THE FUTURE

The best way to predict the future is to create it. — Dr. Forrest C. Shaklee

After the pilot episode, the story engine was simple. There were only two things that needed to be accomplished by the 815 passengers: survival and rescue.

Survival was complicated because there were a diverse group of passengers, each with their own secrets and faults, who would not work well together. They had landed in a mysterious place which made no perceptive sense (the smoke monster's roars and polar bears). 

Rescue was only on the mind of a few people (Michael and Jin). The rest first believed that they would be rescued in a few days. But once a week had past, Jack realized that no one was coming to rescue them. He had to bring together those whose hopes of rescue were dashed with those who who more concerned with their own survival.

LOST had two conclusions set up at the end of the pilot. The 815 people would either live or die on the island. The 815 people would either be rescued or live out their lives on the island as castaways.

 How did those primarily conclusions work out?


Plenty of people lived and died on the island. A few people got rescued (a couple even twice) but we would learn that the island was a trap, a snow globe, an extraordinary place where the island visitors were pawns in a vague, ancient game between two supernatural powers.


No was was retrieved from the island without deep scars. No one was truly "saved" from the dangers of the island confines. The reason is that the story engine took a sudden series ending U-turn into a parallel universe axis which had little bearing on the original crash and survival story most people thought was the premise for the show.

If one tries to connect these diverse realities, one notion is that all the island events somehow influenced the sideways world in such a fashion to create "the happy ending." But the sideways world did not involve the 815 passengers having to suffer through the crash, the island tortures, the hardships or even the emotional turmoil of life and death struggles with opponents. The sideways world was for the most part a plain vanilla, milquetoast, nice alternative reality. The question is then how or why did the sideways dream/fantasy world come into existence?

Was it the creation from the dreams and life's promises of the passengers in the three minutes from the time the plane broke a part to the passengers falling to the sea and ground? Was it created as everyone's life "flashed before their mind" in the moments before almost certain death? Christian said the sideways reality was created by everyone. It had no past, present or future; it was just "now." It was a Polaroid moment in fixed time or collective memory. When Christian said the people in the sideways church all were dead, and that some died before and after Jack, he did not put an actual time frame on that statement. It could have been seconds to minutes - - - or the feeling of an eternity when you are the highest anxiety levels when your mind knows that you are going to die when the plane hits the ground.

In those final moments before impact, the sideways world had to be created by some supernatural force. As the actors and many critics found, the writers resolution that turned to a "spiritual ending" reinforces the idea that the main characters perished on the island. But before the characters perished, they dreamed of their dreamed of what their lives would have been - - - what could have been - - - as a means of coming to terms with their peril.

The plane crash was the crossover point between human existence and the spiritual world. There is no other logical conclusion to make common sense of the relationship between the island and the sideways world. In some ways it is Wizard of Oz in reverse. Instead of human Dorothy being swept away into a fantasy world, it was the passengers souls being trapped on a real island unable to cope with their own deaths . . . so they continued to live on as if they were "alive." For some, this was a chance to live their dreamed futures. For others, it was a chance to become something better than they were before the crash; soul searching so to speak.

This concept does not go over well with a majority of original LOST viewers. They still believe what the TPTB stated in the first year that the show was not about purgatory. But in a show filled with character lies, half-truths, emotional manipulations and confidence games, TPTB had a biased, vested interest to keep the series going as long as possible; to keep the viewers in the dark with mysteries as long as possible.

The sideways world dream reality (the second chance for the dead passengers) makes sense from its own internal construction. If we believe in the backstories of the 815 passengers during the island time, then the sideways world does not fit into that past. For example, in the sideways world Jack was not married to Sarah but to Juliet. Jack was divorced, but in the sideways world he has a son named David. In the island time, Juliet is unmarried. Her lover was killed by a strange bus accident. As a result, she was whisked away to the island - - - and away from the most important person in her life, her sister (who does not appear in the sideways story line).

There are major story inconsistencies in the sideways story arc based on just those factors alone. One could say that the sideways world was "the truth," and the island and its backstories were the dream alternative of the sideways souls living out a trite existence in purgatory. In the sideways world, Ben is a meek teacher. But in the island realm, he is a ruthless, powerful leader (something he dreamed about in his confrontation with his principal). In the sideways world, Locke is a crippled substitute teacher. But in the island realm, he is the outback survivalist leader. In fact, in the sideways world all of the characters seem to be good people. In the island realm, their inner demons are unleashed.

So how could sideways souls kept in a suburbanite purgatory story loop be transported to the island? Their Flight 815 landed safely in LA. How could their current memories be overridden by the harsh trauma of the island events when they could not remember them in the first place? 

Another answer follows the ancient Egyptian belief that upon death, a person's spiritual existence is split into various components to journey into the after life planes. The ba and ka are separated and have to travel a part until a point where they are reunited in paradise or destroyed at the moment of judgment. This parallel religious belief does mirror the possible parallel after life story lines of LOST. The evidence of this possibility was clearly represented in the temple, statue and hieroglyphs shown throughout the series.

The bottom line is that dead souls, at some point, dreamed of a better existence for themselves. They dreamed of a better future, one lost during their real life time. They were able in a supernatural world to live parts of their lost dreams as a means of coming to terms of their own individual deaths. It was only when they came to terms with their death (and the regrets of their lives) did they awaken to a higher spiritual plane.