LAYERED DREAMS

It was not one of the best Doctor Who Christmas specials, but this year's did have an interesting concept at play: dreams within dreams where the characters believed they were dealing with real time, interactive events, even though they were not even in the same location.

In LOST, dream theorists believe that the characters were all hooked up on machines that criss-cross neuron-impulses to create a fabricated, collective dream matrix. It is run by the subconscious mind, like running through levels of a video game. Nothing is real, even though your brain and your senses think it is real.

But the application of dreams within dreams can explain the problematic sideways universe. In essence, the characters mental comas or sleep states could have created the following layers: background stories; the flight from Sydney; the crash onto the island; the island events; the off-island events like the O6; the inconsistent time travel events; and the sideways world. Even when someone died on the island, like Libby, she was still an illusion in the next layer of the complex dream state: the sideways arc.

The dream state explanation is one of the true unified theories to LOST. Since dreams are not reality, basic tenets of fact like time and physics (such as a moving island) do not matter so there is no continuity errors. Vivid dreams can take the place of actual events in minds that are broken, drugged or fragmented - - - which are traits in most of the characters who landed on the island.

TO HIS OWN DRUMBEAT

"If a man does not keep pace with his companion, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer"? - - - Henry David Thoreau

Companionship is the keystone to the foundation of human relationships.

It is often taken for granted by couples.

One's compassion and passion are the mortar that sets companionship to the solid foundation of the relationship.

In all of the LOST relationships, only one truly met the requirement for a lasting love affair: Rose and Bernard.  All the rest of the main characters were missing some real compassion or passion for their partner. For example, Sayid may have felt sympathy for Shannon after losing Boone, and had a passionate spark for her, but Shannon's M.O. was to find a man, anyone, who would support her. Her only asset was her good looks. That was not a solid relationship in any sense of the term.

The same goes for Jack and Kate. Kate used her charm to bounce around from man to man in order to get something from him: protection, money, a hideout, or escape. Jack did not seem to have the passion to hold on to Kate, and Kate was never head over heels in love with Jack during their island time. If she was, she would have never left a bleeding Jack after they defeated MIB/Flocke.

Besides Rose and Bernard, the main characters of the show walked to their own drummers because they were loners, lost in their own fears, self-esteem issues and social awkwardness that stunts human growth.

PRESENTS

In the holiday season, if Jacob was the magical Santa, what gifts did he give the islanders?

Santa is an immortal character passed down for centuries. The lesson was that if little boys and girls were good, they would receive presents in their stockings. Some consider that the first parental mind control game. The holiday gift giving traditions corresponds to the bounty of the harvest and cultural imprints to share with those in need. Noble concepts, indeed.

But there were few, if any, noble concepts in LOST.

What Jacob gave most visitors, including his followers, was pain and suffering.

What present did Jack get from the island? Death. He died fighting an immortal smoke monster which we still don't know what it was, what it was made of, and what purpose it truly had on the island.

What present did Locke get from the island? Death. He was murdered by Ben who in a sudden fit of rage subconsciously thought he was protecting the island from Eloise Hawking.

What present did Michael get from the island? Death and imprisonment. His soul became a trapped island whisper. Was Michael's sins any different from the lives that both Jack and Locke took on the island? The answer would be no - - - they were senseless acts of violence.

What did Charlie get from the island? Death in a senseless, but noble way. Charlie sacrificed himself to contact a rescue boat, but then warned Desmond it was not Penny's. Charlie only wanted to save Claire, but by dying he lost that opportunity.

What did Jin and Sun get from the island? Death. When Sun was trapped in the submarine, Jin stayed with her knowing that their decision would leave their only child an orphan. Normally, a parent would do anything to help their child, to protect her and support her. Jin's death was really a senseless suicide.

What present did Kate get from the island? She got the marshal killed, and she got the chance to continue to run away from responsibility and accountability for her actions. She never got punished for the men she killed. She got a free pass and a Get Out of Jail Free card.

What present did Walt get from the island? He got the status of being an orphan after Michael died, and he lost his dog, Vincent. At best, he got a normal life living with his grandmother, but he was still haunted by his island memories.

What present did Sawyer get from the island? He got only a short glimpse of a wonderful, normal relationship with Juliet. But then the island killed her off in a bizarre incident at the Hatch construction site. So he left the island still a bitter man.

What present did Sayid get from the island? He got an even shorter glimpse of a physical relationship with Shannon. But then the island killed her off in a senseless accident. The island turned Sayid back into the dark torture monster of his past; a self-loathing character with nothing to live for (even though he had pined for decades over his lost Nadia) and eventually perished only to be reincarnated as a evil minion. He would die trying to do something noble, but wound up killing more of his friends.

No, Jacob's and the island's graces to the castaways were not holiday presents. It was a struggle; a lot of pain and suffering; and death.

THE BACKGROUND CHARACTER

There was one thing that moved through the island stories in stealth mode: Vincent.

Walt's dog was the first to find and wake Jack after the crash.
Vincent was also the reason Michael tried to bond with his son by going into the jungle to find the lost dog.
Vincent was the one character that no one suspected of doing anything wrong.

But one clue that everyone missed first time around was this:

if Walt was so attached to Vincent, why did he not bring the dog with him on the raft?

If the one true rule of the island was that the smoke monster could not leave it - - - that could lead to an assumption that Vincent was NOT real, but a smoke monster in disguise. Which makes perfect sense if the smoke monster wanted to learn about the new humans on its island. What better way to gather intelligence than roaming through the camp listening to what everyone was saying. Vincent would have been the perfect spy.

We were introduced to Vincent in an odd way. Shortly after the crash. Vincent was searching the jungle. While doing this, he heard a whistle. It was Christian, who we would know later, was dead. And this Christian form was actually a smoke monster. He called Vincent over and told him to go wake up "his son." As Vincent ran off towards Jack to do this, Christian stated that Jack "had work to do." Vincent then continued running until he found Jack, who had just regained consciousness. As Jack awoke, he saw Vincent running towards him through the jungle and stopping to look at Jack. Vincent then continued exploring the jungle.

But since he had a "light" coat, perhaps Vincent was a manifestation of Jacob, who some believe was also a smoke monster due to his immortality and his inability to kill another smoke monster, MIB. Perhaps, both smoke monsters needed to awake, reincarnate or "save" a dead or dying Jack in order to fulfill their mutual desire to "die and leave the island."

We know that many "lost" souls remain trapped on the island (the whispers) including Michael. In the end, Vincent returns to the bamboo jungle to curl up next to dying Jack. Was this Jacob comforting Jack for taking the leadership role on the island - - - to direct his soul to the afterlife reunion?

Likewise, was Jacob in Vincent form attached Jack's dying soul from the plane crash into the island realm so it could be prepared for the after life?

BLACK & WHITE

It was a simple analogy: black and white.
It meant there are two things in the world: darkness and light.
It also means that the two represent many things, like good vs. evil; moral vs. immoral; trust vs. distrust; caring vs. apathy; friendship vs. enemy.

When you look at Locke's face above, you notice that he is scarred above and below his right eye. In Egyptian mythology, the Eye of Horus was a scar on the left eye of a sky god. In one story, Set and Horus fought over the throne after Osiris' death. Set gouged out Horus' left eye, which was restored by the magic of Thoth, the moon god. So the dark piece could be the moon and the light piece the sun, Ra, the most powerful god who had to traverse the dangerous underworld each night.

For the left eye of Horus represented "protection, royal power and good health."

But since it was a mirror image on Locke's face, would it represent the opposite?
"Insecurity, servitude and poor health."

In many ways, insecurity, servitude and poor health was Locke.  He was clearly insecure in his own self, his skill set, his dreams and his handling his own expectations. He thought of himself as a great man, but never had the drive to be his own boss or leader. He was boxed in various meaningless tasks like a clerk at a box company, or a pest control specialist. And his poor health, his disability, was direct result of mistrusting his con man father and his inability to defend himself.

In many ways, Locke was set up from the very beginning to be the series Fall Guy. He would never be the true leader. He would never have any true power over other people. And he would not live a happy or healthy life.  He embodied the dark fears of most people's subconscious. Even when things are going well, there is a hint of pending doom, despair or questioning in the back of one's mind. "This has to be too good to be true."  Self-doubt at times turns into real doubt on the road to failure.

It is ironic that Locke was trying to teach Walt, a young black child who had no mother and a stranger as a father, the symbolism of backgammon. Walt would wind up with a better fate than most island castaways: he would find some security with his grandmother, he would have a chance to control his own future, and he was in good health the last time Locke saw him. The time Locke could have tried to convince Walt to give up his new life and return to the island with him. But Locke did not even try to convince Walt to return to the island. It really was the clearest black and white decision Locke ever made in the show.

ALTERNATIVE LEADS

If one was going to shift the main focus of LOST to two different lead characters, then the "bad" chemistry between Boone and Shannon could have been a good alternative.

Through a roundabout way, Jack and Kate became the lead-romantic figures in the series. Jack was saved from being axed early on for dramatic effect (which ironically Boone would serve that role) while Kate was originally to be the lead lead character, but got downplayed to partial secondary lead (on the missions as surrogate for the fans).

Boone and Shannon could have leveraged their rich arrogance into strong willed aristocratic rule upon the beach survivors.  Shannon was quite the manipulative rich girl who was used to getting her way. Her wiles were downplayed in the series to only be a doting, spoiled, lazy brat. Her character could have been written in a more bold fashion. She could have used her sex appeal to bond loyalty with various male characters, such as Sawyer, Sayid and even Locke. Once she got muscle behind her, she could set herself up in island luxury (almost in the same mold as Ben).

Boone was smart enough to run a large business for his mother, he should have had the skill set to "manage" the castaways in an efficient manner where they would look up to him for their survival, instead of Jack. In fact, Jack was still afraid of authority figures due to his father's belittlement of his skills. Boone could have been the skilled politician who cut the deals to keep everyone in line.

Such a cutthroat couple was not foreign in the writers, since they used that concept with the misguided introduction of Nikki and Paulo, who conspired to kill a wealthy man for his diamonds and wealth.

A ruthless Boone-Shannon couple, linked by their dark secret of a sibling affair, would have added a new layer of darkness to the series. It could be used to keep them together, or later, pull them a part.

THE LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE

Throughout human existence, mankind has been aware of a few absolute truths: people are born and people die.

It is how one perceives life is what has changed over the tens of thousands of years.  In the past, ancient cultures mostly saw their lives in the cycles of Nature. Every year, like the seasons, would follow birth, harvest, death and rebirth. But in modern societies, the view is that life is a linear plane where each year of existence is another marker on a ruler.

Also, it is interesting that ancient cultures believed that there were present gateways from their creator gods to themselves on Earth. Ancient people looked to the stars in the heavens as the source of their own lives, including seeing the Milky Way as a portal to everlasting life.  Modern religions have adapted some of those past beliefs into a system of morality, where the human spirit lives on after mortal death on Earth, to be transported to a new realm of existence (heaven or hell).

But in this modern view, there is debate on whether there are intermediate steps in the transition from human to soul spirit. The ancient Egyptians believed that a human soul is divided at death so one part has to suffer judgment through a long, dangerous journey through the underworld with the hope to be reunited with its other part in paradise. Modern theology tends to state that if a person is good in his or her life, they will be rewarded in some fashion: external bliss in heaven in angelic form or reborn as another person or life form on Earth.

It is the transitory nature of life to death to potential rebirth that keeps the human mind from going completely mad at the prospect of nothingness at the end game.

So how could LOST fit into this existence time line?  The island was supposed to be the place of life, death and rebirth. It did not have the physics of an actual Earth island, so it is assumed that it is either a supernatural place or overlaps into another dimension of time-space. In other words, the island could be the space between human life and death.

For some viewers, that intermediate place makes sense. The characters pre-815 back stories show edtheir lives, troubles and sins. The sideways world showed the waiting room in the after life. The bridge between the two different existences had to be the island. It goes to show then that the characters could still be "alive" on the transitional island realm, but not able to "move on" to the after life unless certain conditions were met.

If you then view the island as a land of make believe, not of Earth but its own unique sphere of existence, it is easier to gloss over the factual inaccuracies or inconsistent story plot points because none of those really matter in a place which has no normal rules.

BOONE DOGGLE

Locke is a hard guy to like . . . or be a true friend. On the island, Boone was the only character that had any empathy for Locke.

As stated previously, Boone had his own familial issues with Shannon. Boone tried to be helpful from the beginning of the post-crash CPR, which Jack told him he was doing it wrong. Boone tried to fit in to a fractured beach camp, but he never found any true connection.

It is probably because he was a loner, like Locke. Maybe Boone needed an older brother figure to cope with the stress of being a castway, estranged from his stepsister.

Originally, Boone was supposed to be a major presence in the LOST story. However, he got shifted to a secondary role after the emergence of Jack as the lead male character.

Still, Boone was involved in two key moments in the series (or so we thought at the time of original airing): finding the Hatch and finding the small drug airplane.

The Hatch was supposed to give us viewers the Big Answers to the current island mysteries. It would have been a window into what was the island, who were the Others, and why strange things were happening to the castaways. At the very least, it would have given the beach camp real shelter from the smoke monster, wild animals and the Others attacks (but strangely, that never happened).

The plane was supposed to help guide the viewer into the soul of the island, because it was physically impossible that an African small plane could have crash landed on a remote Pacific Island. The presence of the plane was either a) an illusion taken from Eko's memory; b) an echo of a parallel dimension or realm; or c) a magical trope to create faux drama.

Boone took it upon himself to go up on the cliff to investigate the plane for clues and a possible chance to be a hero, to find a radio and call for help. But the plane fell, and Boone was severely injured.

It was Boone's traumatic demise that got Jack to "let go" of a patient, for there would be no "medical miracle" on an island that allowed at least two big miracles: Locke being able to walk and Rose's cure for cancer. By Jack being unable to save Boone, some consider his death "saving" Jack from the haunting criticism of his late father.

Locke would justify the reckless behavior of his subordinate as "being the sacrifice that the island demanded." But we never get the sense that the island was a conscious being that needed human blood in order to survive. (This is a very ancient, pagan-primitive ritual belief system).  Why Locke made that assertion could only be to ease his own guilt for allowing Boone to do a dangerous task.

It foreshadows Locke's only senseless demise when he tried to be the hero (getting everyone back to the island). Perhaps self grandeur is why both Locke and Boone are alone in the sideways church. For some reason, they could never connect or find their own soulmates.

EYES CLOSED

For those with a work ethic, a close family and bills to pay, the idea that one can shut out the realities of Life is impossible and reckless.

Life's challenges are multiple daily decisions that have ramifications, both big and small. Navigating the pot holes in the road of Life is something that is conditioned upon experience, upbringing, morality, culture, education, skill and common sense. Life is Hard.

But in many ways, Life was easy for the many of the main LOST characters.

Closing one's eyes to the problems around you so you don't have to confront them (or your fears) was symbolic of many relationship issues throughout the series.  When Jack opened his eyes in the bamboo field after the crash, it was symbolic of Jack going on a journey to deal with the problem he had put off until it was too late: reconciling his issues with his father.

Likewise, Kate kept a blind eye to responsibility and accountability for her actions. It seems she was never punished for her childhood transgressions. She learned that your cute charm could get people to do her bidding. She never seemed to work hard at anything because people, boys, would try to help her. Her eyes only opened when she uncharacteristically decided that she needed to help Claire, a stranger and fearful young mother, with the birth of Aaron and his later rescue to the mainland.

Hurley also had an easy life. His doting mother gave him a home and plenty of room for Hurley not to have to work hard. The safety net of his mother's love closed Hurley's expectations for himself. He was ashamed about himself. He had self-esteem issues. He was closed minded about his future (like working as a fry cook would be his career). He was self-conscious about meeting women because he lost the feeling of love when his father abandoned him. It was when Hurley closed his eyes and went into his dream world did he find comfort with his one true, but imaginary friend, Dave. Hurley avoided the need to make hard choices by being in a mental institution where he had no pressure to do anything.

Even if one went wide eyed into a new venture, it does not mean he would see the truth. That was Locke's problem: no matter what path he tried to take in his life, he would stumble and be made the fool.  He was blind to the fact that other people used his good nature against him. When he dreamed about himself, it was of a grander man that he could ever become in real life. And that image of himself haunted his daily life to the point where he went from meaningless and unfilled job after job with little responsibility or expectations for himself.

Many characters kept their responsibility meters off. They did not want to confront their own problems in such a way to be accountable for their own mistakes. They would rather wallow in self-pity than change. It was only by the basic instinct of survival did any of them actually have to come to terms with their closed minds to make some sort of personal mental redemption. One can skate through life with your eyes closed to the harsh realities of life, but in the end that is not really living.

GUILT & SHAME

One of the undercurrents in LOST was the troubled back stories of the main characters. One of the most pulp fiction background relationships was between Boone and his stepsister, Shannon.

In the category, the Rich have hard lives, this relationship had a creepy guilt and shame dynamic.

Boone Carlyle was Shannon's stepbrother. Before Flight 815,  he had been used by Shannon for money and as a result of this, his love for her was revealed and they had a one-night stand.

Boone Carlyle was the son of Sabrina Carlyle, and stepson of Adam Rutherford, a man who was killed in the auto accident in which Jack "saved" Sarah. When Sabrina and Adam  married when Boone was ten, and Shannon, who was two years his junior, became his step-sister. His parents frequently left him with a nanny when he was young, and Boone, angry at being left alone, called her to his room repeatedly without cause. During one of these calls, when Boone was six, the nanny fell and broke her neck.  This may be the impetus of Boone's character trait of helping Shannon throughout her life; guilt.

By the time he had turned 20, Boone was living in New York. After flying back to Los Angeles for Adam Rutherford's  funeral, Boone comforted Shanno by giving his underage stepsister some alcohol to mollify her grief. He told Shannon she could live with him in New York if it would help get her career as a dance instructor started. After Shannon got the job, Boone was then offered a job by his mother. He accepted the job as the Chief Operating Officer of the wedding clothing subsidiary and he had to move from New York. Shannon had asked him to ask his mother for some money, but he came back empty handed. He that said his mother knew why he asked for the money. Boone then offered Shannon some of his own money to get her started in New York without him, but she refused because she wanted to prove herself. Shannon would fail in her attempts (feeble at best) to be self-sufficient and independent. She was daddy's little girl, who got anything she wanted from him, but when he was gone she was mad that her life had been so disrupted by his death. She would be seeking out other men to take care of her. She polished a devious streak to get what she wanted from men.

Although he would not openly admit it to anyone, Boone was in love with Shannon and he would do anything to help her out of her jams.  He paid men to end Shannon's abusive relationships. Shannon would take advantage of Boone's feelings. He received a phone call from Shannon pleading for him to come and help her with her boyfriend, Bryan,  in Sydney. Boone flew to Australia and, although she initially denied there was anything wrong, Shannon showed him a bruise on her forehead discreetly, as Bryan kicked Boone out of their house. He went to the police station to file a report but the Detective was unwilling to help because Boone and Shannon were not blood related, and joked, they were not the "dating police." Boone decided to take matters into his own hands.

He tried to bribe Bryan to leave Shannon. He took the money, but when Boone came to pick up Shannon, Bryan was still there - - - willing to share the loot with Shannon. In other words, Boone was conned into giving Shannon $50,000. There was a fight, and Boone lost.  Later that night, Shannon appeared at Boone's hotel room and told him that Byran had left her, taking all the money. They had drinks, and the alone Shannon seduced Boone. Afterward, Boone felt confused and dejected when Shannon suggested that they return to LA and act if nothing happened that night.

Throughout his time on the Island, Boone would spend a lot of his time with Shannon before finally getting over his love for her and letting her go. He later became Locke's apprentice when the two discovered the Hatch and they formed a close friendship.  Unable to open the Hatch, they followed a dream Locke had and found a small plane sitting on a cliff. Boone climbed up into the plane but suffered severe injuries when the plane fell to the ground. Despite Jack's  best attempts to save him, Boone realized he was going to die and told Jack to let him go. After Boone's death, Locke described him as a "sacrifice the Island demanded."

Shannon's time on the island was not one of personal growth. She kept to her spoiled trust fund persona, rarely helping out. Boone's death did affect her deeply, but it may have been slightly more shame on how she treated him that deep affection. For Shannon, being totally alone, began to seek out company of someone to support her. That person was Sayid, but their relationship was very brief, as Shannon was killed accidently by Ana Lucia.  Sayid's grief over Shannon's death was much more than Shannon had when Boone perished.

So despite the close relationship between Boone and Shannon, they were not "together" in the after life reunion. For little apparent reason, Sayid was reunited with Shannon (and not Nadia). And Boone, like his friend Locke, had no one to sit next to during the final church sequence. Why Boone, who only tried to help his step sister throughout her life, was punished with a lonely eternity, is one of those major downers in the story. And Shannon, who used men to support her, and had little moral principles in doing so, was rewarded in the after life. Life is not fair.

THE FUTURE

It is a rare opportunity to see one's future and not act on it in the present.

In LOST, many of the main characters had a unique opportunity during the time flashes. When the crew was trapped in 1977 Dharmaville, they knew what their futures held for them . . . nothing really good on the island. Only one person seized the opportunity based on his future: Sawyer.

Sawyer took advantage of his future knowledge (being a prisoner of Ben's group) to leverage a position of power within the group (since he did not know whether he would ever return to his real time). He forged his position with his relationship with Juliet, which was non-existent in the real island time line. In fact, Juliet is the exact opposite of a person Sawyer would normally have gone after.

One suspects that this 30 year diversion was so strong a personal bond that Sawyer kept it in his heart until he died (and was reunited with Juliet in the sideways world). But if the characters were bouncing back and forth between time periods, both in the past and future, could Sawyer have actually known about Juliet's fate with the Incident/Jughead? "It worked," she said during the EM implosion - - - was that the final bond to her soulmate, James?

But then, it is fairly sad that Sawyer left the island and presumably lived a long life without Juliet AND a long life without another true companion. Sawyer would have been the type of man who needed company - - - both physical and mental challenges. (Which is why Kate, also a survivor, would have been his better match after leaving the island for the final time.)

It could be argued that Sayid was the one character who understood best what the flash back in time meant to changing the future. It was Sayid who met Young Ben before he turned into the monster dictator. So Sayid took it upon himself to shoot Ben in the chest, presumably killing him. By killing Ben, Sayid thought that the terrorism of the real island time would be extinguished . . .  but in all time travel lore, altering the past could have great repercussions on the future. For example, Young Ben was still naive child. But he may have found his true love in Annie or another girl, made childhood island friends, or even left the island for college and a more normal life. He may not have become the Ben who wanted to control the island.

It is more likely that Sayid's gunshot of Ben altered the course of history to actually create Evil Ben. Since the dying child was taken to the Temple by Alpert, who said he would be altered forever by the spring (as we saw in Sayid himself, an evil reincarnation). Sayid's actions in the past may have actually doomed Ben to the island maniac future, including the mass murder of the Dharma group.

RE-BIRTH

It was a miracle when Aaron was born on the island. First, the baby survived a high altitude plane crash. Second, her mother was a stressed out bundle of emotions. Third, there were no medical facilities. Fourth, the Others "tested" and "injected" him during a kidnap of Claire. Fifth, no trained medical person helped deliver the baby in the jungle.

The next miracle was that Aaron survived on the island. There would have been pests, disease and malnutrition factors. The Others should have kidnapped him because the Others were obsessed with children. Claire would go through some crazy mom postpartum depression.

The next miracle was Aaron's escape from the island. He survived a helicopter crash into the ocean. He survived the blazing sun in the open seas without his mother. Once on the mainland, he survived under the care of the anti-Mother, Kate.

Aaron was one lucky kid. Luckier than even Hurley.

But does this all add up?

Since Claire left the island with Kate, to fulfill her own self-anointed destiny to reunite Aaron with his mother, one must assume that Claire did re-bond with Aaron.  We were led to believe that Claire's mother, Carol, was in an irreversible coma. Christian came to Australia to help pay for the extended care, when Claire berated her father with blame. But Claire was to blame for her mother's condition (the traffic accident). So after the escape from the island, a fully recovered Carol shows up at Christian's memorial service. Is this also a miracle? Or a bad plot device to get Kate thinking about doing something right and noble in her life?

Carol's reappearance does give us the undertone that something is not quite right in the LOST time lines. If she did not make it and her hospital care cut short and she died after Christian's demise (a likely possibility), then the O6 arc is not real but a surreal bridge to the sideways after life realm.

Because if Claire left the island and she was reunited with Aaron, then there was no reason why Aaron would have needed to be "reborn" at the sideways world concert. How can a living human being be reborn in the afterlife? Or was the whole island Claire story a tale of a dramatic false pregnancy? Or a delusion that masked the fact that Aaron died in the plane crash or at birth?

For if Aaron was born on the island, and lived a normal life off the island, he would have been an adult with his own family and not a prop in the sideways conclusion. He was not needed in order to reunite Claire and Charlie at the concert.

But since the pregnant Claire was in the afterlife in that state of unwed, the question is then asked whether the after life is merely a dream state. And if it is a dream state, would re-living a traumatic time in one's life (like emergency child birth) rekindle the "best" time of your life?

The re-birth of Aaron in the sideways world has always been a troublesome plot point. It makes him more a prop than an actual human being.

Or, an alternative explanation: hysterical pregnancy. Though rare in the United States, pregnancies rooted in the mind but entirely absent from the body do happen. Victorian-era doctors referred to them as "hysterical pregnancies." Today, the favored terms are "delusional pregnancy," "false pregnancy" or "phantom pregnancy." When a patient suffers from some or all the symptoms of pregnancy— stomach growth, cramps, loss of period, morning sickness—without a fetus actually being present, it's known as pseudocyesis.

The division between the physiological and psychological aspects of this syndrome isn't always clear. Essentially, the word 'delusional' means the person is ill with a psychiatric disorder of some kind. But pseudocyesis can occur without any psychiatric illness: you can believe that you're pregnant and have signs of pregnancy for any number of reasons. Certain drugs will do it. There have been cases reported where a woman gains weight, starts having other signs like nausea and she starts believing she's pregnant—but she's not mentally ill and she never has been, other than this one area. And so she'll have some trouble being convinced she's not pregnant. 

If Aaron's "double" births were merely vivid hysterical pregnancies of a delusional woman, was the whole series then a collective delusion?

ESCAPE

It was an easy plot magic to have Michael, whose back story was an artist who had to work in construction to get by, to build a raft to escape the island. Of course it really did not make any sense since hanging drywall or nailing trim pieces is not the same as building a seaworthy vessel out of bamboo and tarps. But at least it had some obvious element that made it believable: Michael and his construction experience.

Even multimillion dollar racing yachts cannot compete with the harsh nature of the Pacific Ocean. the vast ocean and high rolling waves takes it toll on all shipping, including the large cargo container vessels. The idea of a small amateur raft being able to sail hundreds or thousands of miles to Fiji seems implausible. But at least it fulfilled one critical human element of the story: escape and rescue.

That was the key point to the start of the series. Human beings shipwrecked on an island want to go home. They need to get home. Their lives are not on the island. They would do anything to get home. Building a raft for a dangerous journey across a brutal sea makes sense when the overriding human emotion is to get home. The building of the raft made the most sense in the early story lines.

It also caused one of the first true leadership splits in the group. Michael was in charge of the ship, not Jack. Jack was really not interested in their rescue plan. Michael was motivated to take his son home. But Walt had different ideas. He did not want to live with a stranger (his father). He would rather stay on the island and create a new life since he had nothing to go home to on the mainland.

The building of the raft led to the first true betrayal. The first raft was set a blaze, which led to charges and countercharges amongst the group's alpha males. Sabotage was a volcanic destabliizer for the beach camp. Fingers were pointed at Sawyer, Locke, the Others . . .  but Michael channeled his anger in order to build a second raft. It was the only thing bringing hope to the group.

When the raft set sail, it marked a turning point in the series. The show could have gone in several different directions. First, the comparison of the "good" camp life with food and shelter could have been contrasted by the harsh starvation and terror of being lost at sea for weeks on a raft that was slowly falling a part. Second, the raft could have made it civilization which could have set up the second betrayal - - - Michael and Sawyer not telling their rescuers of the island survivors. Third, and what happened, was the Others taking charge of the castaways lives. This was the flash point for serious bloody conflict between the Others and the 815ers. Why the Others would break the truce in order to kidnap Walt, who was special was unclear, considering Ben would release Walt and his father on the boat for freedom (in exchange for another betrayal, which seems now as the only real currency on the island.)

The raft symbolized freedom, escape and rescue. But in the end, the raft set in motion a series of bloody decisions leading to dozens of senseless deaths, kidnapping and torture of individuals. Walt's kidnapping led to Michael going insane with rage. His rage killed Ana Lucia and Libby. His plan to rescue Walt led to Jack, Sawyer and Kate being captured and tortured. It forever divided the beach camp and the Others as enemies.

BATTLES

When we think of "battle," we think of the ancient art of warfare in all its glory and blood shed.

You can imagine warriors on armored horseback, with a shield, a long sword, arrows or a war club. They would charge directly into the enemy's lines without fear or hesitation. Soldiers are trained to do only one thing: kill or be killed.

In LOST, when we were told of an impending "battle," we got a wet noodle fire work at best.

After Jacob was slain by Ben, the remainder of the followers were in panic. The statement that gave them great pause, "they are coming!"

Now, in the imaginative circles of the LOST community, this was supposed to be a brilliant "whoa" right story angle of monumental proportions.  At the time I wrote that I thought it would be cool that above the Tawaret statue would rise the silhouettes of men carrying spears. Then there would be a huge loud cracking scream from above, and the men above would suddenly sprout black wings. These would be Hell's soldiers returning to the island to reek havoc, since a central theme of the series was good vs. evil.

But alas, nothing as out-there or big as Hell's warriors coming to the island. There would be no pitched battles, hand to hand combat, or a reason why the island was under attack.

Who was coming - - - was another vague threat to raise dramatic tension.

Widmore? His men had already been on the island.
Jacob's reserves? The followers left in the Temple were wiped out by Flocke/Smoke Monster.
Jack and the Candidates? They were not organized to do anything, let alone fight against an unknown foe.

For if the one key battle was that of Jacob against MIB, then MIB won when Ben betrayed his master. But somehow, that did not stop Flocke's continued quest to kill off all the candidates, who still did not know their true purpose on the island.

For if the battles were more symbolic, mind games, then the resolution of daddy-issues, accountability, fear of loneliness or mental illness was anti-climatic.

I think somehow we are still owed a "battle" by TPTB.

Yes, there was a lot of red shirts in the struggles between the survivors and the Others, but those incidents really had little basis in true conflict. The Others claimed the island as their own, but did nothing to remove the survivors from it. The truce was created because the survivors lacked a killer streak, and Ben found it more useful to mentally manipulate the new castaways then to kill them all off.

No a real battle has to resolve real issues, like territory, property or even for a cause. None of those things were present in the characters final motivations. The heart of the island was unknown to them except for Desmond, Hurley and Jack at the end. Kate, Sawyer, Claire, and the rest were not fighting to protect mankind or the heart of the island from evil; they had no idea that it existed or what MIB was trying to accomplish by controlling it.

The build up of a battle without an actual battle was quite disappointing, and most fans do not dwell on it because the story rushed to an even more uneven ending arc.

HOW PATHS ARE RARELY STRAIGHT

Everyone's life path is filled with twists and turns. Opportunities, forks in the road, pitfalls, etc.

So it is no surprise that Evangeline Lilly's path to stardom was one of those curves from her initial career road. She was a model who was coaxed into auditioning for a role in a TV pilot. Since it was going to be filmed in Hawaii, it probably was a no brainer. A diversion. A lark. Because she says her real dream, she said, has always been to be a writer. 

She has acting as a means to pay her bills, but her passion is still writing. 

Lilly, 35, who landed her breakout role on the ABC series "Lost" in 2004, said that at the time, she wasn't even sure she wanted to act professionally. A few years later, she decided she "really hated working as an actress." 

"I was like, 'Well, then, what do I want to do if I don’t want to be an actress?' Because I didn’t really mean to become an actress. I was sort of an accidental actress," she said. "I wound up deciding that I wanted to make a go of a career as a writer." 

Ultimately, however, dream roles kept finding her. Lilly's childhood passion for J.R.R. Tolkien was the catalyst for accepting her role in "The Hobbit" film franchise, as was her desire to play a strong female lead. She then accepted a role in the upcoming Marvel film, "Ant-Man," because of her desire to work with its star, Paul Rudd. 

However, Lilly, who recently wrote a children's book, "The Squickerwonkers," isn't planning on doing any other acting projects at the moment -- not that she minds. 

“There are so many reasons why, for me, writing is superior to acting,” she said. “One of them is anonymity. Writers can live relatively normal lives. Most [working] actors can’t. Writers can work from home and be near their family most of the time. Actors usually can’t. Writers expend a lot of intellectual energy, but not so much emotional energy. And I have intellectual energy coming out of my yin-yang, but emotional energy — I am so lazy. I just don’t have a lot of emotional energy to give. I don’t like drama in my life, and I don’t like having to pretend [to have drama].”

WORST COUPLE

PROBABLY the worst LOST couple was Sayid and Shannon. In just about every level, it made no sense.

Shannon was the stereotypical rich, white, affluent, trust fund bitch who had no drive, no vision and no goals except to make herself happy. Once her father died, she was cut off from the easy allowance, but had no skill sets to change. She went from one abusive boyfriend to another. It was only Boone who kept bailing her out. And despite that, Shannon was cold and unappreciative because that was her true character. Her self worth was tied to her material worth. She would have been brought up in a class system which looked down upon the common man who lacked the sophistication that only wealth and culture can bring.

Sayid was an troubled Iraqi soldier. He came from a large family, but it seemed he had to do his siblings' dirty work. He hated himself for becoming a torturer; but he could never change his tortured soul. He would have resented the manipulations of the American soldiers who captured him. He had nothing in common with a spoiled rich girl. Besides, for the entire series we were told that Sayid pined for his one and only true love, Nadia. Nadia, the woman he finally found after he thought he lost her forever when Flight 815 crashed, was killed in LA by Jacob stopping Sayid from crossing the street with her. Nadia's tragic death caused Sayid to revert in a cold blooded killer.

So when it came time for the "happy ending" to the series, one short island hook up trumps an entire life of long lost love?

It is totally unbelievable. Sayid should have wound up with Nadia.

Shannon should have wound up alone because she really did not have any strong connections to anyone. In the church, both Boone and Locke had no one to share the next stage of existence. Boone and Locke sat alone in the church, waiting while Shannon cuddled with Sayid.  It would have been better if Shannon and Boone sat together, and Sayid, the tortured soul who could never find happiness, sat alone in the back.  That would have made more sense.

To Shannon's personality, she would have been more apt to find a "sugar daddy" than a boyfriend - - - but lottery winner Hurley had Libby (but again, apparently you can take your wealth with you to the afterlife) or even an easily manipulated doctor in Jack.

The Sayid and Shannon thing was a major head scratcher. If Nadia was Sayid's true love, and if Sayid did actually get together with her in the O6 arc, then Sayid would have met her in heaven. Then this leads to the conclusion that many dislike: that Sayid never got together with Nadia, that she was figment of his imagination or dream. It disrupts the storytelling if major portions of the story cannot be proven to be real or an illusion. If it was an illusion, then Sayid's only physical love of his life was Shannon - - - then that is why they were together?

TRANSFORMATION

Transformation is a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance:  such as:
• a metamorphosis during the life cycle of an animal.
• Physics the induced or spontaneous change of one element into another by a nuclear process.
• Mathematics & Logic a process by which one figure, expression, or function is converted into another that is equivalent in some important respect but is differently expressed or represented.
• Linguistics a process by which an element in the underlying deep structure of a sentence is converted to an element in the surface structure.
• Biology the genetic alteration of a cell by introduction of extraneous DNA, esp. by a plasmid.
• Biology the heritable modification of a cell from its normal state to a malignant state.


Many consider LOST a trans formative series.


It created new format (back back and flash forward) of editing stories together. It revived a large core cast of main characters in a drama series (which was usually reserved to mini-series). It was one of the rare series that had both critics and viewers fanatical show worshippers. It was one of the first series to have a large, devote internet fan community dissecting the show in near real time.

The major transformations in the series may have been large, but its meanings light.

For example, the island's big transformation was it disappearance after the freighter explosion. How can an island just vanish? This was after the set-up by Daniel Faraday that his experiments showed that the island was actually in motion, moving away faster from the freighter than the rocket.  Since we know that islands are stationary objects anchored miles below on the ocean floor, it is not physically possible to make one disappear or move. The only other explanation would be that the island was not an island but a spacecraft or floating object. Such an explanation would put a different spin on what the show was really about. Since we don't have a fleet of floating islands on Earth, was it alien technology. Was the manipulation of time (time travel arc) and space (the island vanishing) the real key?

In many religions, a person on Earth will be transformed upon death into a secondary being. There are a few theorists who now believe that ancient cultures aligned their pyramid observatories to the heavens in order to possibly open star gates to the center of the Milky Way, believed to be the origin place of everything. If the human body is merely a bio-chemical machine operated by an unknown spirit, upon the end of the useful life of the machine, the spirit would be released into his natural form (energy?) Such a release (or perhaps "awakening" in the jargon of the series) is what the final transformation is the creator's vision of ourselves. We go on as ourselves in the after life. The only change we take with us is our memories.

AMBIGUITY

One aspect of LOST left open to personal interpretation is whether Jacob was good and MIB was bad.

MIB seemed to represent the "dark," while Jacob the "light."  But the relationship between the two is more gray.

A key component of ancient Egyptian burial rights is the story of Set and his brother Osiris.

Set is portrayed as the usurper who killed and mutilated his own brother. Osiris' wife Isis reassembled Osiris' corpse and resurrected him long enough to conceive his son and heir Horus. Horus sought revenge upon Set, and the myths describe their conflicts. The death of Osiris and the battle between Horus and Set is a popular theme in Egyptian mythology.

In the temple, there is a painting of the smoke monster sitting across from Osiris, the god of the underworld. They look at each other on the same level, which may represent equality in the spirit world. 

In one interpretation, Jacob could be the Osiris character while MIB the boastful brother Set. In the island world, Osiris would have taken revenge on his brother as Jacob did with his brother. As a result, Set is transformed not into a sun god, but a smoke monster, to continue their underworld battle.

Another interpretation could be that Jacob is Horus, the nephew of Set, who set out to revenge his father's death. The crocodile statue of Tawaret represents fertility so the island can be considered a place of rebirth of Osiris. So it is possible that the smoke monster is a transformation of the underworld god (who can shape shift) while MIB is is also a disembodied spirit. Jacob, as Horus, the sun god, must be weary of the night in the underworld where he is most vulnerable. So the dynamic between Jacob and MIB is one of caution.

In either case, they are not purely evil or purely good.

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

Kate is one of those polarizing characters.  And there may be a reason for that.  She could have been born under the sign of Leo even though it is believed she was born in mid May to mid-June (a Cancer).

There is one thing that most of the Leo women never falls short of - male attention. She will most probably be the center of attention everywhere and if you are trying to woo her, be ready to get lots of competition. She will be the leader of her group and the other members will always accept her out of choice. The typical characteristics profile of a Leo woman includes qualities like liveliness, ingenuity, elegance, beauty, and sensuality. She is one of those who love, respect and care for their partners, but don't expect her to worship you.

She wouldn't be dominated; rather she has to be restrained. She is a complete woman and she expects you to be a real man. If you meet a Leo girl who comes across as very gentle, mellowed and completely harmless, don't get fooled. Inside, she is as passionate as any other Leo woman. If you are planning to give her a gift; better make sure that it is classy and as per her superior taste. Please be properly dressed while giving the gift. If you are trying to win the heart of a Leo female, give her genuine, decent and original compliments.

While courting her, never forget that she likes class and style. Don't even think of going to the roadside hamburger stall after watching the movie. She is not after money, but shabby surroundings make her pretty uncomfortable. In return, she will also shower you expensive gifts. The lioness may become a little arrogant and proud at times, but these are some of her basic personality traits. She cannot help thinking of herself above the normal masses and please don't tell her she's not.

You will break her big, warm heart. A Leo woman who is respected, loved and cherished will become one of the most agreeable as well as the kindest person on this earth. She will care for the children and help the needy. The lioness is a combination of intelligence, wit, strength and talent, mixed with generous amounts of feminine charm. This is what makes her irresistible. The best way to make her do anything is flatter her and she will even do the tiniest of chores for you. Never stop her from having a career after marriage.

The Leo profile seems to fit Kate's character.

A Cancer woman's profile is significantly different. Men will be a little confused as to what she really is - chirpy, somber or distant? She is all of these and still, she is none of these. Even more confused? A Cancerian woman has mood swings every now and then and these are only a few of her mood swings. However, her basic personality traits remain the same. She is very sensitive, emotional, kind and caring. Now's the catch! Most of her traits will be hidden behind a shell of indifference and aloofness, breaking which will require quite a lot of effort.

You will have to gently coerce a Cancerian girl to get out of her shell and come into the big bad world without it. The best time to do this is in the moonlight, when there are maximum chances of catching her in her true emotions. When in love, she will be tender, womanly, timid and modest. She dislikes criticisms, can't stand rejection and gets deeply hurt by harsh words. Too much aggressiveness on your part may make her a little hesitant. She loves her mother, so you better learn to love as well as respect her too.

A Cancer woman will never make the first moves in a relationship; she only knows how to move backwards or sideways. This is because of two reasons, her shyness and her fear of being rejected. This female has some secrets and she won't like you prying around her personal diary. She is very insecure and will need your constant reassurance. It doesn't matter if she is the current 'Miss Universe' or has men drooling over her all the time, it is your attention and appreciation she would be the most concerned about.

You will have to learn to live with a Cancerian woman’s mood swings, which is not so difficult since she is so good in every other way. She is extremely loyal and will keep you happy with her warm and rich humor. Once she is committed to you, she will remain yours forever and ever. Adultery is not one of her traits. With a Cancerian woman, you will always have to be careful with words. She is very sentimental and can get hurt very easily. Then, she can cry like a 2-year old baby and you will be expected to console her and wipe her tears.

A Cancer female is a great cook and makes better food than a 5-star hotel chef. She is quite careful with money as well. Neither will she be stingy, nor totally extravagant. She has a habit of saving everything that is usable, be it money, old buttons or empty jars. She also saves things that have a sentimental value attached to them, like the sweater grandmother knitted on her fifth birthday. A Cancer female fiercely guards what is hers and that includes you too! However, she is not too possessive or jealous. But, she does not like sharing her love too.

Kate never showed any traits of being a homebody (cooking, domestic chores). She was shown as being out in the wild, on the hunt, on missions, being in the center of the action (which also means the center of attention in the male dominated hierarchy.) Kate was really the classic spunky, cute American girl-next-door. She was part tomboy, part siren. She knew how to charm and how to hurt.
That is part of the confusion of the ending when she winds up back with Jack. Many viewers don't know why that would have happened since Jack had let her go to be free.

But perhaps male viewers of the series got the vibe and frustration of the Kate character because she has the Leo-type personality. It is difficult to figure out such a personality, especially when you are trying to get close to her.  However, it is said that if a man breaks through he will be greatly rewarded with a true, loyal soul mate.

THANKS

Today in the US is Thanksgiving.

It is time to appreciate the things in one's own life: family, friends, and bounty that surrounds oneself.

It is a time for reflection. It is also a time to soul search, look at oneself and think about change.

Change is hard to do. Change takes an amount of courage but success is never guaranteed in life.

But with change comes new opportunities for life, liberty, happiness.

For even in the stressful, worst times, there is always comfort in true friends, family and loved ones.

At times, people forget about the ones around them. The ones who can cover their back. The ones who are waiting in the wings for your answer. The ones who will make time to be with you. The ones who are soul mates.

If we reflect upon those values and norms, Thanksgiving is a pretty important holiday in our society. It transcends the different American cultures since it is a secular ideal: family is community and community is family. It is remembrance of the hospitality of the native people to the weary foreigners who came ashore to escape the horrible conditions back in their home country. Opportunity and free will is the rock which the early colonists anchored in this land. But one needs to have a vision in order to see the dream of a better future.

Our collective media culture is nearsighted in what many would call the American Dream. It used to mean getting married, having a good job, having a car, a house with a white picket fence, kids and weekends off for family time. It was probably last embodied in the TV series Happy Days.

The American Dream may have been flying so long its colors have faded to gray. But for many people, the opportunity to work in America instead of being caught in escalating war zones throughout the world is enough to risk life and limb, like the early Pilgrims. But it is a different land now, with a waning economy, stagnant wages, violent protests, and increasing tyrannical government red tape, it is hard to imagine a cornucopia of hope for the common man.

But we endure. That is the human spirit.

If one pauses to reflect through the steamy bowls of side dishes and the large golden turkey platter,  it is good to be alive and well. And all the points previously stated above, can be exported to a simple discussion on LOST.

We are still thankful for a show that both inspired and challenged us viewers.
We are still thankful for the show's plot twists and turns that we remember to this very day.

The show embodied many of the themes of Thanksgiving as a desperate band of individuals attempted to forge some relationship, some bonds, some friendships, some answers, and some hope for their own futures.

And I thank those who continue to stop by to read these posts.

SOUL REVERSAL

I was watching an old anime recently in which a young girl was forced into an arranged marriage that she did not want. As a result, she collapsed because of the internalized emotional trauma to the extent that her soul left her body.

In many mystic cultures, a person's soul is considered an independent entity that resides within a human being. Human bodies are the bio-chemical machine shells in which a soul lives.

The concept of a soul living a human body because of a highly emotional situation can be used as a theory on the LOST story line.

Specifically, the sideways world arc is the place of dead which we assume are the souls of the departed.

In the sideways story, Flight 815 arrives safely in LA. We know that this is an elaborate and complex collective illusion based upon the facts stated in the ending. So, the sideways story must begin when Flight 815 crashes on the island. It means that the characters souls left their bodies as part of the emotional trauma of the plane crash.

But in a fantasy genre, that does not mean that the characters who crashed on the island were dead. Their souls had left their bodies, but their bodies continued to live, perhaps on the raw emotions that caused their souls to leave.

A "soul" is defined as the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal. It is a person's moral or emotional nature or sense of identity. It is also described as theemotional or intellectual energy or intensity, especially as revealed in a work of art or an artistic expression.

This soul escape to the sideways realm can explain why many of the island characters lacked a moral sensibility. The characters relied on basic instincts and self-reliance in order to survive. It can also explain why many people never "died" on the island because their souls were still alive and not in their bodies to sever the mortal links on Earth. There continued to be a sideways connection to keep the bodies alive . . . the "constant" that Faraday did not quite understand. It was when the souls made a full "reconnection" with their human bodies and actually died did the memories of the disembodied soul remembered the island events ("awaken').

JACK WAS NOT A DOCTOR

Jack was not a medical doctor. He was never a great spinal surgeon. He never saved Sarah. It was all a lie or illusion.

Jack's back story is that of an incredibly talented surgeon. In 2001, Sarah's spine was severely crushed, and Jack told her she would never walk again. This bluntness bothered Christian. Sarah's fiance responded superficially upon hearing her condition, and Jack overstepped his professional relationship with Sarah, promising "to fix" her. He initially believed he failed, but a stadium runner named Desmond  suggested he may not have. Jack tearfully informed Sarah of his failure. She then wiggled her toes, and Jack realized he'd fixed her. The problem is that medical science would not have allowed such a miracle to happen. One cannot reconnect severed nerves.

In July of 2004, a nurse observed Jack's  intoxicated father botch a surgery. She called in Jack, who failed to save the patient. Christian asked he sign a falsified death report absolving him of blame, and though Jack initially refused, he later agreed. He then saw his father console the deceased woman's husband, who was threatening legal action, and learned the woman was pregnant when she died. Jack revised his statement, blaming his father's drinking for the patients' death. This cost Christian his medical license. In reality, Jack's conduct also would have cost him his medical license due to unprofessional conduct and malpractice under strict California regulations.

So Jack's back story is highly suspect. However, he could have "believed" that this happened to him because of the inner, subconscious desire to be "better" than his father, so Christian would acknowledge him. But if Jack as a boy was driven to prove himself to his father, but failed because he lacked the talent or will, then one could assume that would lead Jack down a dark path, emotionally and psychologically.  It could have led him into depression, drugs and alcoholism.

On the island, "miracle doctor" Jack had a horrible track record. Jack could not save the Marshall, Boone, Shannon or Sayid.  He refused to help an injured Colleen, which violates his oath as a physician. Beyond basic first aid, Jack really did not perform any highly skilled medical miracles on the island.

But it was his conduct with Ben's medical problem that is a real issue. Jack's review of Ben's spinal x-ray was wrong. The tumor was diagnosed on the wrong lumbar number. He later incorrectly stated that Ben's symptoms would be in his fingers and toes. Such symptoms are generally characteristic of cervical tumors - in the neck, not lower back (which would be toes only). Then when Jack now agreed to operate on Ben,  he deliberately cut Ben's kidney sack during the surgery, which based on the state of the OR and lack of personnel and blood, would have killed Ben, especially after he woke up during the surgery!

So what about the two different "versions" of Jack? The pre-island miracle doctor vs. the ordinary man on the island.

It could be argued that the pre-island version of Jack was Jack's own ego. A dream, fantasy, a mental condition of greatness because Jack could not equal his father's accomplishments. This puts Jack as a candidate for the theories that the LOST premise was all made up in the mind of a mental patient, or at least someone trapped in their own deep fantasy world.

It would stand to reason then that the pre-island back stories could also not be true. They could be the fantasies of the characters - - - such as Kate murdering her abusive father. She never did it; but she thought about it. The same would be true for Sawyer. He never became a con man to track down his parents killer.

But that still opens the question of whether the island was "real" or part of an imaginary, collective community dream (or massive on-line game, the latter being characteristic for all the "loners" in the series). Assuming that Jack landed on the island under his own cover of being a doctor, it is odd that no one challenged him when he made medical mistakes. Was everyone else naive, scared or plain dumb? Or, again in a game setting, it really did not matter. You chose your own character.

The idea that Jack was not really a doctor is intriguing because it opens up other avenues of investigation into the unanswered mysteries. If one part of the LOST experience was not "real" in the sense of actual events (such as Jack's back story), that may help explain the massive continuity errors in island events. It could also give us a clue to the basic premise of the show.

MINIMALISM

Minimalism was a trend in sculpture and painting that arose in the 1950s and used simple, typically massive, forms. It is also an avant-garde movement in music characterized by the repetition of very short phrases that change gradually, producing a hypnotic effect.

Is it possible to strip away all the tangents, subplots, tangents and secondary characters to find a Minimalistic LOST? 

By looking to simple, large story elements, can LOST be condensed into a more focused driven drama?

I think you could condense the entire series into five characters trapped on the island. You don't have to change the characters personalities or motivations. You just have five large puzzle pieces to focus the action and interactions. If LOST was about relationships, then a concentrated, intense story between these characters living through in untenable situations would be epic.

I think you can start with the starting point of a single person living on the island (like Crazy Mother when Claudia's Roman ship wrecked off the island's shore): Ben.

Then, like in that back story, only four new characters need to wind up floating ashore (from a plane crash, ship wreck, booze cruise disaster-fight going overboard into the ocean, etc.): Sawyer, the con man; Locke, the bitter dreamer; Kate, the fugitive muse; and Jack, the miracle doctor.

The island, through Ben, is a dark and dangerous place. Ben's back story is simple. He was brought to the island by his bitter, alcoholic father (who blames him for his mother's death). Ben is extremely unhappy being a peon in the Dharma labor camp, so he seeks revenge against everyone because no one acknowledges him. He kills them all. And once he is alone on the island, he goes a little crazy.
(There is no need for guardians, magic, time travel or any other twisty tropes.) Just a young boy who turns himself into a serial madman.

 The rest of the characters could have been plane crash victims, a charter plane that goes off-course from Fiji, and ditches in a storm. The minimalistic background for each person on that plane:

Kate: still running away from the authorities for murdering her father;
Sawyer: searching for his parents' killer;
Locke: having quit his job, he is seeking adventure and purpose in his life; and
Jack: having a Thailand-like booze vacation to forget about his father's sudden passing.

Each of these passengers realize that surviving the plane crash was their second chance to live their lives the way they thought they would have if not sidetracked by the events in the back stories.

The plot lines are also fairly simple.

Kate, being the lone woman, would use her charms to get the men to protect and serve her.
Sawyer, also being a charmer, but a territorial possessive person, would push back to get what he would want.
Jack, being the lone professional, would seek compromise, balance and common sense to survive their ordeals.
Locke, being mindless and reckless, would seek to claim the island as its new demi-god.
Ben, who for all purposes, the current island god, would seek to enslave, manipulate and control the new arrivals until he tired of them or found them of no use.

Ben could start off as a sympathetic figure: a long, lost survivor of a different "tragedy." He can help the new castaways with food and shelter as a means of gaining their trust. A trust that his mental condition will twist over time into betrayal.

Kate could also have the initial upper hand. Men are drawn to her magnetic, gregarious personality. She is a little of "the girl next door" and a little tomboy. She is clever, witty and flirty. It is possible that she could see the benefit of getting close to all the men on the island. In fact, her charms would be the catalyst to learn the backgrounds of the other characters.

Sawyer is an anti-social element. He is a loner. He can find a person's weakness in order to exploit it to his own advantage. He had seduce women to steal their money. He seeks a challenge, and on the island that turns to Kate. He would find conflict in following other people's orders or directions. He could easily be labeled a saboteur by evil Ben, as he starts to divide and conquer this group.

Locke has the arrogance of self-delusion of greatness. He believes himself to be the great outback hunter trapped in a shipping clerk's body.  His lack of leadership skills (and results) will put him at the bottom rung in the new island order. The others will not take him seriously. He will become resentful, cold, and at times, lash out verbally and physically. This could parallel the madness that engulfed Ben during his long time on the island.

Jack is not only trapped on the island, but trapped in his own ethics of "saving" people. He will do anything to save his fellow islanders, to the point of being blindsided by their manipulations of him. He may be an initial figurehead leaders, but the people around him are trying to be the puppet masters behind the facade. He will be challenged first by Locke, then by Sawyer. He will be betrayed by Ben (and Kate, who uses Sawyer's physical desires to her advantage.). The love triangle turns into a Bermuda Triangle of hate, suspicion, arguments, and shuffling of alliances.

Things would get to the tightrope stage when Ben makes his move on Kate (like the beach scene when she was kidnapped with Sawyer and Jack and taken to the Barracks). When Kate is repulsed by Ben's advances (and his "deal" to make her queen of his island paradise), Ben turns into a raging smoke monster of hate and revenge. This would pit two hot blooded avengers (Ben and Sawyer) against each other. This conflict would appease both Jack and Locke, for they have positioned themselves in a faith vs. science resolve for survival, with each believing their position will lead to safety, rescue or most of all, winning Kate's heart.

But at a certain point, Kate realizes that all her flirtations, manipulations, promises and passions have turned the other characters into cavemen. She can see their personalities change, and she become afraid at what she has done. The more she attempts to withdraw from their conflicts, the more the anger and resentment levels increase.

The close quarters of just a few strong characters could lead to excellent drama, action and plot twists without using the ruse of magic, time travel, supernatural elements or invading mercenaries.

CONVERGENCE

Convergence?

One of the worst film and TV tropes  is when a character has a very important piece of information, but refuses to explain what’s going on because “you just have to see it or figure it out for yourself.”

To the average viewer, this proposition is almost never true; it’s just a contrived way of dragging out a scene for a dramatic effect or to stretch story arcs with filler material.  In reality, there are very few events that cannot be explained in one sentence.

How many times during LOST did you yell at the screen telling a character to ask an obvious question to another character?!

In their end chats, the producers are keen to say that part of the appeal of LOST was the questions and not the answers. Well, yes and no. Yes, viewers were captivated by the mysteries and unanswered questions, but no, the vast majority of viewers wanted answers to those mysteries and questions. And the funny thing is, any answer would have been okay.

The collision of two parallel universes with the island as a focal point. Fine.
The collective delusions of a mental institution patient roster. Fine.
The surreality of phasing between realms like heaven and hell. Fine.
The overlapping world of invisible dopplegangers. Fine.
It was all a dream. Fine.

A bad answer is still an answer. It is a matter of subjective opinion.

But not to answer is a matter of objective scorn.

Mysteries and questions create the action which must converge with answers in order to resolve the story plot issues. Otherwise, it is mostly a mental roller coaster ride of nothingness, just the fleeting thrill of the plot twists and turns.

If you want to leave the viewers to figure it all out by themselves, then you must give them actual clues and not dead ends or red herrings to get to the answer. Agatha Christie does not end her books with a a blank page after the sentence, "and the murderer is . . ." LOST gets poor marks from giving clues in context and continuity to paint the final picture for viewers.

Some believe that the "filler" or the roller coast ride so to speak dragged down and altered the LOST experience. The idea of the Other 48 tail section passengers was clearly filler. In the Star Trek universe, they were Red shirts (fodder to be killed off). The back story of the Dharma folks was immaterial and irrelevant to the castaways story of survival. The back story of Jacob and his brother was also not a focal point to move the viewers toward Season 1 and 2 answers. The time travel story arc was a continuity mess and weakest part of the show.

If you strip away the layers of filler paint, what is left on the canvas?

The producers claim that the big picture was The Big Question: life and death.

But they did a poor account of communicating their position on the meaning of life and the purpose of death. There was no moral center in the stories. There was no judgment or punishment for sins. There was no redemptive moments. TPTB that the ending was more spiritual than anything else. But that is not an answer, it is a white wash because spirituality can mean thousands of different things to a thousand different people. How did Jack become "spiritual?" He never did either in life or in death. He had no religious convictions or contemplation of the universe during the series. So it is specious to say that the show was about Jack's spiritual journey.

The only thing that converged in the end was Jack's soul to his body in some after life church. But that does not answer how or why Jack got to that point of existence, or for that matter, what existence Jack had before entering the church.

Perhaps the writing of the show was parallel to early first person shooter video games, that run through various levels of game play (the action) with no real end point or goal.

WAKING UP DEAD

"He woke, and remembered dying." - Ken MacLeod, The Stone Canal.

That opening line has been considered one of the great starts to science fiction novel.

I have not read it, but the premise is an excellent leaping off point to a story.

In the case of LOST, the seminal Season One scene is Jack opening his eyes in the bamboo grove.
Some would now say, he woke up and did not remember dying in the plane crash.

Because the stated mechanism to "resolve" the series story lines was to "awaken" in the sideways world and "remember" you were dead, it could be logically concluded that Jack was dead on the island but he did not realize it.

Adding the Egyptian mythology sewn into the fabric of the show, that makes sense. Jack's soul ("the ba") would have passed to another dimension (the sideways) while his body and mind ("the ka")would have to journey through the underworld (the island) in order to be judged worthy of "reuniting" with his soul.

This simple premise makes the most sense in dealing with the polarizing, negative debates on what really happened in the series.

It also validates two different theories and beliefs.

The characters were "alive" on the island. Yes, they were alive on the island because they did not know they were dead. What happened on the island did happen to Jack's "ka," but only to part of his spiritual being in physical form. For all intensive purposes, Jack was living in a physical form.

The other part of the character's mortal being, the ba, were transported to what we would consider an afterlife realm, a forehell or purgatory, in which the souls are also "unaware" that they have lost connection with their physical, mortal, human body. These souls are continuing their former "lives" on memories in a spiritual form. The characters were in an illusion of physical beings; the reality was shown when Christian opened the church doors to show the reality of their realm was only white light.

The spiritual circuit can only re-connect when the character's island ka realizes that it is dead at the same time the character's ba realizes that it is also dead. Jack's moment of enlightenment happened at Christian's coffin, and his father replied that everyone has to die sometime.

DEJA VU

Have you ever been somewhere that you have never been before, but felt like there was something about it that struck a chord in your mind and seemed familiar? If so, you've experienced the mental phenomenon known as deja vu.

Deja vu happens to most people but it's something that no one has yet to fully understand. Approximately 60 to 70 percent of people have experienced deja vu on at least one occasion in their lives. When it happens, one of our senses - be it our sight, sound, smell or taste - can convince us that we have lived through an experience before even if we know on a rational level that we have not.


Scientists have come up with physiological hypotheses of why deja vu exists but to date nothing has been proven conclusively. It is important to stop here and note that deja vu, which is being convinced that a first visit to a place seems known or familiar even when it is not, is not the same as other similar phenomena such as precognition and clairvoyance.

Precognition is when an individual has a premonition about an event that will occur in the future. Clairvoyance is when an individual is able to perceive something that is out of the natural range of any of the five senses. These two phenomena are closely linked to deja vu but are not exactly the same.

In the context of LOST, this can be a possible explanation of the split universes, the island vs. the sideways world. Even in the apparent island time line, where Desmond meets Jack at the stadium for the first time, there is a deja vu moment. And when Jack meets Desmond at the Hatch, there is a immediate flash back connection even though their past meeting was minor and short. Likewise, the characters in the sideways world are living lives with a certain deja vu that something is hidden under the surface; things are not quite right.

Deja Vu Categories

Deja vu can be broken down into two categories. These categories include associative deja vu and biological deja vu.

Associative deja vu is more common. This is the kind of deja vu that the average healthy individual experiences. In this case the person can see, hear, smell, or touch something that evokes a feeling in them that is associated with a similar sensation to something they have experienced in the past. Researchers believe this kind of deja vu is connected to the memory centers found in the brain.

Biological deja vu happens to those individuals who suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy. In fact, these people often have an unusual experience such as this before they have a seizure. deja vu of this kind is often described as being very intense. It's an easier way for scientists to study the phenomenon and has helped them identify the parts of the brain that play a role in the sensations that arise. However, many researchers believe that associative deja vu, sometimes called typical deja vu, and biological deja vu are very different in nature.

Theories Regarding Deja Vu

Many individuals, including those in the scientific and medical community, have tried to explain away the phenomena of deja vu. Is it a psychic phenomenon or is it not? Why do some people experience it and not others? What is at work here when a person believes they have visited a place before but in reality have never set foot in that spot? These are all questions that at present defy answers.

Parapsychologists are psychologists who study paranormal phenomena. These professionals have theorized that deja vu is a past life experience re-emerging in a person's mind. Some individuals believe that it's an emotional response to an event that taps into some incident from the past.

Still others believe that the brain is short circuiting and that it is a neurochemical action taking place that has no connection whatsoever to any life events. In other words, an individual is overcome by a strange feeling and connects it to a memory when really it is something that is all together new and unfamiliar to them.

At the present time deja vu remains yet another one of the fascinating mysteries of life that involves secrets locked away in the brain that it is not ready to reveal. It is believed that the sense of sight is most often connected with the experience but that, too, is up for debate and requires more research. The knowledge we have gleaned about deja vu is only the tip of a much larger iceberg.

And here is where LOST intersections with the mysteries of science.

If deja vu is a paranormal phenomena, then the symptomatic use of deja vu in the series could be considered a clue as the premise of the show. There is an underlying medical condition to a primary character(s) who feed upon a mental abnormality to create the action we viewed throughout the series. This goes beyond a theory that this is all in Hurley's head (living in a mental institution with imaginary friends). This could postulate that the feelings of deja vu are more interdimensional memories and thoughts that bleed through time and space (life events on island bleed through to the sideways world, or vice versa). Deja vu is the packet (like computer signals on the internet) of information that registers in a person's subconscious, which other researchers believe is the key to evaluating and making later conscious decisions.

THE QUEST

In all great historical stories and myths, there is a difficult quest that the main character must endure in order to find his answers.

A quest is a long or arduous search for something important.

In the series, various characters were looking for answers but few were truly on a quest.

Locke was an angry, lonely child - - - bounced from foster home to foster home. He had no father. He had a crazy mother. He longed to be popular, but his intelligence outcast him to the geeky group in school. Throughout his life, he turned away from applying his natural talents in order to chase the illusion of grandeur of the high school jock, or adventurous outback hunter. In the show, Locke continued on his fantasy illusion, not finding answers but running into the same societal judgments and roadblocks that angered him so.

Sayid was also an angry child - - - having to do the dirty work for his older brother. He was the one who became tormented by family honor to become a self-hating soldier. He knew he could not fit into normal society because his training had created a monster within him. He ran away from his homeland, feebly chasing a vision of his dream girl, but only to wind up in a miserable place with people weary of his background and his purpose.

Sawyer was also an angry child - - - having his parents killed by a con man's greed set him on the path of revenge. Finding the man who ruined his life became an obsession that ruined Sawyer's own life. Instead of learning from the experience, he became what he hated most: the con man. In the show, Sawyer never changed his self-preservation mode.

Most people believe the LOST mythology best suits Jack. Jack was a child who wanted the attention and admiration of his father. But he never got it. This void motivated Jack to become a miracle worker surgeon. And that got nothing from his father but criticism. So when his father died suddenly, Jack had no means to get the acknowledgement from his father. He was lost in his own psychic pit of growing despair. It was on the island that Jack chased the ghost Christian to find an answer to the hole in his heart. But in the end, the long journey led Jack not to an answer, but to a cruel, unfortunate death. There was no grand revelation. There was no grand moment of enlightenment.

It does not fit the classic pattern as used in Star Wars. Luke is also a lonely child, his parents gone. He is living on a desert planet doing mindless work. He has no prospects and has no adventure if he stays on his home world. But once his family is killed, he is set on a course to fight against the tyranny of the Empire. He joins forces with an old wizard and slowly learns the way of an ancient religion, to grasp and combine with the Force to defeat his enemies. Along his journey, Luke meets up with a cast of misfits, royalty and evil masters - - - so he has to confront danger, and defeat it in order to protect the people he cares about. Luke overcomes his sparse upbringing to become an enlightened Jedi Knight.

Jack's journey does not have all the elements of Luke's. Jack is not transformed into an enlightened individual. He would have met up with his father in the after life no matter what happened to him on the island. The people in the church were people he knew from the island, but they did little to mold him into a better person (some would say his island experience threw him into deeper darkness and despair). And what did Jack find in the end? The anti-climatic twist was that he was dead, everyone was dead, and it was time to "move on."

INTERCONNECTION

Advice columnist Ann Landers made in the 1990s this observation on the benefits of the Internet:

"It's wonderful for the lonely. There are a great many lonely people out there, and it makes them feel that they're a part of the living world. They can talk to somebody. Somebody will talk to them. And I think it's wonderful."

The characters in LOST fit that description a decade after she wrote those words.

Each of the main characters in the series were alone. A few had abandonment issues; a few had self-esteem issues; some were socially awkward; some harbored deep pain and resentment that they could not share with anyone. Loneliness is a yoke that chokes off a person's socialization in their community. Loners tend to withdraw into themselves. They tend to live in their own room, isolated from outside contact. There are few avenues of expression. They guard themselves against anything new, because they believe they will get hurt in the end.

So the characters have issues, deep issues.

The series focal point was Numbers, people as data. The candidates were numbers. The airplane was a number. The survivors were numbers. Numbers equate to a mathematical system, such as the basis of computer programs, modules and levels.

Some theorized that LOST represented the in-game, on-line community of loners who find their own community playing a survival game called LOST on the internet. Each person shown in the series is a representative avatar of a real person isolated in their dark, lonely room, waiting for interaction and missions with their "on-line" co-players. Like in any game, there are teams competing for something (power, control, territory, kills). The island is their game map. Exploration is part of the fun. Danger is part of the game play. How players interact with other is a key component to the outcome of the game itself. And that final reward for "winning" the game (through escape, sacrifice, redemption or whatever sub-code reward there is) was going to Heaven.

Simple ending to a complex on-line game which had little rules (or at least confusing rules).