’s last menstruation date, her cycle, regularity and the duration and date of intercourse are more useful in determining the date of conception.
Your healthcare provider will use hormone levels in your blood, the date of your last menstrual period and, in some cases, results from an ultrasound to generate an expected date of conception. However, many differences in each woman's cycle may hinder the accuracy of the conception date calculation. The viability of sperm varies as well, which means that intercourse three to five days prior to ovulation may result in conception. Ultrasound dating of conception is not reliable for determining paternity because the ultrasound can be off by at least 5-7 days in early pregnancy.
Improbabilities:
Patchy surviving a massive cerebral hemorrhage in the jungle, without any apparent medical treatment.
Ben claiming that he “activated” the “implant” in Claire to cause her sickness. What “implant” can be activated by long distance to cause an illness, let alone an immediate cure? It is clearly a Bondesque literary device where the agent is injected by an evil scientist to die in a matter of minutes unless he finds the antidote.
Themes:
Death. Three separate characters tell the main characters that they are “dead.” Cooper tells Locke that the island is Hell; he was in a car crash (the series motif) and then in the Island magic box. Naomi tells Hurley that they found the Flight 815 plane and t”you are all dead”; there were no survivors of Flight 815. And then, there is the reanimation of Patchy, who was killed by the sonic fence. He stumbles across the survivors and Naomi and tells them”I have already died once this week.”
Leadership. The beach camp no longer trusts Jack who has brought an Other, Juliet, into their camp. The distrust is further heightened when Locke tells Sawyer that Juliet is a spy and gives him proof the tape. But before Sawyer can impart the news, Kate takes the secret of Naomi to Jack; and in return for her trusting him, Jack refuses to tell her his new secret with Juliet. The Others are in search of a new leader in Locke. In a mindless cult dynamic, they were excited to learn that a paralyzed man regained his walking ability after a plane crash. That miracle makes Locke “special” in the Others culture. But Ben attempts to sabotage Locke by embarrassing him with his father, but Alpert works behind the scenes to undermine Ben’s authority. Alpert and many of the followers are fed up with Ben’s sidetrack issues such as island fertility, instead of the unknown purpose the Others seek.
Clues:
The direct dialogue references to death. TPTB said after the pilot episode that the series was not about purgatory. But in The End, that statement had no credibility. Perhaps, in order to confess the original lie, TPTB put in more and more “death” references to cue viewers to the final series finish line. It would be manipulative half-truths which the series story structure was replete.
Cooper claims the Island is hell. A popular is that the Island is not hell, but purgatory. This theory would later be revisited in “Ab Aererno,” the Alpert flashback episode.
Juliet downs a glass of orange juice and massive amount of tranquilizers in order to get on the Others submarine. The idea that one has to overdose (die?) in order to travel the “bumpy” road to the Island is a possibility.
D.O.C. could mean “Date of Conception” in the case of Sun. But D.O.C. could also mean “Dead on Crash” as Naomi tells the survivors that Flight 815 plane was found and there were no survivors. All the bodies were found in the wreckage.
All pregnant women who conceive on the Island do not give birth. All of the pregnancies are terminated by some factor on the Island, usually by the second trimester. It is unclear whether it is “the illness” or the Island itself. But the contradictory nature of the Island as a “place of healing” is directly opposite for the pregnant women. In a negative perspective, “new life” i.e. the birth of baby, would not be possible in a place of death, such as Hell.
When Desmond is in the monestary, there is a picture of Eloise on Brother Campbell’s desk. And when the entire season’s wine cases are sold, they are sold to Widmore, Eloise’s husband. It is where Desmond meets Penny.
The wine itself is labeled Moriah. Moriah is the name given to a mountain range in Genesis where Abraham is to sacrifice his son Issac. In Genesis 22:2 it states "And he said, Take thy son, the beloved one, whom thou hast loved—Isaac, and go into the high land, and offer him there for a whole-burnt-offering on one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” Desmond believes that when he woke up in the middle of the street (dead?) Brother Campbell came upon him and Dez found his “calling” to be a monk instead of marrying Ruth. (It is interesting to note that Desmond ran away from Ruth just as he did with Penny. It seems Desmond’s life “reboots” or repeats itself after a drunken erasure moment where he seems to awaken to a new, different, life. He is told that he has a “higher calling” than being a monk - - - which will detour him to the Island.
Genesis also makes a quiet cue when Sawyer gives Kate “a mix tape” from Phil Collins.
The island shares the Genesis passage in regard to the theme of sacrifice and personal tests. Each character is being tested by their own fears, memories and challenges. Most have “run away” from them during their life, but now must come to grips with them. In Desmond’s case, it is being a coward.
Discussion:
Dream On. Dream On.
Dream until your Dreams come True - - -
Aerosmith
Dream on until your Dreams come true. Is that what is really happening to our Flight 815 “survivors?”
Look at the “dreams” that characters want to come true?
Desmond reunited with Penny.
Sun having a baby with Jin.
Charlie finding a normal paternal purpose with Claire and Aaron.
Locke killing his father for what he had done to him. It would also fulfill Locke's dream of leadership and respect.
It would seem that the island “tests” are components of each character’s own nightmares on the path to having their dreams fulfilled in the End.
The only person on Island that “ages” is Walt. Is this his reoccurring dream? Because of a broken marriage of his parents, and constant travel with his mother to foreign countries, did Walt dream up a vast array of “imaginary friends” to have adventures in his mind? It could a subconscious rebellion against the separation of his father, to but his imagine of his father, Michael, through hellish situations and anguish so he could punish him. But once Walt “leaves” the Island story, does not preclude his dream from living on? No. In fact, it may be bolstered by the fact that Michael, for no apparent reason, returns to the Island and gets blown up on the boat. He is forever trapped as a spirit on the Island.
Likewise, it could be all Michael’s nightmare of remorse for allowing his son to leave and be adopted by a stranger. His mind has turned against him to punish him for being a bad person, and over time comes to consume his subconscious to become a murderous thug. Since he cannot handle reality, his mind traps him in his own “mental death” on his return to the Island; a permanent coma purgatory.
Desmond has visions that when group walks through the jungle in the rain while Hurley and Charlie playfully argue over which comic character would win a footrace, Charlie steps on a trigger and lifts his foot, activating an arrow which is shot through his neck. They try to help him but Charlie dies. There are mental flashes of different images: a reverse version of Hurley pulling the cable, a blinking red light behind dark clouds at night, the photo of Desmond and Penny, an image of Jin and Charlie and a set of hands holding a parachute, the feet of a person in gear hanging from a tree, the helmeted head of the same person and a fast image of the face of Penny with a green backdrop which might suggest the Island.
Desmond looks up, startled from his flashes of imminent future events. He drops his fishing pole and runs up to Hurley to ask him about the cable (which Sayid had found earlier). Hurley wants to know why, so Desmond tells him it's important and that someone is coming.
Desmond compares his flashes to puzzle pieces except he does not to know what picture the pieces form. Hurley and the cable are the first piece of this vision but he can't tell more without compromising the vision. Remembering himself kissing Penny, Desmond admits to Hurley that the end result of this vision is something he wants to ensure above all else. Desmond believes that if changes the events of his visions, they will not come true.
Desmond has “dreamed” of reuniting with Penny for more than three years of captivity on the Island. His visions may be subconscious desires overwhelming his conscious emotional state. These may not be memory, but fantasy projections in Desmond’s own mind on how he can get want he wants in his dreams: holding Penny again. As a result, he may be programming himself (or the Island) to make his dream come true.
But, when he saves Charlie from the arrow, Desmond believes that he changed the outcome of his vision. Naomi had replaced Penny as the person coming to rescue him from the Island.
While it is dark outside, Juliet creeps into Sun's tent and, with her hand over Sun's mouth to stop her from screaming, offers to help her. They begin walking to the Staff. Along the way Juliet explains that if Sun conceived off the Island then she will probably be fine; however, if Sun conceived on the Island then she will likely die. An ultrasound will be able to determine Sun's "D.O.C." (date of conception) to within a few days. Sun says that Claire and Kate had told her about this place, and that it had been cleared out and abandoned. Juliet tells her, "they didn't know where to look."
Juliet and Sun enter medical station where Sun looks around uneasily as Juliet switches on the lights. Sun explains that she had cheated on Jin and that if the baby was conceived off of the Island, it was not her husband's. She then asks Juliet why she is helping her, and Juliet explains that she used to give women the news that they were pregnant and it was the best news they had ever received. However, on the island she has lost 9 patients in 3 years and she wants to be able to give good news again.
Again, the series medical facts are suspect as Juliet does not gather sufficient patient information to make a normal diagnosis. In the three years Juliet was on the Island, she never found out what is actually killing pregnant women. However, if her brilliance was to have her infertile sister get pregnant (during chemotherapy no less), are there parallel “miracle” realms where modern medical science rules do not apply? If true, it would bolster the proposition that the flashbacks are not “real world” events but a prior afterlife or between worlds realm of events, where supernatural elements are common, just like on the Island.
One issue with the ultrasound scene that continues to bother me is that a) the medical information is incomplete to make a conclusion; and b) it appears that Juliet turns on the machine “after” using the wand on Sun’s stomach. The latter infers that the image on the screen is NOT Sun’s baby, but a VHS tape image of a fetus in a womb. It is a con. It is an attempt to make Sun believe she conceived on the Island, so the Others can take control over her reproduction. Juliet tells her the reason for the “miracle” is that men on the island have their sperm count increase 5 fold. Again, that is an impossible statement that Sun takes as truth. And when Juliet leaves a message in the station for Ben about gathering more information on the other camp women, we see the devious nature and mistrust for what we see or hear in critical scenes.
There was always a question of whether Eloise’s killing of her time traveling son, Daniel, on the Island in 1977, caused the Island to kill all pregnant women. It is also unclear as to the paternity of both Daniel and Penny. Was Penny a secondary dream to replace Daniel in Eloise’s own mental visions of her future? Was the imprisonment of Desmond on the Island the mental visions of Eloise to “save (her) world” i.e. Daniel from the fate of death at her own hands?
Desmond refers to his visions as puzzle pieces. The whole LOST dynamic could be a large puzzle. But in certain respects, it could be two or more actual puzzles mixed up into one pile. We have certain shapes or patterns in the LOST mythology. First, most people appear to come onto the island via accident: shipwreck, plane crash, helicopter crash, lost at sea by boat. Second, all the characters have some deep and unresolved mental or emotional problems. Third, the Island is supernatural. It contains a violent smoke monster (who appeared quickly in the background of one of Desmond’s visions; is Naomi the smoke monster directing Desmond’s flashes?)
Naomi adds new key facts to the mystery of Flight 815. She states that the wreckage was found near Bali. All passengers and crew were found dead. The question is how did the plane get so far off course. Approximately six hours into the flight, Flight 815 encountered problems with their radio. Having lost contact with ground control, the pilot decided to alter course and "turn back" towards Fiji. Approximately two hours later, having traveled more than 1000 miles off their planned course, the plane hit turbulence, which eventually resulted in the plane's crash.
The flight time from Sydney to Fiji is 4 hours. One can assume that 815 passed Fiji before the turbulence, IF it was on the correct course from the beginning. The flight time from Fiji to Bali is approximately 8 hours. However, the flight time from Sydney to Bali is approximately 6.5 hours. So if one just takes the pilot’s time points, it is possible that Flight 815 crashed near Bali or father away in the Phillipines Sea. This is a “real world” explanation.
In the supernatural sense, one theory has the Island off the coast of Indonesia, possibly “moved” by the failure of Desmond to input the Numbers. Demond’s failure caused a large burst of electromagnetic energy. The true cause of the plane's off-course deviation and arrival to the Island's airspace was Jacob, the supernatural entity who protected the Island. Jacob brought the plane because many of the flight's passengers were allegedly candidates to take over Island guardianship. Lostpedia states that eight hours after take-off would put Oceanic 815 on the Island around 10:15pm Sydney time, later local time since they were flying eastward (Fiji is 2 time zones later, Tahiti is 4). However, it was clearly mid-day when the plane lands, and on the printout from the Pearl found by Locke and Eko, it is clearly shown that the Swan's system failure occurred on September 22, 2004, at 4:16 PM. This is another indication of the time discrepancy the Island and the outside world.
Now, many believe it is absolute that Widmore planted the plane wreckage off Bali to hide the Island from outsiders. This conclusion is based solely on pilot Frank’s observation on the film footage on the news. Frank, an alcoholic pilot who missed the flight, was replaced by his friend, Seth Norris. When Frank heard of the crash, most likely he was despondent, since he was supposed to be on that plane; he was supposed to have died not his friend. When Frank saw a newscast showing the supposed body of Seth in the underwater cockpit. Frank believed that was not Seth's body, since Seth always wore his wedding ring, while the corpse's hand had no rings. However, there was never any confirmation that Widmore or anyone else staged the wreckage. There was no point to it. Once the plane crashed in the ocean, full wreckage recovery is statistically impossible. Besides, the Island can “move” and hide itself from the outside world so there was no need to call off the search parties, if any. And further, only Jacob can bring people to the Island.
So based upon the information at hand, Naomi’s statements are more believable than Frank’s observations on the fate of Flight 815. And one can add the circumstantial evidence that Cooper said he was run into a highway divider going 70 miles per hour, blacks out, and winds up on the Island with no real injuries. He knows that he was killed in that traffic accident, and he wound up on the Island which he calls Hell. Hell in the sense that he must answer for his sins, first to his son and second to Sawyer.
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
What happens to souls if they are brought to an Island Hell? They live “dangerous” adventures, see people die then come back to life, the experience real fear and they test their will to sacrifice.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 65:
BEN: [Hands Juliet a gas mask] See you in a week.
[Ben rolls away in his wheelchair. Juliet pauses, then takes the mask. At the beach, Juliet ties part of the tarp sharply, with a cold look on her face.]
EP 66:
WOMAN: Desmond...
[She stops moving and her eyes close.]
EP 67:
HURLEY: What?!
EP 68:
LOCKE: Not anymore.
[Locke leaves, and Sawyer starts walking back to camp. Locke grabs Cooper's covered body, and pulls it onto his back. He walks away carrying it.]
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
There is clear testimony by multiple characters that the people on board Flight 815 died in the crash. Three separate characters tell the main characters that they are “dead.” Cooper tells Locke that the island is Hell; he was in a car crash (the series motif) and then in the Island magic box. Naomi tells Hurley that they found the Flight 815 plane and t”you are all dead”; there were no survivors of Flight 815. And then, there is the reanimation of Patchy, who was killed by the sonic fence. He stumbles across the survivors and Naomi and tells them”I have already died once this week.”
Many fans refuse to accept the concept that the characters were spirits, ghosts or souls detoured to an after life Island controlled by a mysterious guardian called Jacob.
Cooper, Naomi and Patchy’s statements reinforce the original pictures and sequence of events of the crash. The plane was off course, but at international flight attitude of at least 30,000 feet. The plane shutters but remains level before it suddenly breaks in two. As discussed in previous posts, it is almost certain that no person would survive a high altitude plane break-up over the ocean.
Then we have the odd, inconsistent medical events. Rose’s cancer is “cured” by the crash. How can a live person’s terminal cancer be “cured” by the Island? It is said it could be the unique electromagnetic waves, but those were allegedly destroyed by the Hatch explosion. Locke’s paralysis was “cured” by the crash. How can a permanently disabled man with a crushed spinal cord suddenly regain the use of all his limbs? It is said the Island has “healing” properties. But such explanations defy current medical science.
On the reverse side, a place of “healing” should not be a place where pregnant women die. Juliet claims that at conception, pregnant women’s “immune” system attacks the fetus and the body causing death. Normally, a rejection of the fertile egg would not lead to dire consequences for a normal female patient. One has to try to make all these inconsistencies make sense. One conclusion could be that women on the island, though appear to be “alive,” are not. They are spirits or souls in Hell or purgatory or an after life realm which does not allow “new” life to be created from the dead.
One of my more complex theories during the show’s first run dealt with this issue.
The Nexus-Buffer Theory is premised on the speculation that Lost is a modern adaptation of Paradise Lost (with elements of Dante’s Inferno).
In Milton’s world view, the universe was represented just like the mobile above Aaron’s crib. The universe of planets, sun and stars was encapsulated by waters which fed the Earth and kept the raging forces of Chaos at bay. Outside the Universe sphere are the separate spheres of Heaven and Hell. In Dante’s work, after the rebellion in heaven, Satan and his devils were cast into Hell in the midst of Chaos. God then created a new universe which housed a new creature, Man, on Earth. Satan built a bridge to Earth through Chaos and brought evil to mankind, which lead to the banishment of man from Eden to the mortality of Earth.
In religion context, man has both a body and soul. Upon death on earth, one’s soul travels to another plane of existence. Some religions base that upon the sins of the past; others various stages of enlightenment and reincarnation; hell (punishment), purgatory (penance), limbo (pagan paradise) or heaven (resurrection, eternal paradise). In the afterlife, souls have new bodies (vessels). Various stages of the afterlife may be present in the ether of the after world, as the soul is cleansed of its mortal sins toward a path of enlightenment on final judgment. The mind would control afterlife matter.
What was left in Milton and Dante’s works was the revenge of Satan against God. There is an inference that Satan at some time would rise up to fight another battle for heaven. As Satan had found a path to invade his spiritual form to Earth, it would probably be much harder to breach the gates of heaven.
Thus, we get to the Island. The Island is a way station, a nexus point between the gates of heaven and the afterlife universe. The Hatch and the Numbers were the mechanism to maintain an electromagnetic barrier between the nexus bridge and the gates of heaven so Satan’s minions could not invade. When the numbers were not imputed to vent the EM, an alarm would sound, an internal barrier would drop and symbols would appear. I translated those Egyptian symbols to say “He escapes place of death.” Once the EM force field was down, breached or compromised, the nexus point (island) was exposed - - and other souls (devils) could arrive through either Chaos or through a gate to Earth to take control of this strategic place.
The basic assumption watching the show is that the characters are alive. They survived the plane crash. But in the jumbled time looping, flash back and flash forward story lines, is that really confirmed as true? It is possible to speculate that the passengers on 815 were already in their afterlives, having already died prior to Flight 815. In the flashbacks, there are clues that these characters died: examples -- Hurley: deck collapse; Kate: car accidents; Sayid: Iraq war casualty; Rose: terminal cancer; Rousseau: shipwreck; Desmond: lost at sea in small boat. They may not actually know they are "dead" per se, as their mind and soul is just beginning its long journey through the afterlife and judgment. (In ancient Egyptian culture, various parts of the body and soul transmute into the afterlife to be reconstructed after various stages of being in the afterlife.) How everyone got on the plane is like the comment from Defending Your Life, how one imagines their demise is how they are transported to the next level of existence.
Three characters have been called "special." If one looks at their situation with a more objective notion of time and place, one could conclude that they were either stillborn, or died shortly after birth. This would mean that they had no mortal sins. Ben (premature and born on roadside), Locke (mother hit by car, premature), and Alex (mother shipwrecked or died of the sickness). When Ben stated that he was born on the island, it may be a reference that he was actually arrived in the afterlife as a "rarity," a human soul without mortal sin. This would imply that he would have angelic powers. But those powers could be corrupted by other, fallen angels or Satan’s minions.
In ancient Egyptian culture (since LOST has increased its references to it as the seasons have come to pass), departed souls would reach a pagan paradise where they would toil in the fields of the gods, while others would go into the underworld to have their heart weighed in the final judgment on whether they would pass onto eternal paradise.
The Island could the the intersection of different, supernatural realms of good and evil. This could explain why our natural laws and physics seem not to apply to aspects of Island.
In my final theory, I stated:
The Lost Experience can be best summarized as human beings taking a long journey of good, evil, faith, science, redemption and final judgment. The Lost Souls (the 815ers, the Others, Dharma) are all caught in a layered spirit world. It is the merger of ancient religion and science which created the pyramids and Temples. The need to prepare in one's lifetime for the journey through the afterlife is a key component in the ancient texts. Speculate that the ancient civilizations actually found the technology portal(s) to the afterlife as a means of helping their rulers and gods journey through the afterlife. This puts the characters in a supernatural world, where our known concepts of science, physics and technology become immaterial.
There are various levels in the afterlife, according to a person's beliefs and final judgment. Many could toil in the pagan-secular world after death, which may be tilling ancient fields, or living in a parallel earth civilization. It could be real or an illusion to test one's free will or faith. Many could be found worthy of eternal paradise in heaven, or in reincarnation into a higher life form. Many of the unworthy, evil or damned could be found on the road to hell, chaos or non-existence. There is no right or wrong answer to how the road map of Death could play out.
But most literary civilizations have common touchstones for which morality creates the mortar to create a solid society.
I believe that the characters are dead. Dead before we even saw them in S1E1. But dying once on earth does not mean that you cannot die multiple times more during one's journey through the afterlife. Dead is Dead but the Dead could be Alive in another plane of existence. One could compare it to running through levels of an action video game. Each one of those levels is managed by angels or guardians, whose sole mission is to sort out the souls for judgment, rehabilitation or demise. It can be levels of existence: earth life, to a faux earth existence in another plane like earth, to a pagan paradise (toiling in the fields, working for the gods), to an underworld where souls are tested, to various levels or hell to various levels of spiritual enlightenment, to the final way station before final judgment. It would function as a pre-heaven Eden and a pre-hell Pit of Destruction. The Island is like an airport terminal, with various gates or portals to different dimensions, different times, different realms of existence. The Guardians bring souls to the Island in a collective manner, in order to retain their human beliefs, instincts, experiences, fears, weaknesses and strengths, in order to see if one's human instincts (destruction, deceit, corruption, deadly sins) have been reformed in order to pass on to the next level of the afterlife.
There is another aspect to consider: Lost in Reverse. Sideways is a purgatory wait station. The Island is the hell to test souls fears, sins through relationships, quests, tests, judgment or redemption. The flashbacks are not true memories, but the dream feedstock of the characters main fears and nightmares, because those mental conditions are repeated in Island events to see if the character can change, come to grip with those issues, in order to “move on.” Christian tells Jack that everything that has happened to him was “real.” But reality is a moving target concept. One can dream themselves into sweat filled horror which seems absolutely real. A psychopath can have “real illusions” and act them out in real life, like stabbing an individual who he thinks is a werewolf or zombie. The sideways world was “created” by Jack’s friends in order to wait for Jack’s death. How can you “interconnect” the minds, thoughts, memories and personality of a dozen people to create a whole new world. It sounds like a game platform. It sounds like an MMO. It sounds - - - like a crazy construct. We know the sideways world is not real, but it had to be created by the memories or dreams of the characters, which differ from their flashback stories. An alternative dream world was created for Jack to return to the group who shared Island based adventures and breakthroughs like group therapy.
So is the Island all inside Jack’s head? It is possible. Factors that point to a mental instability issue were the paranoia of his failed marriage, his daddy issues, his drug addiction, his almost suicide and his probable professional collapse by running away to Thailand for more than one month, to be intertwined with Achara (Dharma), a symbol of the spirit world. Jack’s main characteristic (and fault) was his desire to “fix people.” What better way to mentally fix people than to create a plane full of broken characters and set them in a dangerous fantasy world where you would become the Leader.
Or it could be a layered effect of interlocking Time. The ancient Mayans had three interlocking calendars to keep Time. One was a 9 month “human” cycle. One was the 12 month “harvest” cycle. One was the “cosmic” cycle. High priests could interlock all three calendars to predict future star events or predict the meaning of births.
Lost could represent a layered of “after time” calendars. A character may be “living” in several different “realities” which may or may not overlap. More likely, one parallel life feeds off the memories of an alternative past “after time” cycle. Take Eloise as the prime example of this theory:
