THE MIND'S EYE

Another fan theory to try to explain LOST. It deals with the idea that the viewers did not see what was really going on.

Fan Theory: It is all a hallucination.
The island isn't exactly ''real.'' All characters are aspects of one person (usually attributed to Jack or potentially supernatural characters like Hurley and Walt); or everyone is still on the plane trying to survive massive turbulence by escaping into a mass delusion.

Many people thought that the main characters were part of some collective unconscious state, from being all mental patients, to being coma patients hooked up to a central processing center, to being avatars in the world of cyberspace (like Ghost in the Shell). Hallucinations would neatly explain many things, like Walt's comic book polar bear and appearances by Jack's dad and Kate's horse. Hurley's imaginary friend "Dave" also puts into play the mental health issues relative to hallucinations, whether normal or drug induced. Also, conspicuous lit references like An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge suggest that not everything is what it seems on the island.

In order for a hallucination theory to work, the subject(s) need to be confined in some limited space in order to be monitored and then fed the drugs to continue to cause the behavior. There was once an episode in Max Headroom which is an analogy to this premise; a company used a drug cocktail to put people into REM sleep in order to record, then re-sell the people's dreams as entertainment. The profit motivation to keep the characters in a fried brain state makes sense since it would be a cruel but realistic endeavor by corrupt scientists. One of the academic great quests is trying to understand the human mind, how it works, and better, how to manipulate it.

Keeping hundreds of characters confined in one mental stage would be like trying to herd cats. Since every person's mind has its own unique memories, dreams and escape fantasies, it would hard to imagine a reasonable situation where someone could keep those hundred subjects narrowly focused on a single setting: the island.

This theory may have merit, but it would really be a disappointing conclusion to the show. As some would remark, this would put LOST plot twist resolution on par with Dallas' horrible "it was all a dream" reboot.