DO COMA PATIENTS DREAM?

Science is trying to figure out how the conscious and subconscious mind works. Several studies have tried to use EEG monitors to pinpoint brain activity in normal resting individuals, sleeping individuals and people in a coma. The results have been inconclusive. Brain activity is hard to measure on a quantitative level.

People in comas are, to the best of our knowledge (at least in most cases) incapable of entering REM sleep, and very likely are not going to have any kind of dream or nightmare. This is because the brain system required to have a dream are in fact the same systems required while you're awake - to the point that your visual cortex will light up in an FMRI during a dream - it does not light up during a coma. Now, in contrast, there are some patients who aren't in a coma but rather an immobile state (imagine the computer's on, but the monitor's disconnected) - these patients have brain activity and can even, for instance, picture a tennis game if it's described to them. This state would likely allow for dreams, and if so, nightmares. However, if they did, they would likely dream just like we do.

It is also incorrect to assume that we only end nightmares by waking up. The sudden shock of awakening makes us remember the dream more clearly. Most dreams are finite because the neurological triggers for them are transient. We dream, research indicates, to solve problems. To walk through the aspects of our day that were unresolved or had left incomplete traces that needed to be handled. Nightmares similarly give us a chance to practice at our fears - however, our brain is unlikely to keep giving us practice after a certain amount of time.

In our non-waking state, there are two factors at work: dreams to solve problems and nightmares to practice facing our fears.

That seems to be a mission statement for LOST.

Take Hurley for example. He had a fear of rejection, including from his father and later with women. He also had an active imagination to try to solve his problems such as money, work and body imagine. In the complexity of Hurley's semi-conscious sleep state, he could have had both problem solving dreams and fear nightmares overlapping to create his island adventure.

Because what happens when Hurley "awakens" from his island time? He is in the sideways world with a lovely woman, Libby, and his friends.  This could still be part of his dream-nightmare resolution. For Hurley learns through his island time to be responsible, to not blame curses or bad luck for his issues with his parents, work or love life, and that by just being himself he can attain his goals of a romantic life and lasting friendships.

If that is the message of LOST, it is a good one.