HEAVEN AND HELL

One of the interpretive themes of LOST was heaven and hell. Some fans felt that the main characters were in hell, symbolized the by the island and its various monsters, sinners and punishments. Others thought that the characters found their heaven in the sideways world, which ran concurrently in the Season 6 series - - - but if you look at Alpert's back story, it had been running for eternity.

The concept of duality - - - two different planes of existence - - - is also a reoccurring theme. Many scientists believe in the time-space continuum contains multiverses, where each action creates a new and slightly different universe based upon those probable effects of an action.

But there is a simple way of looking at the LOST's split story personality.

From a spiritual perspective, each living person has two states: an awaken state and a sleeping state. When you are awake, you are living and experiencing the good and bad of real life. Over time, daily routines like work and family become grinds. The repetitive nature of living is a drain upon one's creative, adventurous curiosities. In order to fulfill that need, people tend to have deeper, more complex dreams when they sleep. Sleep is a person's way of repairing and re-energizing their body. But it can also be a needed fantasy diversion to a person's "perfect world."

In fact, people sometimes can get "lost" in their dreams. They may not be able to tell what is real and what is fantasy. The illusions in dreams become delusions in real life. And this creates personality disorders and mental mistakes, deep problems at work or with family. A prime example could be Locke, who drifted fantasy games into his real life to the point where he gave up his normal existence to join a commune in the hope of finding a "family"

It can be said that when people are awake in their boring, rotten, habitual work world, they are living in hell. For most of us, we cannot change the relentlessness of this existence. We are trapped by circumstance and obligation.

But when we totally get away from the daily routine, our dreams can appear to be heavenly. Our fantasies make us the star of our own movie. We can be the hero, the lover, the protector, the superhero, the leader, the greatest person in the world.

LOST's island world could be considered the collision of both the heaven and hell aspects of a person's existence. It contains fragmented bits of both worlds which cannot exist together. The show rarely showed anyone sleeping - - - insomnia was rampant. It could be a clue that the characters were trapped in a limbo between being awake and being asleep - - - a place ruled by their nightmares.

SHIP SHAPE

John A Shedd said:

"A ship in the Harbor is Safe, but that is not what Ships are built for."


If LOST had a ship theme, it would have been more character driven: friendships, relationships and hardships.

Most of the main characters had few, if any friends. They were loners. They were depressed by their lot in life. Some may have been successful in their careers, but total losers in their social lives. The balance point was boredom.

As loners, most of the main characters had associates and acquaintances or co-workers, but no deep relationships. Romance was barely touched upon in the series. Hook ups were more carnal in nature than romantic relations.

Without friendships and relationships, the main characters were left with personal hardships. When a person does not have close friends or a spouse, they tend to focus upon themselves. They ask themselves "why" they don't have what they see around them in their own family, on television or in the culture: a happy family life. They tend to blame themselves so it turns into a descending spiral of guilt, shame, shyness, and withdrawal from society. In order to avoid rejection or being hurt by others, they find a safe harbor within their own four walls; they become deep introverts. Some then rely more upon their fantasies to cope than the reality of human companionship.

It took a plane crash to get some of the main characters out of their shells, to interact with strangers in a strange place. And in the process, they left some of their fears behind to grow into better human beings.

X-FILES LOST FINALE

In the world of nostalgic reboots, X-Files would have been an easy choice. It was a network cult sci-fi series. The original creator was on board. The original cast was on board. But this 6 episode miniseries was totally overboard.

Instead of one continuous six hour plot, it had a shotgun approach of several desperate stories which in themselves had no climax or interwove connections. The last two episodes were a trial balloon for a younger spin-off series starring agents Miller and Einstein, younger clones of Mulder and Scully.

As a result, the charm, the humor and intensity of the original series was lost. Only one episode that dealt with werewolves had any resemblance to the old series.

In the rapid fire finale, science snapped its finger to make an alleged miracle vaccine in a matter of minutes, then a desperate race by Scully to find a dying Mulder. But the big questions of why the pandemic started and how was behind it were left in the darkness of the viewer's confused imagination.

But worse was the LOST ending, where the light from above followed the camera directly into Agent Scully's right eye. Cut to black. Sopranos-style open ended ending. Terrible.

You don't know who is commanding the space ship. You don't know if they are present to help or hurt Mulder or Scully. You don't know whether they are aliens or the government.

As consumers of popular entertainment, viewers are entitled to a story that contains a beginning, a middle and an end.

A cliffhanger is a literary cop-out by the writer-creator. It is horrible trend that needs to put out to pasture just as this miniseries has done with the X-Files franchise.

FIRST IMPACT

Children are like sponges; at an early age they absorb everything around them. That is why major events in their childhood could haunt them as adults.

Since LOST was a character study, what were the first major impacts on the main characters?

For Locke, it was being told that he was "a miracle baby" but abandoned by his parents. It was this paradox that led Locke on a futile quest to find a family.

For Kate, it was stealing in the rural general store and getting caught. But the consequence was that she got off (a stranger paid her debt) which led her to a life's belief that she could get away with anything; no accountability or responsibility for her actions.

For Jack, it was a school yard fight. He intervened with bullies were taking on a student. Jack got beat up and when his father told him he was stupid and not a leader, it put a permanent scar on Jack's self-esteem in that he could never live up to his father's expectations.

For Hurley, it was the day his father left. He was a happy kid until that event. It traumatized him to the point of eating to hide his pain for he believed that he was the cause. This would lead to a life of self-blame, isolation and self-doubt.

For Sawyer, it was hiding under his bed hearing his father kill his mother and then himself. This turned Sawyer into a vigilante, on a quest to find the con man who destroyed his family. And in this quest, he was twisted into the thing he hated most: he turned into a murderous con man.

For Ben, it was his birth that caused his mother's death. His father constantly blamed Ben for killing his mother. He was constantly told he was a monster. As a result, he kept his emotions inward to the volcanic point of rage - - - and then actually turning into that monster by killing his parent during the Dharma purge.

For Sayid, it was taking the place of his older brother who could not get a grip on killing an animal for the family meal. When Sayid took control of the situation and took the animal's life so easily, it turned the young boy into a stone cold assassin and torturer because he could tune out his emotions.

For Jin, it was watching his aging fisherman father struggle to survive. He resented that he was poor and that he had no mother. He had a dream to leave poverty for the city where he would not have the daily dirty grind of trying to survive. When he was in the army, he got the taste of a bigger world than his fishing village. So he vowed to do whatever necessary never to go back there - - - and that would include compromising all his morals and beliefs.

LUCID DREAMS

Sleep is an important function in humans. The exact nature of why people need to sleep (let alone the recommended eight hours a night) is unclear. Researchers have been trying to figure out why during a rest phase, human brains tend to remain active, including dreams and nightmares. Some have begun to research the condition of lucid dreams, a dream state where the sleeper actively controls what happens in their dreams.

It is postulated that if you think about something before you go asleep, your short term memory will be accessed to help complete the story before you wake. Other researchers think that strong, troubling thoughts or anxiety levels are put to the test when people dream. In other words, dreams are a series of symbolic "what if" scenarios to train your brain to decide a proper outcome in the decision making process when you are awake.

Lucid dreams may just be planted suggestions as you doze off. For example, if a teen boy has a crush on a school girl but he is too shy to talk to her, he may dream about her in such a way to interact with her without being rejected in real life. It may not be a lucid dream, but a planted story idea that the brain may create using stored memories.

In a study in the journal Dreaming, a pair of psychological researchers from the Sleep Laboratory at Swansea University in the UK report that people who hit their alarm clock’s snooze button more often tend to have more lucid dreams. A total of 84 participants between the ages of 18 and 75 filled out an online survey about their alarm clock usage and the frequency of their lucid dreams, if they had any. The participants were recruited through online forums on dreaming, although some reported never having succeeded in having a lucid dream.

The researchers found a significant relationship between how often people snoozed and how often they remembered dreams and experienced lucid dreams. While it could be that people who snooze a lot and people who lucid dream a lot have some unknown quality in common, there’s also a possibility that being briefly awoken by an alarm before going back to sleep might put your brain in the right mode to lucid dream, such as by producing rapid eye movement sleep (REM), a sleep stage that has been linked to lucid dreaming.

Lucid dreams can take on a high definition quality to it. There may be more "verbal" interaction with other people, known or unknown; in highly charged or adventurous situations. The sleeper may take on roles that do not suit him or her in real life. A shy, introvert could be a superhero in a lucid dream state.

And this is why the dream theory has many followers in the LOST world. It explains away all the continuity, science and plot errors or omissions because dreams are not real. It also explains the sci-fi elements like the smoke monster and lack of punishment for crimes and sins because they really did not happen. The components of LOST could be a jig saw puzzle of symbolic aspects of human life that are jumbled together into a layered story. And in such a fashion, the lucid fantasy could feel like it is real to the dreamer.

HARD DRIVE

The human brain is the most complex organ in the body. Scientists still do not fully understand how it operates; how it can capture images, store them and recall them as vivid memories. Some believe that the brain works like a computer hard drive, in which proteins that bond to neurons communicate and store information. The body's program code may be at an atomic level which would be exponentially greater than the largest and faster computer systems on the planet.

To equate the brain with a computer hard drive is a good comparison. But what happens when a brain misfires? Is it like a crashing hard drive? When information in a computer hard drive is fragmented, the bytes of information are dispersed on various parts of the drive - - - to be sewed back together by the operating code to be then displayed on the screen. In the human brain, when its information and recall gets fragmented, we call it a form of mental illness or disease.

Multiple personality disorders include hallucinations, paranoia, violent behavior, illusions and illogical actions. Those traits were found in many of the main characters in LOST.

One can take the hard drive theory for the show and break it down into differing premises. First, the show could have been a large, on-line multiplayer, role game of Survivor which had its main server programming break down into a different kind of game. Add the component of augmented or virtual reality, the players (characters) could have been so absorbed into the game that it turned into their new reality. Some addictive personalities could then have been trapped in this virtual world.

Second, the premise could be a metaphor that the main characters brains were malfunctioning like a crashed drive. There are many examples of characters shown with mental illness (Hurley and Libby), mental breakdowns and suicidal thoughts (Jack and Locke), murder (Ben, Sawyer, Kate), torture (Sayid and Ben), and even justified homicide (Bernard, Hurley).

There seems to be a great deal of violent criminal behavior as the undercurrent of the series.

The bonds between these main characters could reflect that they were brought to a place collectively in order to protect the rest of the world from them. This idea would fit into the statements by Jacob that he alone brought people to the island. And the fact that MIB was called a "security" system, it would seem they would symbolize a warden and a guard in a prison.

The people brought to the island were not candidates but prisoners. Perhaps it was found that each of the main characters had dangerous mental traits that could trigger abhorrent behavior in the real world. So the authorities ditched them on a private, secluded, high security island to test new penal rehabilitation techniques.

What happened on the island would confirm the authorities worst fears about some of the prisoners. There were violent episodes, Some people changed and went crazy (Claire), others went psychopathic (Ben). Without the structure of prison cells, the inmates ran the asylum.

Which is fine. The prison revolt was orchestrated by the prison guard (MIB) who was fed up with the warden and his games. MIB needed help from the inmates in order to escape the island. But it seems that the only true escape from the island is death.

Third, you can combine the two theories into one in the respect that this prison escape adventure is being a transformative hallucination of a criminal mental patient. The vivid illusions drawn upon the stories of other inmates in therapy sessions can be the building blocks for the action, the escapism, for a person who is serving a life sentence without parole. And the dream aspect could be confirmed by the "happy" ending for the inmates in heaven - - - which is very odd since all their misbehavior, crimes and sins all "vanish" once they leave the island. This is odd finish - - - except that is the fantasy outcome for someone who has committed vile acts without comprehension or accountability or guilt. The dreamers miswired brain allows him or her the fantasy of justification, free will and acceptance by his or her fellow rogues and misfits.

TIME NUMBER

What is the most important Number in Time?

That question popped into my head while I was looking at a large public wall clock.

I saw the line between 12 and the 6 and started doing simple math: 12 minus 6 equals 6.

Then I mentally drew lines around the clock face:

11 -5 = 6
10-4 = 6
9-3 = 6
8 -2 = 6
7-1 = 6.

I concluded that 6 was a key number in time.

A minute is 60 seconds; an hour 60 minutes and a tenth (our current counting system) of an minute is .6.

Time was a major theme in LOST. In one aspect, Time had trapped Jacob and his brother on the island. Time was frozen for thousands of years based upon the people brought to the island. Jacob and his brother were then also brought to the island as candidates by Crazy Mother.

Who was the Number 6 candidate in the Lighthouse?

Jensen.

But his name was stricken.

What does Jensen mean?

The name Jensen is a Scandinavian baby name. Its meaning is from: Hebrew John 'Jehovah has been gracious; has shown favor.

In Numerology, the name Jensen is tied to these attributes: 

SOUL: 

People with this name have a deep inner desire to use their abilities in leadership, and to have personal independence. They would rather focus on large, important issues, and delegate the details. 

EXPRESSION: People with this name tend to be a powerful force to all whose lives they touch. They are capable, charismatic leaders who often undertake large endeavors with great success. They value truth, justice, and discipline, and may be quick-tempered with those who do not. If they fail to develop their potential, they may become impractical and rigid. 

There was a character who showed leadership ability with a strong sense of personal independence to leave his brother and his mother. He had a single focus on a large concept that there was something bigger and better away from the island; home. He helped the survivors try to harness the energy of the island to find a way home. He was quick tempered when his plans were thwarted, because he was rigid in his mission and ideals. 

That man was Jacob's brother.

We were never told his name. But it could have been Jensen based upon the attributes of the Number 6, the number tied to Time itself, something that MIB was desperately trying to release so he could become mortal and go home.

THE CON MAN

Author Maria Konnikova recently spoke to Business Insider about her book about the psychology of con artists. She said three attributes make a good con artist:

The dark triad is three things, obviously, including psychopathy, the inability to feel emotion in the way that normal people do. It's kind of a lack of empathy. Your brain is actually different, you process emotional stimuli differently. To you, they don't mean that much. It's very difficult for a non-psychopath to understand, but basically everything that would really make you emotionally engaged would leave you cold as a psychopath, so that's one part of it. 

The second part is narcissism, this overblown ego where you not only think you're just the best thing that's ever happened to anyone, but you also think you deserve a lot. You deserve basically everyone to bow down to you. And you have it coming to you, all these good things. So if you notice a lot of the con artists in the book, they want shortcuts, they don't want to work hard for their rewards, because they think they deserve them. They are people who steal credentials because they don't feel like getting a Ph.D. But they think they're smarter than the people with Ph.D.s.

Finally, it's Machiavellianism, or the ability to manipulate people into doing what you want. Kind of like Machiavelli's Ideal Prince, you have your own ends and you use whatever means you want to get there. And you're very good at tricking those people and getting them to do what you want.

The reason those traits are so important to con artists is that you are taking advantage of people, and in order to do it well, you can't think that you're taking advantage of people, because the moment you do, you start feeling bad for them. What this triad allows you to do is not have to deal with that, you don't feel bad for people, because you don't feel empathy. And you don't think you're doing anything wrong, because you deserve it. And you have the means, because you're Machiavellian, and so you're very good at convincing other people that what you say is correct. Those three things can really operate in tandem to create the perfect story. That said, and one thing that I do say in the book. It's not destiny. There are plenty of people who have these traits who don't become con artists. And there are also con artists who probably don't have the entire dark triad of traits.

Lacking emotional empathy. A belief in deserved alpha dog status. Ability to manipulate other people.

This was the blueprint for a few LOST characters. Sawyer was a known con artist, a process which he adopted in order to get revenge on another con artist, Cooper (Locke's biological father). Ben also conned Sawyer into submission on the Hydra Island kidnapping story. And Kate regularly conned men to do her bidding - - - such as helping her break into a safety deposit vault. Shannon manipulated men to pay for lifestyle of doing nothing constructive. 

Of the main characters, Ben showed the strongest abilities in the three elements of the dark triad. Sawyer had spats of remorse during his cons. Kate did not think she deserved a lot, except for her freedom. Shannon was more of a spoiled brat than psychopathic behaviorist. Cooper was a close second to Ben on tricking people to give up their prized possession - - - like an internal organ from Locke.

So there was a clear scientific basis for the character traits of the theme of con artists in the series.

LOST DREAMS

There are various resources to interpret one's dreams.

Dreams are often viewed as a subconscious exercise to try to figure out what is bothering your conscious self.

If you dream about being "lost," it could mean several different things. One source states:

To dream that you are lost suggests that you have lost your direction in life or that you have lost sight of your goals. You may be feeling worried and insecure about the path you are taking in life. If you try to call for help, then it means that you are trying to reach out for support. You are looking for someone to lean on. Alternatively, being lost means that you are still adjusting to a new situation in which the rules and conditions are ever changing.  

To dream that someone else is lost represents some unresolved issues or feelings pertaining to the person that is lost. Consider what aspect of that person you may have lost within your own self. Perhaps you need to recapture and re-acknowledge those aspects.

In both instances, the main characters in LOST could have been in a dream state interpretation. Individually, they had lost their direction in their life either personally or professionally. They may have pieced together a collective imagination of strangers with similar problems in order to cope with their own issues. The main characters struggle is trying to acknowledge and accept various aspects of their life, their character and their fate.

DREAM POLICE

Throughout history, literature came in standard format elements such as metaphor, symbolism, satire, exaggeration and codes. At times, the authors used those devices to criticize their leaders so as not to lose their heads. Writers use these methods to allow a reader's imagination to fill in the gaps. One of the most successful books that have been used over and over again as examples are the parables in the Bible.

As with the vagueness of LOST's premise and main plot line, many different themes and theories have arisen to explain the totality of the series. Was it purgatory? Was it a parallel universe? Was it time travel? Was it the avatar representation of players in a video game? Was it all a dream?

The latter has been a highly investigated topic. Many theorists have focused in on Jack's character as the source of the dream theory. It was Jack's eye opening to start the show's mythology that got people to thinking it was a link to the mind's eye, or subconscious state. It seemed to hold water when Jack's last island shot was him closing his eyes in the bamboo jungle after defeating MIB.

However, after recently hearing Cheap Trick's "Dream Police," there may be another suspect.

The dream police
They live inside of my head
The dream police
They come to me in my bed
The dream police
They're coming to arrest me
Oh no

You know that talk is cheap
And rumors ain't nice
And when I fall asleep
I don't think I'll survive

The night the night

'Cause they're waiting for me
Looking for me
Every single night
(They're) driving me insane
Those men inside my brain

What if the duality state of psychic responses was not in Jack's head but in Kate's?

It may make more sense because Kate's story line features all of the main character story elements. The show was supposedly all about character development more than plot.

The lyrics of the song pen a simple premise for Kate's dream state.

What was the major focus of Kate? To run away. To not accept responsibility. Not to grow up to make adult decisions toward accountability. And where do many people run to in troubled times? Into their own heads. The factually incorrect assumption through the series was that a U.S. Marshall was chasing down Kate for an Iowa state murder. The U.S. has no jurisdiction over murder, a state offense. And when she was "tried" for that murder, it was in California, another state without any jurisdiction. Those errors were so big and stupid it cast the whole series writing in doubt. 

The only real explanation for those egregious errors is that they were not real. 

If we accept the premise that Kate's story is fantasy, then a workable theory can be made from it.

When know the basic elements of her character: she was a rural child living with her working mother and lazy stepfather. She wanted attention so she caused trouble. She learned early how to manipulate young boys. She longed to get away from the chains of her family and to have adventures. But her family had no resources to send her away, and Kate seemed to have no attributes to better herself to go to school or college to make her own path.

LOST could be considered Kate's dream flight away from her boring life. Besides, Kate is the only person in the O6 story arc to have a "happy" outcome, i.e. getting her murder charges dismissed with a wrist slap. All the other O6 characters had brutal disappointments, including Jack turning into a drug/alcoholic, Sayid seeing the love of his life killed in an accident, and Locke being murdered by Ben.

And the other characters are elements of her personality, as depicted in Disney's recent movie Inside Out.

Shannon represents a vanity, a pretty but lazy girl who wants to be showered with gifts and attention. Locke represents her adventurous side. Sawyer represents her devious wants and desires. Hurley represents her shy but crazy side. Charlie represents her hidden creative talents. Ben represents her repressed anger against her parents. Jack represents conformity, the responsible person she is trying to avoid. Sayid represents the exotic problem solver. Claire represents the little girl trapped inside her head. The smoke monster was her deepest fears; reality. Mars, the marshal, represented her parents and the societal pressure to conform, behave and be accountable for your actions.

Throughout LOST, Kate was seemingly in the middle of every major event. She went on all the missions. Out of nowhere, she was an "expert" tracker. When she needed to be an expert marksman, she was. She got in and out of danger with barely a scratch. She always got what she wanted: escape and freedom. All the main story threads had Kate as a major factor: the plane crash, the O6 story arc, and the sideways world. In fact, Kate's story is exactly the same in both the island world and the sideways existence while the other characters had major differences. That is because Kate's mind was in control of both story worlds, bouncing back and forth like a pleasant dream to a nightmare. 

But as Kate got deeper and deeper into her fantasy dreams, the more dark they became. Add in "the Others," people who don't know her but want to control her. Jacob and MIB, tyrants who are trying to hurt her, kidnap her and enslave her mind - - - take away her freedom. 

Her Dream Police, her imagination,  were authority figures who were making demands on her. All the characters did indeed live inside her head. And when she was asleep, they tried to "arrest" her - - - take away the fantasy of adventurous freedom by putting her (and her character elements) in danger. There were times she felt she would not survive: as the plane was crashing, as she was chased into the mangrove roots by the smoke monster, when Ben held her captive, when MIB attacked the temple, when Claire lashed out at her, etc. 

So we may never really know who Kate really was. She could have been a transference of Libby, the mental patient in Hurley's group day room. As the song said, the dream police were driving her insane.