DYING TO WAKE UP

In Dying to Wake Up, Dr. Rajiv Parti, the Chief of Anesthesiology at the Bakersfield Heart Hospital in California, writes in his new book that an experience from "the Divine" changed him forever. 

Following this experience Parti gave away his mansion, quit his career, and opened a wellness clinic.
Parti claims to provide "rare details of heaven, hell, the afterlife, and angels." According to Parti, during his near-death experience he encountered "archangels" and his deceased father who showed him "through the tortures of hell."

Parti purports that to this day he still converses with angels and "spreads their wisdom to the living."
While there have been many books published by people that have experienced something similar to Parti, the book genre isn't without its critics.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of the book, Hallucinations,  wrote these "life-altering religious experiences" are "hallucinations," and that "whether revelatory or banal, are not of supernatural origin; they are part of the normal range of human consciousness and experience."

What strikes me from this summary account of Parti's experience is that mirrors the basic premise of LOST.  Jack was guided through the tortures of the island hell by his deceased father, Christian. And once Jack survived his initial island test in the underworld, he gave up everything to return to save his friends.

The title invokes another theme of the show, "waking up."  In the after life, the characters had to "wake up" to the realization that they were dead. So what was their experiences prior to that revelation? 

Could each of the characters be going through separate near death experiences that funnel into this island hell gateway? As we speculated in the past, each of the main characters had a back story element where they could have died in real life. 

The idea of Jack's deceased father shepherding him through the stages of death, preparing him for the after life, is an appealing notion. It reinforces major religious symbolism. It also reinforces the bonds of friendship can cross barriers, including death.