A NEW STATE OF MATTER

Science is the never ending quest for knowledge. Even knowledge that you would never think exists.

Every graduate of elementary school can tell you that  water can have three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. We can observe, test and create all three states of water.

But scientists at the Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) have recently discovered that when it's put under extreme pressure in small spaces, water can exhibit a strange fourth state known as tunneling.

Basically, quantum tunneling means that a particle, or in this case a molecule, can overcome a barrier and be on both sides of it at once – or anywhere between. Think of rolling a ball down one side of a hill and up another. The second hill is the barrier and the ball would only have enough energy to climb it to the height from which it was originally dropped. If the second hill was taller, the ball wouldn't be able to roll over it. That's classical physics. Quantum physics and the concept of tunneling means the ball could jump to the other side of the hill with ease or even be found inside the hill – or on both sides of the hill at once.

The water under question was found in super-small six-sided channels in the mineral beryl, which forms the basis for the gems aquamarine and emerald. The channels measure only about five atoms across and function basically as cages that can each trap one water molecule. What the researchers found was that in this incredibly tight space, the water molecule exhibited a characteristic usually only seen at the much smaller quantum level, called tunneling.

The water molecules acted according to quantum – not classical – laws of physics. It means that the oxygen and hydrogen atoms of the water molecule are delocalized and therefore simultaneously present in all six symmetrically equivalent positions in the channel at the same time.

The idea a thing can be in multiple states of matter or location at the same time is science fiction.

The one hard to grapple aspect of the LOST mythology was the parallel worlds shown on the island and in the sideways world. Fans were left to speculate that the sideways world was a device to show "what would have happened if Flight 815 did not crash."  Except, the sideways world contained different and significant story elements of the main characters which do not sync with their lives when they boarded the plane in Sydney.

Some fans believed the two were parallel universes. Theoretical physicists believe that the universe contains multiple onion skin layers of sub-universes that mirror each other. The only difference is that choices people make affect each individual universe changes that universe but none of the others.

But now science has given us another alternative: quantum tunneling but at a significant scale. Is it possible for a person to be in two places at once? Technically, yes. You can be on a Skype call and your image could appear thousands of miles away so your "presence" can be in two different locations at the same time. But instead of illusions (images), what if a person can be physically in two places at once.

If you think of the island in the massive space of the universe, it could equate to be 5 atoms across. Its intense electromagnetic fields could be the "pressure" to create the gateway between parallel universes where the actual person, not a copy, could go. In such a way, the person is no longer tethered to time, space and location of Earth's mortal coil. The control of the space and pressure could be the function of the FDW.

We know know is made of one part hydrogen and two parts oxygen. The molecules bond together to form a new compound. But philosophers attempt to break down the human existence to beyond the physical matter (which includes water as the primary element in the human body). A human being can be seen as one part chemical, one part energy and one part spirit. In the concept of quantum tunneling, the pressure exerted on the human body could make the spirit be able to cross barriers and boundaries of the human body and existence. That could be another explanation for the sideways world (which would be consistent with the ancient Egyptian burial rituals of the soul being separated from the body in its journey through the underworld).

FLASH OF LIFE

One of the mysteries of The End was the last flash of light when Christian opened the doors in the sideways church.

What was that flash of light supposed to represent?

We were told that the characters were "moving on." To what? Where? How? and Why?

A wild yet intriguing science article could shed some "light" on the ending.

Scientists at Northwestern University have found that human life begins in bright flash of light as a sperm meets an egg. This flash is caused by a sudden release of zinc when the egg is fertilized which causes light to be seen under the microscope.

The reports state that an explosion of tiny sparks erupts from the egg at the exact moment of conception.

Scientists had seen the phenomenon occur in other animals but it is the first time is has been also shown to happen in humans.

“To see the zinc radiate out in a burst from each human egg was breathtaking, ”

Professor Teresa Woodruff, Northwestern University said in a Telegraph (UK) article.

Researchers noticed that some of the eggs burn brighter than others, showing that they are more likely to produce a healthy baby.

 

One of the early issues in the series was the theme of the island stopping conception or babies being born. We were never told why the island with alleged "healing" powers (such as seen to Rose for cancer and Locke for paralysis) could abort a fetus. 

What could be the possible symbols for light? Light is energy in a pure form. Light is a positive influence. Light can be representative of god in many religious contexts. Light can represent life. It could represent a soul. And now science adds conception to the list of possible symbols for life.

When a egg is fertilized, the human DNA of two people merges to create a new life. 

Was the fact that both Claire and Sun birthed their children for the second time in the sideways world, a clue that the characters were precursors to conception? 

It is possible when the show writers grappled with their big question, what is life and death, that they masked the symbolism too tightly in reality.

Each of us carries the genetic material of our parents. That genetic material is code. Code that creates the complex biochemical factory called the human body. Code that is similar to that of a computer operating system. 

Many fans thought LOST was merely a computer video game with the characters being avatars of the players. But instead of looking at the show as an illusion of a video game, look at it as symbolic embodiment of the genetic material of each characters' parents. For example, Jack was not Jack a human being. Jack was the collective code of his father and mother's life, traits, predication, personality, faults, emotions and intelligence. Jack was a double helix compiling his parents data into his own data set just prior to "conception" with another double helix (specifically Kate's ancestry).

Other scientific studies indicate that many people are predisposed for disease, alcoholism, illness or athletic because of genetic disorders hard wired in a person's DNA. Each of the main characters traits and characteristics could represent a genetic pattern for that future human being.

The idea that the sideways church is merely a vessel for the fully developed sperm and egg DNA of ancestors reaching puberty (the waxing and waning of hormones) is an interesting concept. The last flash of bright light in the final episode could have marked the real beginning of the story.

AJIRA'S RETURN

One of the great unknowns is what happened to the Ajira plane after it took off from the island.

We see it fly over a dying Jack, but we really do not know if it ever made it back to the mainland. It was a damaged plane fixed without tools or supplies. It may have not had enough fuel to reach a destination. And if the island's electromagnetic shell was still working, it would have not let the plane travel in any direction except in circles.

But we are led to believe that the passengers got home safely. That they returned to their lives and died "much later" than Jack, according to sideways Christian in the church anteroom.

But is that believable?

If the Ajira return passengers got back to the mainland, they would have been celebrity-heroes. They would have been hounded by the media for interviews, shows and biographies. They would have met other celebrities, been part of the B-list jet set, and had their lives totally changed.

Frank piloted the plane off the Hydra Island with Kate, Claire, Richard, Sawyer and Miles on board.

One would assume that if Frank got back, he may have retired to Florida to charter smaller planes. It never made sense that he would have returned to a commercial pilot status after the 815 crash psychosis and alcoholism. Frank would have been the type to recede into the background.

Kate would have returned to the mainland as a free woman. But what would have happened to her? She was still married to Florida police officer Kevin Callis. She could not have been declared legally dead. Kevin truly loved and supported Kate, but he must have been devastated when she left him. He never showed up in the O6 arc. Would he ask her for a second chance upon her return to the States? If so, then Kate should have not ended up in the sideways church with Jack. She would have created a long life with Kevin. But that does not seem to be the case, as Kate arrives without him in the afterlife.

More likely, Kate would have reverted back to a life of recklessness. She enjoyed being a fugitive, using her wits to get out of trouble. She was a troublemaker. She tried to change by being a homemaker to Aaron, but she abandoned that notion on the wild dream that she could find and return Claire to him.

Likewise, Sawyer would have come back with no career, no prospects except the con game. But he also had a person to re-connect with: Cassidy, the mother of his child, Clementine. If Sawyer had changed into a responsible adult during his time with Juliet in the time loop 3 years in the Dharma camp, one could imagine Sawyer wanting to have a "real" family and a "real" life. But that does not seem to have happened, because Sawyer does not end up in the afterlife with either Cassidy or Clementine.

Claire's return would have been problematic. First, she was an emotional and psychological nightmare. She loved a dead squirrel baby. If she returned to the mainland, she would have had to go back to Australia to face her mother in order to re-connect with Aaron. But the main issue with the O6 arc was that Claire's mother, Carole, was on life support because Christian was paying for it. When he died, the support ended. It was a miracle that Carole suddenly recovered and found her way to LA for Christian's funeral. No one would have told her that. And for Carole to take Aaron out of the United States when all the documents said it was Kate's baby - - - again, legally far-fetched and unbelievable. But even if the fairy tale ending happened and Claire was reunited with Aaron - -  what would she do? Would she seek out Aaron's father, Thomas, and live happily ever after on her celebrity fame? Doubtful, since it seemed that Thomas was the type not to accept responsibility. Claire's return to the afterlife casts doubts on whether anyone survived the return flight. She was pregnant with Aaron, meaning she never reunited with him. It may mean that her mother and Aaron rejected her - - - so she may have been institutionalized from her island trauma and grief. But how she could re-create the soul of Aaron outside his own time-life line is a major plot hole. (This is also true with Sun and Jin).

Miles return to the States was also problematic. He had given up being a spiritual con-artist, speaking to the dead to give loved ones closure. We don't know if his mother, Lara, was still alive. But if Miles was going to re-start his life, one would expect he would start back in his hometown, Encino, and probably return to a job as a mechanic. The only other alternative would to follow Sawyer down his path if the con game was still an option. But since Miles does not make it to the sideways church reunion, he moved on to his own life.

Richard would have continued to be a lost soul. He was more than a 160 years old when he left the island. Nothing is known about what happened to Richard after he left the island. But the gray hair he discovered before leaving suggests that he later aged as a normal person would. But he had no place to go - - - everyone he knew was long gone, dead. Would he have reconnected with the few remaining remains of Ben's network of spies and assassins? Probably not, because they had no purpose anymore. Richard would return to the modern world with no identity, no resources, no family and no friends. He would truly be a man out of his time. And that would be a sad, troublesome end for him. He also did not show up at the church.

The sideways church reunion was supposed to wrap up the grand question of LOST. Christian reassured Jack that they are all "real,"  Jack's life was real, and the people in the church were real. Jack asks if everyone else is dead too, and Christian explains that "everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some before you, some long after you." When Jack asks why everyone is here now, Christian responds that "There is no now . . . here", and that this is a place they all made together to find one another, because the most important part of Jack's life was the time he spent with these people, and that's why they are all here; no one lives life alone. He needed them, and they needed him; to remember, and to let go. Jack tells Christian that Kate said they were all leaving. Christian explained they aren't leaving; they're moving on. 

But if the Ajira plane did return to the mainland, and those passengers did live long lives as expected, one would presume that they would have made new friends, had new relationships, gotten married, had children - - - created a brand new life separate and more important than the island world. If Sawyer spent the next 50 years brooding about losing Juliet, then that would have horrible (and totally out of character). If Kate secretly pined for Jack, that would also be counter to the chances she had with him on the island and during the O6 arc (when she rejected him for the last time). We can then only assume that she led a spinster, quiet and lonely life if Jack was the best thing she ever had. And apparently, Claire had no life since she is re-creating it over again with Charlie.

Which gets us to a new question: is the sideways (after life) itself an illusion, a fantasy, a re-boot? It must be if you take Sun-Jin and Claire's post-pregnancies into account. Then if that is not believable as in a truth, then can we take anything that Christian said as being true? It makes more sense that the Ajira flight did not make it home. That the passengers last moments of life were thinking about the island and the people they left behind.

TWO LOSTS

There is a position in the LOST universe that says that the fans who hated The Ending never understood it. Or that they were never real fans of the show. Or they expected too many answers to the questions posed in the story lines.

In order to justify this viewpoint, it is said that the final season of LOST was its own universe, its own independent story - - - its own self-contained bubble. It's features and attributes do not reflect what was happening in the island world. In other words, the fact that the characters in the sideways world were dead did not mean that the characters were dead all along. But that in itself is only a supposition.

Except, there were connections between the two worlds. In the sideways world, it was a character's "awakening" that flooded back island memories to re-bond with lost friends and lovers.

But if you do want to separate LOST into two distinct, independent stories, here is what you get:

THE ISLAND world would apparently have ended with Juliet detonating the bomb, killing everyone on the island. Or, as the science would tell, you can't detonate an atomic bomb with a rock (there needs to be a complex chain reaction explosion to detonate a nuclear device), so the bomb did not work. That would mean the island characters were still "alive" and battling among themselves in the Jacob-MIB feud.

THE SIDEWAYS world would be totally different. For example, none of the characters were ever in a plane crash or lived on the island. They were normal people with normal problems. Ben was a school teacher taking care of his disabled father. Locke was a disabled substitute teacher who was happily married to Helen. Jack was divorced but from Juliet. He had a son. Hurley was a successful businessman after winning the lottery; a confident community leader. Sun and Jin had made it to the US. She was expecting their child.

Now, complete separation of the characters time lines has to be part of any independent universe view. In the linear story telling of the show, the sideways events happened AFTER the island events. And that creates a clear paradox. The children were born in the prior island time, but were not born in the sideways world until the end. And the End was a place of death so how can children be born in the sideways world? Again, the theory that the sideways is self-contained means it is not fair to ask that broad question.

Then you have to look at LOST as two franchises. The island and first 5 seasons were the original. The sideways episodes were the "re-boot" of the franchise (as JJ Abrams did with Star Trek). But that seems too confusing and inconsistent with what the show writers were telling fans at the end of Season 5.

One could divide the worlds into one where the gritty danger of real life engulfs a person with one where a person's dreams and imagination of a perfect life controls. If you take the sideways world as the collective dreams of the island characters, folding it like whipped cream into a cake batter, then you would discount Season 6 as mainly unimportant filler.

If, as some fans thought at the time, the sideways world was truly a glimpse of the characters if Flight 815 did not crash, then that would be fine . . . . until the point when the writers merged the fantasy with the island "awakenings" and the poor choices to conclude the series, such as Sayid embracing his alleged soul mate, Shannon, instead of Nadia. In fact, the whole structure of Season 6 was premised upon Eloise trying to keep Desmond and Penny a part in the sideways world - - - because she knew it would open a Pandora's box of memories to the characters which would cause her son, Daniel, to remember how cruel she was to him.

The two LOSTs explanation is one way of looking at the series. Two distinct character studies of the cast members. But that is a dry, academic explanation. And really unnecessary. If you wanted to show the good and moral side of a character, such as Ben, you could have made those changes in the island world story. You could have had the characters leave the island and try to adapt to LA instead of creating a conflicting, parallel universe.

LOST was one show and one series. It has to be accepted as being one, complete, and coherent story. The last part is what continues to cause fans the most problems. The blanket explanation that the show was only about the characters and their actions and reactions to events is shotgun logic. It does not explain the important mysteries the writers gave us to solve. It does not give closure. It just keeps fans debating the merits of the ending.

A NEW EARTH

NASA is looking to have a manned mission to Mars.

And one benefit to this mission would be to determine if there was evidence of life on the red planet. Or, as some believe, the basis of life on Earth.

A theory called panspermia, which dates back to the 5th century BC, posits that certain life forms can hop between planets, and even star systems, to fertilize them with life. 

Following this theory, science theorists suspect that the first life on Earth never formed on our planet at all, but instead, hitched a ride inside planetary fragments from Mars that were flung into space after a powerful impact and eventually fell to Earth. 

This travel between different planets has a parallel in the lost time-travel/sideways universe arcs.

There is still no clear cut conclusion between the island world and the sideways world, which mirrored the lives of the characters on Earth. Various theories believed the sideways universe was connected to the island by some portal or electromagnetic time-space machine.

If you take this old science theory and apply it to the fiction of LOST, could the sideways world be actually another planet - - - a second Earth that was being colonized by removing human beings from Earth and teleporting them to a distant, similar world?

Why would anyone do this? In some sci-fi series, like Star Trek, there are advanced races of aliens with vast technologies who use it to help to reverse the decline in their own humanoid species. By taking humans from Earth and re-creating an Earth like setting (as was done in The Cage), with a group of people who are close knit friends, the alien planet could have its new gene pool.

So the sideways world was not purgatory but a New Earth, replicated for the benefit of the LOST survivors who were deemed dead by their families but kidnapped by the aliens to bond together on an island adventure in order to accept their new home in a distant galaxy.

AWAKENING

In ancient Egyptian mythology, when a person dies his or her body needed to be preserved so it could be reunited with the person's soul in the afterlife.

This ritual mummification has mysterious origins that archaeologists and scientists do not quite understand how a culture created such a complex death ritual.

In simple terms, when a person passes away their body "is at rest," but its spirit or soul, embarks on a journey through the underworld. There are many tests, dangers and judgments in this passage toward eternal paradise.

The disunion of the body and soul is the key element. Once the soul completes its journey, its body is resurrected in the after life to be joined back together again. This reconstruction apparently would incorporate all the deceased memories, personality, position and power had as a human being.

This ritual does have a parallel in the LOST universe.

It is hard to grapple with the fact that the characters were in the sideways world, but could not remember their past, especially their island time. If you look at the memory cycle of the main characters it was:

PRE-FLIGHT 815 . . . . . ISLAND CRASH . . . . . . .  SIDEWAYS WORLD AWAKENING

There are a few ways to comprehend this disconnect.

First, the characters were killed in the plane crash, but their "souls" continued to live on to journey through the underworld (the island) on their way to be reunited with their bodies in the sideways world (the awakening). It would then seem that the body and brain would contain the hardware in which to access the memories of the departed, especially those "unknown" or new ones of the soul's passage through the underworld.

Second, the characters were killed in the plane crash, but their "bodies" continued to live on in reincarnated form at a base level while their souls left this plane of existence to create the sideways world purgatory (limbo - - - waiting for their bodies to return). The ancient Egyptians respect for the dead body could be the answer here, since the body is the vessel for the soul. The "new" body could have the physical attributes to move in the plane of another dimension to be re-fused with the old body in the after life.

Third, the characters barely survived the crash but part of their spiritual being prematurely fled to the afterlife (and then had to create a second world, the sideways narrative, in order to provide a beacon for its full soul to find it.) The characters continue to live out their lives, both on and off the island, only coming to re-connect with their departed soul fragment after their death. But this does explain the delay in the reunification of the soul and body with the deep memories of the island time. The island experience is what brought the characters together.

One theory was that Eloise was suppressing the final unification of the body and spirits of the island friends so she could keep her son, Daniel, from awakening and realizing that she had killed him while he time traveled on the island. Only a strong emotional hit or jolt awakened the characters in the sideways world.

These elements do fit in the heavy Egyptian themes on the island but do not fully fit together in the sideways context.

NON-DREAMERS

Whether they are reliving childhood anxieties or visiting imaginary landscapes, most people dream.

But there’s a small subset of the population who claims either to have stopped dreaming, or never to have dreamed at all. A group of researchers recently decided to look into the sleep patterns of self-proclaimed non-dreamers, to try to determine whether they may still be producing dreams.
The researchers, whose study was published in the Journal of Sleep Research  recruited a unique group of participants. They wanted to look specifically at people who have REM sleep behavior disorder—a condition that causes people to act out their dreams. Because people with the disorder move around or speak in their sleep, their sleep patterns and behaviors are easier for scientists to observe.

According to New York Magazine, four percent of the participants in the 289 person study said they never dreamed or hadn’t dreamed in over a decade. However, upon observation, many of them appeared to dream, moving, speaking, or reenacting imaginary scenarios in their sleep. For example, one participant in his 70s, who claimed not to have dreamed since his 20s, was observed arguing with, punching, and swearing at an invisible enemy as he slept. Upon waking, however, he claimed not to have had any dreams.

The researchers recognize that the appearance of dream behavior is not definitive proof of dream production. More research is still needed to determine whether behaviors like sleep-talking and moving correspond to actual mental images. Still, the study provides strong initial evidence that non-dreamers may, in fact, be dreaming. 

This is an interesting study to apply to the sideways world when the characters "forgot" about all their time on the island.

If alleged "non-dreamers" dream but don't remember their dreams, does that not fit the pattern or premise of the sideways world? The characters had to be "jolted" into remembering their past. For Jack, it was touching his father's coffin. 

So if we transpose this scientific observation into the LOST story line, we get this possible explanation.

We know that the sideways world was the after life because Christian told Jack that everyone in teh church was dead.

Being dead, the characters could not "remember" their island time or the other characters.

Now, there would be two possible explanations of this: 1) the dead souls don't have clear recall of their past lives or 2) the dead souls can vividly dream (and probably collectively).

Now, many other researchers have been studying the purpose of dreams. Some believe it is a way humans try to solve real life problems in a safe and secure fashion. Some believe that dreams are a way for the body to rest and recharge (but the mind has to always be active since it controls all bodily functions). 

Why would the dead need to dream?

Perhaps, the same way the living do: in order to sort through their problems, anxieties, fears, and regrets in order to become self-aware, self-assured and self-healed in order to "move on."

Whether in work or relationships, some people do get bogged down to the point of being unhappily stuck in a situation or hurt from a missed opportunity. This paralysis can be long lasting and bitter.

The dead LOST souls needed a means of reviewing the errors in the lives, making peace with the choices that they made in life, and accept who they were in order to move on in the afterlife.

So it is possible, despite the similar living issues and problems the characters had, each of them were also "non-dreamers" who could not remember working out their issues in their own minds.

HAWKING CONCEPTS

Stephen Hawking revealed a new theory at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. He claims to have potentially solved the Information Paradox. 

The paradox a conflict between the quantum mechanics and general relativity models that has vexed physicists for more than four decades. The Information Paradox arises from black holes - - -  specifically what happens to information about the physical state of objects that fall into one. 

The quantum mechanical model posits that the information remains intact while general relativity argues that it is indeed obliterated under the black holes immense gravitation. But Hawking has developed a third opinion: the information never actually makes it into the black hole. "I propose that the information is stored not in the interior of the black hole as one might expect, but on its boundary, the event horizon," he said.

Basically, Hawking argues that the information about particles sucked into the hole sit on the surface of the event horizon as holograms  (2D afterimages of a 3D object). 

"The idea is the super translations are a hologram of the ingoing particles," he told the crowd. "Thus they contain all the information that would otherwise be lost." What's more, that information can actually escape a black holes pull thanks to Hawking Radiation -- the concept that photons can sometimes be ejected from a black hole due to random quantum fluctuations.

Hawking further stated black holes are boundaries or gateways to another universe.

Humans could escape from black holes, rather than getting stuck in them, he stated.

Unfortunate space travelers won’t be able to return to their own universe, according to Hawking. But they will be able to escape somewhere else, Hawking said.

Black holes in fact aren’t as “black” as people thought and could be a way of getting through to an alternative universe.

“The existence of alternative histories with black holes suggests this might be possible,” Hawking said, according his report.  “The hole would need to be large and if it was rotating it might have a passage to another universe. But you couldn’t come back to our universe. So although I’m keen on space flight, I’m not going to try that.

Hawking’s proposal is an attempt to answer a problem that has tormented physicists about what happens to things when they go beyond the event horizon, where even light can’t get back. The information about the object has to be preserved, scientists believe, even if the thing itself is swallowed up — and that paradox has puzzled scientists for decades.

Now Hawking has proposed that the information is stored on the boundary, at the event horizon. That means that it never makes its way into the black hole, and so never needs to make its way out again either.


A paradox is a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.

It seems absurd or self-contradictory matter changes its status but not "information" when caught in the event horizon of a black hole. It would seem then there is a different cosmic physical state when at the edge of the gravitational pull. 

How would that work on organic objects. If the "information" is created to a holographic state of "being," then would the organic life forms still be "aware" of an existence? And if the "information" is stored on the event horizon, what actually transfers into the other universe?

We set this question out because of the paradox between the island time line and the sideways world (which was stated as a place of death.) But there was evidence in the Hatch that the countdown timer was a release mechanism to "escape" a place of death. It could be that the light source is the holographic projector of the human beings caught in the event horizon of a black hole. The "information" and matter of the human beings, in essence their personal life force, continues on trapped in a new reality which appears to be the island. 

How the trapped information which must wind and rewind like a video projector can interact or change is unclear. If the information on transformation is set in its final stage, then the LOST universe is merely a "replay" of past events. If the information on transformation is not set, and can change through the interaction with other newly trapped information holograms, then the LOST universe is a hybrid reality.

The Hawking concept could lend some support to the fan theorists believing that the island was part of black hole engulfing our solar system. The island could have been the "cork" or electromagnetic counter to the black hole's gravitational pull. But that does not explain the parallel time lines between the island and the sideways worlds.

In a multiple layered theory of Hawking's concepts, he may be actually trying to explain what spiritualists would call each individual's life force or soul making its journey to another level of existence.

LIFE OR DEATH

What would you choose: life or death?

Probably 99.9 percent of us would choose life.

But what if you were so troubled that you felt that in death you would receive new life?

This is the contradiction that is the daily headlines. Suicide bombers attack innocent people under the belief that they will have a better life in afterlife. Some teens under horrible torment of bullies, self-esteem issues, too high expectations and peer pressure weigh that option.

There is also the question of faith. Individuals believe in either an afterlife or not. People hope that there time on earth has a more infinite meaning.

LOST attempted to explore those themes.

It is hard to tell whether Locke convinced himself that he was better off killing himself than trying to help the island or his friends. Recall, he basically mucked up everything in his life, including his relationship with Helen and Jack, who he considered his rival and probable best friend.

It is hard to tell when Sayid came to the conclusion that he was better off dead when he took the submarine bomb and tried to leave the ship. Recall, he had lost his Nadia, then Shannon, in tragic accidents. He was an outsider and an outcast. He may have gotten along with a few island castaways, but he never fit in.

In the big picture of LOST, the writers did dance around to the side that there is hope in death.

The sideways world has to be considered a lukewarm attempt to show the afterlife as a continuation of the human lives we all live, day to day. The sideways purgatory or weigh station to paradise/heaven mocked the same struggles of real life, but with no lasting consequences except perhaps feelings of personal regret or remorse (as with Ben who decided to "stay" on to work out some of his issues with Rousseau and Alex). But that is the odd part about LOST's vision - - - each individual is his or her own judge and jury on what sort of afterlife they will be rewarded by the unknown gods (such as Jacob, MIB, the island, or some other supernatural power).

Though we were told that the island contained the power of life, death and rebirth, the sideways world showed us that it was each individual who controlled their own destiny.

THE TURN

In the first Act of "LAX, Part One," this happens:

[The Previously on Lost ends with the detonation of the bomb - then cuts to the clouds, as the view zooms out to Jack. Jack is then interrupted by Cindy.]
CINDY: So how's the drink?
JACK: Uh... it's good.
CINDY: That's not a very strong reaction.
JACK: Well, it's--it's not a very strong drink.
[She hands Jack a single Vodka bottle.]
CINDY: Don't tell anyone.
JACK: It'll be our secret.
[As Jack pours the Vodka into his drink, the plane shakes causing him to spill a little. Jack buckles his seatbelt.]
CINDY: [Over P.A.] Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on the "fasten seat belts" sign.
[Rattling stops.]
CINDY: [Over P.A.] Please return to your seats and keep your seat belts fastened.
ROSE: It's normal. My husband said the planes want to stay in the air.
[Jack chuckles.]
JACK: Sounds like a smart man.
ROSE: You be sure and tell him that when he gets back from the bathroom.
JACK: Well, I'll keep you company until he does. Don't worry--
[The plane starts to shake again, this time more violently. Luggage falls from the overhead compartment and Jack grips his seat, almost in anticipation. The turbulance ends and Jack breaths a sigh of relief.]
ROSE: You can let go now.
[Passengers murmuring.]
ROSE: It's okay. You--you can let go.
[Jack let's go and sighs.]
JACK: Looks like we made it.
ROSE: Yeah. We sure did.
[Bell dings.]

In the previous story, the plane does not survive the turbulence and it crashes on the island.

But in this scene, the plane does not crash. It lead to many viewers thinking that LOST was a) jumping the shark; b) introducing another sci-fi element in parallel universes; or c) giving us clues that the what we had previously seen was not true (like reworking a dream over and over again) or d) that the atomic bomb somehow re-set the time line so the plane would not crash.

But in retrospect, there are several key elements in this short scene that have great import in trying to understand the big premise.

What does Cindy represent?
What does Rose represent?
Why are they comforting Jack, who is a man used to pressure situations?

We know that Rose has terminal cancer. She has come to terms with her fate, that she was going to die.

We know that Cindy represents as a flight attendant, a kind person who works in the sky, which could symbolize a guardian angel.

We would learn later that Jack would have his inner demons tear a part his soul in fits of rage, addiction and regret. Perhaps, this is the point in time where Jack actually dies.

Instead of walking into a tunnel of light, Jack is rocked and jolted into "letting go" by a kind and wise older woman who herself is on the ride to the other side.

And so this flight is merely symbolic of Jack and the other soul's journey into the after life (as represented by the sideways world). The transition period of not truly understanding one's own death is the key to inner peace that is required in the sideways world in order to "awaken" one's spirit to move on to heaven.

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?

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').

CREEPY

The internet is filled with lists on popular culture, including vague rankings on televisions shows.

LOST appeared in the Top 10 "creepiest endings" to a television series. Creepy, an unpleasant fear or unease about a situation, may not accurately describe LOST's conclusion, but the list remarks stated:

As if this show was not strange enough, the show's finale added an extra creep factor to it. Though the finale did piece things together, fans who had fallen in love with the various characters were heartbroken, or better yet, disappointed to learn they were all living in purgatory. It made some viewers question whether the characters were ever alive at all.

 It depends on whether you take TPTB's word that the characters were "alive" the whole time (when the purgatory theory was advanced by fans early on in Season 1). But the purgatory Ending did bluntly raise the possibility that the characters were dead all along.

And that doubt is valid because the writers could have done a different, non-purgatory ending, IF they so chose to do so. However, it would not have been "as happy" ending because so many main characters (Juliet,  Jin, Sun, Jack, Locke, Boone, Shannon, Christian) were already dead so you could not have a happy reunion at the island grave yard. For a few, having the characters all dead prior to Flight 815, with the unhappy departed having their souls treated to "one final adventure" in the spirit anteworld called the island, would have been a clearer justification for the sideways church reunion.

It would have been creepier if the final reveal was that all the characters NEVER lived at all; that the entire series was a "what if" these human spirits actually had lived . . . in other words, the final scene would have not shown a church but an operating room door at an abortion clinic.  All the characters were never born. But since they were innocent, the universe gave them the chance to live like humans in a cosmic playground.

UNIFIED IN SPIRIT

The attempt to unify the various story aspects of LOST is a difficult chore.

One cannot be positive about anything.

As Oscar Wilde wrote,  “All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.” 

Exactly. What was the true peril in LOST?

What was the one fear that bound together everyone?

It may be a basic human inner terror: dying alone.

The composite feature of any of the main characters were that they were basically loners wandering through life with little or no true friendships. Some say that it is not how you perceive your own life, but your life will be judged by those who attend your funeral.

Human beings have a tribal instinct to belong to a family, a community, kindred spirits. But during one's life, those connections can get lost - - - trampled by the pressures of work, obligations, derailed by alcohol, drugs or quests for power, or tortured relationships including rejection.

That is a heavy dose of DOOM that people think is shadowing them throughout their lives.

If we examine what was below the surface of the island, we find two things. First, we find the ancient Egyptian temple complex, with a drawing of the smoke monster sitting across from Anubis, the god of the underworld. Second, we find the mysterious light force which is said to bring life, death and rebirth through supernatural powers which includes moving both time and space. Despite what is shown on the surface of the island, below is the clear symbolism of death and the after life. And the smoke monster is clearly depicted as part of this underworld realm.

Attached to the subsurface of the island are the roots of the plants, including the banyon trees which some believe have magical powers to ward off evil because spirits reside in their roots. Juliet and Kate were saved from the attacking smoke monster by hiding in the tree roots. What also is tied to the surface of the island? We would learn from Michael that the whispers are trapped spirits who cannot move on in death. Michael was one of those trapped spirits when he spoke to Hurley.

So we could conclude that the island itself is symbolic border between the living and the spirit world. We can also conclude that the smoke monster is a form of a spirit that is trapped on the island. As a spirit, it has magical abilities to change matter and form, to probe the minds and memories of human beings, and to destroy or kill. In all natural systems, there is a balance in order for the system to sustain itself. If the smoke monster is a evil, dark force, then the light force represents the counterbalance of good. It would have its own representative shape or smoke monster form on the island - - - which probably is symbolic of the island guardian such as Jacob.

Jacob being an energy being, a spirit, can explain why he could give Alpert the gift of life on the island because he was connected to the life spirit who can give life and rebirth. Thus, it is fair to assume that there are more than one smoke monster on the island. This could explain why Rousseau's reanimated dead crew members came after her, to turn her into another smoke creature. It could also explain why there was an obsession with new born children. Evil spirits who are trapped or chained to the island because of their evil past may believe that taking a new born, free from sin (pure goodness), absorbing that soul could be the key to releasing their bonds to the island underworld.

We have an island filled with symbols of death and the rituals of the underworld. We have an island inhabited by immortals and spirits. Indeed, the island is thus a magical place not fully of Earth.

If spirits are energy beings, the uncontrolled release of the EM pulse such as Desmond's failure to input the containment numbers causes the spirits to surge into time and space to attach themselves to human beings or to draw them (shipwreck them) on the island. So we can have the 815 plane crash survivors being live, human beings living in a spiritual realm that seems, on the surface, just another Pacific island. 

There has to be some sort of unwritten bargain at play. The trapped spirits need to have humans come to the island for their own redemptive purposes, so their chains can be released so their souls can move on. But redemption is not what happens to any of the main characters on LOST. In fact, no one really has a defining revelation and life changing redemption on the island. There was no more compass that judged good or evil in their hearts. So what could the island spirits give the castaways that was so important, so valuable, that it could redeem them?

Since the spirits are dead, they had experienced the human frailty of dying alone. The island visitors have not gone through that end life moment. The spirit world would give them one last chance to find true connections with other human beings to avoid the fate of the whispers. Friendship, which includes affection, love, respect, trust and deep memories, was the passport for the 815 survivors to reach the sideways church, which was symbolic of their own group funeral.

When Christian said that "they" created the sideways universe, he was probably mistaken. It was the released spirits who created the supernatural alternative sideways world to hold departed souls in a state of ignorant limbo until everyone in the group was ready to "move on." The freed island spirits created the sideways world as their last penance before they themselves could move on. When know MIB could shape shift forms, so we can assume other spirits can too. And using the memories of the human visitors, the spirits and the island magic could create a realistic alternative world. And this could explain why it was slightly different, because a person's memories contain both factual recollection of past events as well as a person's dreams. So that may be why the spirit sideways world had Jack married to Juliet.

The bargain was simple: if the trapped island spirits could change human beings to be good, then they could be released from their island purgatory, and thus helping the humans from their inglorious fates of dying alone (and being unable to move on, like trapped spirits). The theme of redemption had little to do with the main characters, but it was the stake for the invisible characters, the island spirits.

This bargain unites two major elements of the series: life and death. How one lives their life is important, but it is also how one lives in death that is just as important. It answers the question of why people were brought to the island (to release trapped spirits). It answers the question why MIB was frustrated (most humans became corrupt-evil and turned into more whispers trapped on the island like himself). It also answers why an unlikely bunch of diverse people from Flight 815 could do something no other visitors could accomplish - - - because they truly changed their lonely paths and made strong friendships and bonds with unlikely people which enhanced the goodness in the island's life force.  The reward for this bounty was the release of the whispers, who in turn rewarded the castaways with something they could only dream about: dying together, and not alone.

LOST IN THE DETAILS

The ultimate quest is to find a unified theory to LOST.  In the last post, we started to pull the key elements from each season as the starting point to try to link everything together.

The result depends on how one views "realism" in their story genre:

Drama and mystery: factual clues to evidentiary conclusions.
Science fiction: factual points and applied science theories into plausible conclusions.
Fantasy and supernatural: events tied to purely fictional components, environments, and unknown.

Depending on how one views the overall premise of the show, it is hard to even agree on basic facts.

Flight 815, Sydney to LAX.
      If you believe that it was a dream or virtual reality premise, then this fact is not real.

Flight 815 plane crash on the Pacific island.
     If you believe that it was a dream or virtual reality premise, then this fact is not real.
 
The polar bear.
     If you believe that the characters on in a different realm of existence, like the after life, then the polar bear is not real.

The smoke monster.
     Is the smoke monster mechanical, alien, spiritual or an illusion/nightmare in a dream?

The characters on board Flight 815 survived a plane crash.
    If you believe that the show was all about the after life, then they did not survive the crash, per se.

The ghosts of dead people on the island, including Dharma Initiative, leaders.
   If you believe people can communicate with the dead, then it is science fiction. If you believe it is not possible, then it is fantasy.

Time travel elements that changed throughout in the series.
    If you believe that time travel is an application of future knowledge and technology, then it is sci-fi show. If you believe the time travel elements were not applied science theory, then it is fantasy.

The island moves in time and space.
    Factually, we know islands do not move. If the island is not an island, then it is either a ship (factual drama), or a beast (alien) or something else (fantasy world).

The two concurrent time lines: one current and one in the 1974 where characters are living in both time lines.
     Science fiction is full of time travel stories, but if you believe that the series failed to follow "time travel rules" or was not consistent in applying some principles to its time travel trope, then it falls into the fantasy world which could include supernatural or dream states.

The concept of killing immortal beings like Jacob and MIB.
    Immortality is a concept that humans believe (faith) but is not proven by science, so a fair amount of people will conclude that immortal beings are supernatural or fantasy. And the ability to kill immortals without rules muddles various opposite premise genres.

The concept of humans becoming immortal island guardians by volunteering.
    Human beings cannot transform themselves. And there appears to scientific explanation why Jack then Hurley became immortal guardians unless they were already supernaturals (such as dead spirits) or that the whole guardian story was part of a fantasy game or dream world.

The flash sideways universe where Flight 815 never crashed on the island; an after life limbo.
    This is the classic chicken or the egg paradox. Which came first? The sideways after life world and the character spirits sent to the island for redemption, or the island world where humans lived in a fantasy realm, for the possible amusement of immortal beings, prior to their individual deaths.

It is hard to get the pieces could fit together. It needs a game of rock, paper, scissor rules to help figure out what is the dominate element to try to find the path to a final solution.

What element beats the other element?
Does science fiction trump factual-drama?
Does supernatural trump science fiction?
Does factual-drama trump supernatural?

Without enough clarity, i.e. answers to the mysteries (whether factual, sci-fi or supernatural explanations), we fall to the point of personal perception and opinion.

OUT OF SYNC

In biology class, students were required to dissect a frog. By cutting open the bloated corpse, students were supposed to learn how the internal organs worked inside the frog.

If we take the series as the frog, we can find three distinct organs or story lines:

1. The island crash survivor story arc which was the beginning of Season 1.

2. The Dharma-Others, Ben vs. Widmore story line which took root in the middle of the series.

3. The sideways story arc dominated the final season.

These are three distinct stories which really do not mesh well together.

It may have been better to break a part each of these three main stories into their own self-contained mini-series.

I think the overlap of the stories (in an attempt to amp up the drama and conflict with the 815 survivors) made things too complicated and muddled over time. The initial conflicts seemed to get overwritten then dropped as the series continued toward the Ending.

For example, the Ben vs. Widmore "war" was promoted as an end-all bloodbath with deep seeded roots, but it sputtered and really was never presented as much more as a board room clash over the remains of the Dharma assets and the Others loyalty.  The final conclusion was Ben's petty assassination of Widmore, but that did not change the direction of the show or create any lasting impact on character development.

If you kept all three dramas separated, it may have made a clearer focus on the actual characters (in a character driven show). If the plane crash survivors did not have to deal with outsiders, but merely try to cope with survival and creation of their own new civilization, there could have been as much conflict and action that was not juiced by dangerous outsiders or black smoke magic. If the Dharma-Widmore-Ben-Others conflict was carved out as a separate story (without the time travel 815ers interventions) that may have concluded in a better fashion (possibly, with no one left on the island if Ben and Widmore truly went to war.)  And the sideways story arc needed to really separate itself from the forgotten character back stories to show a real alternative for each character (a real lesson to viewers that choices do matter in one's life.)

Season 1 and 2 could have been 815 crash survivor centric. Season 3 and 4 could have been Dharma-Widmore-Other-Ben flash back island history in conflict/war. Season 5 could have been the sideways alternative. Which would leave Season 6 to weave these resolutions together.

The main 815 characters could have learned the history of Dharma-Others in Season 3 by stumbling across the empty barracks and records/journals of those who fought those battles. It would be a lesson plan on how not to survive on the island by petty jealousy, power plays or betrayals. The sideways alternative could have been positioned as the main characters "dream" scenarios of how their life was, or could have been and what it might be if they were rescued. Since the survivors were not going to be rescued from the island, each character would have a lot of down time to imagine what happened to their lives, their regrets and their lost future. The sideways would not be a place in the after life, but the subconscious desire of each individual.

Then how could these three distinct story modules come together in the final season?

Simple. After years of being on the island, the 815ers are rescued by a passing freighter which was blown off course in a storm. As the 815ers tale of survival is told, it brings back the prior survivors of the Ben and Widmore more to the 815ers on the mainland, to share what happened to them when they got back "home."  The final season would involve how the survivors would cope coming "home" to the mainland - - - how their families had changed, how their jobs were lost, how they "didn't fit in" and then how they missed their fellow castaways.  Culture would build them up as instant celebrities, then bring them down as flawed characters out of touch with current society.

There could a final reunion in an LA marina. The main characters could meet to discuss their problems fitting in to their re-booted lives (which probably in some ways mirrors their lives prior to Flight 815). There also could be former island survivors like Ben who give the forlorn castaways the ultimate choice: to return to the island.

Each character's final decision making process would be the climax of the show. Who would stay and who would give up their re-newed life on the mainland, for the harsh life on the island? Who would step up to be the new (or old) leaders? Who would tearfully break the final bonds of friendship to stay in LA? And that is how the three story lines could sync together.

HOW TO GET HOME

One of the themes of LOST was the character's desire to "get home."

There are many expressions about home.

Home is where you live.
Home is where you sleep.
Home is the shelter where you keep your possessions.
Home is where the heart is.

But in broader context, home is connected with the promised land in many cultures.

This supposes that our life on earth is a transitory event. That on the path of life, our mortality is nothing more than a way station to the next form of existence.

Many religions have concepts of heaven or paradise for "good" people after they die on Earth. It is a comforting notion on what happens after we pass on, and for those we leave behind.

Many ancient cultures believed that man was created from the stars, and upon death returns to the stars.

But there is no clear explanation for how this transition happens.

There are views of the brimstone of hell for sinners, and near-death experiences where people began walking to the "bright light," but since no one has been revived from the after life, we really don't know what happens next. It is a matter of faith over science.

So it is open to interpretation and imagination of how one travels back to the stars, or paradise.

The concept of the soul is a means of explanation. It is the spiritual vessel that can transcend time and space; to recreate your body in a different dimension to live on.

This journey may be as important as the destination. That is another strong theme in the series. The journey of the main characters to get to the sideways church.

The whole LOST saga could be placed in the after life journey of the characters. They needed to suffer physical and mental pain in order to figure out what was truly important. It was not a moral redemption but a personal manifestation of releasing one's own emotional demons in order to see the world around them in a new light. They need to get beyond the material aspects of life because they are immaterial in the after life. They need to get deep personal bonds with other souls in order to share the burden of getting to the doors of paradise.

If this is the true purpose of LOST, then the sideways season makes a little more sense.

CROSS OVER

In television, the concept of a "cross over" is where a star from one show makes a guest appearance on another show, in character.

We have a similar concept in the LOST saga between the characters' island/flashback lives and the sideways presentation. There are some apparent irreconcilable differences.

For example, Jack.

In both worlds, Jack is a successful spinal surgeon.
In both worlds, Jack has had serious issues with his father.
In both worlds, Jack has gone to Australia to bring his father's body back home.

In the island world, Jack is divorced from Sarah. He is alone. He only has his mother left.
In the sideways, Jack is divorced from Juliet. He is not alone, he has his own son David.

For example, Locke.

In both worlds, Locke is paralyzed and bound to a wheelchair.

In the island world, Locke is bitter and hateful against his father for causing his injuries.
In the sideways, Locke has a relationship with his catatonic father.

In the island world, Locke has ruined every relationship he had including the one with Helen.
In the sideways, Helen is by his side as his loving spouse.

In the island world, Locke has bounced from meaningless jobs and has no career path.
In the sideways, Locke is a content substitute teacher who befriends a meek teacher, Ben.

There is such a continental divide between the character's foundational base in the sideways world as to question which realm is actually the true one.

It is more likely that the island/flashbacks are real because we saw them unfold for five seasons. The sideways world would be a collective fantasy, dream world for the island characters to deal with their anxieties, fears, stress and depression.

However, there is a possibility that the sideways world is the true foundation because the characters in that realm were basically good people living normal, good lives. And is that not the fundamental philosophy of all religions that good people can go to heaven or paradise after death? The sideways world was a place of death where the souls of the characters got together in the church.  But if their shown lives were continuations of their true past lives (which makes some common sense if their souls did not want to acknowledge their own mortality), then the island and flashbacks were the collective fantasy and dream world created by the characters to continue to experience their fantasy lives or come to terms with their own deaths.

So, which cross over is correct?

In a linear thought process, the real characters crashed on the island and the sideways realm was mere purgatory fantasy holding pen until everyone lived out their lives on Earth.

In a non-linear thought process, the real characters sideways back stories were true, but their nightmare-fantasy-escapist adventures were captured in the island stories. Just like when people go on holiday, they can create new persona's or let their guard down to live a different kind of lifestyle.

So, one can cut and paste the various character time frames as follows:

SIDEWAYS BACK STORIES = TRUTH.
Island Back Stories = Fantasy/Adventure/Dreams/Nightmares
ISLAND STORIES = TRUTH
Sideways Stories = Fantasy Continuation of Lives until acknowledgement of own deaths.

This compares to the linear approach:

ISLAND BACK STORIES = TRUTH
ISLAND STORIES = TRUTH
Sideways Back Stories = Fantasy/Adventure/Dreams/Nightmares
Sideways Stories = Irrelevant Filler until all survivors died in real life.

The former approach is much more complex, which makes it highly unlikely thought process for the show's writers who seemingly too the easy way out in throwing a sideways after life to clean up the plot.

LIFE OR DEATH?

Red Dots: Characters are Dead. Green Dots: Characters are Alive. White Dots: Unknown.

In a further attempt to understand the time frames and two worlds of LOST, the above chart was created to help identify when and where the main characters were alive in the series. An early theory was that no one survived the plane crash (and the show was all about lost souls in purgatory). At the end of the series, the sideways world turned out to be an after life realm so initial indications of character deaths was nearly confirmed. Since the Sideways world was absolutely identified as a place of death, there are three time signatures in that world: when 815 "landed" at LAX, the last 7 days those dead souls lived in their sideways world, and the church reunion.

Then, comparing the four major time zones (the crash, the time skips, the O6/island disappearing time travel and the post-Incident/time returns to normal) in the island chronology to the sideways compressed time sphere.

If one supposes that the characters all died in the plane crash, then the two worlds are merely dream sub-sets of lost dead souls.

If one supposes that the characters did survive the plane crash, then one can imagine that the island characters were "alive" during the critical final 14 days of island existence (which is about 7 days run time in the sideways universe).

But things get confusing when looking at the major island time events. When Desmond used the fail safe key and the Hatch exploded, imploded, it is unclear whether anyone survived based upon the fact Desmond should not have. If Desmond's appearance after the Hatch destruction was his dead soul manifested as a whisper or a smoke monster or a lost soul, then were the other main characters also dead? (If Desmond was dead at that point, but living with living beings, is this why he was able to awake first in the sideways world?)

Then, there was the major event when the O6 were in the helicopter and saw the island disappear. Did that mean everyone on the island was dead? It certainly looked like it. The same was true when the freighter blew up. And then, there is the possibility that when the helicopter was ditched in the ocean, the passengers did not survive so the Penny rescue was another Desmond fantasy or dream. So at this point in the island time line, it is unclear who is alive or dead.

Likewise, the post Incident 1977 jughead/construction site implosion would have had the same effect on Juliet as it previously did with Desmond. She should not have survived. And the people on the island, ripped from various space-time locations, would likely not have survived either (because the emotional cure of having a "constant" would likely not overcome the laws of quantum physics).  But if one believes that the characters could have survived this time reboot, then there is the final ambiguity.

If people were still alive on the island, such as Ben, how could he be "dead" in the sideways world. How could any character who was still alive on the island to the very end, like Jack, be concurrently "alive" in the dead sideways world? Logically, one cannot be alive and dead at the same time. Christian's excuse that the sideways world is only "now," with no past, present or future time, is a white wash explanation that explains nothing.

It seems like the final 14 days on the island, after allegedly three years after Flight 815 crashed, are the most important part of the time inconsistencies. The strongest arguments could be made that the characters on the island were still alive, but someone the events of the first 7 days "created" the entire sideways matrix - - - an alternative, complex world with characters in totally different lives, careers and situations in minute detail - - - which again makes little sense if the trauma of the final days of island life was the last thing the characters would have remembered before their deaths.

EVENT HORIZONS

After composing the last post, and specifically the reference on how Dogen became trapped on the island through his "bargain" with Jacob, there may be another explanation on the concept of Time.

I recall detailed discussions with fellow posters during the series run about the question of time travel, time shifts and the unique electromagnetic properties. A few theorized that the FDW was a control mechanism for a tiny wormhole, which was the center of the island. The power of a wormhole to pull galaxies into its center is immense. To lose control over it would have been the literal end of the world.

Wormholes have strange physics. It is postulated that the edge of the wormhole there is an event horizon. Time and space act strangely in this area as the forces pull matter into the wormhole.

Since Dogen came to the island in a deal to save his son from certain death caused by his car accident, one could consider Dogen paying the penance of his bad act on the island, if the island was hell.  And if you start to look back at the big island players, everyone has something major to repent.

Instead of looking at Time as a linear concept, one should try to look at it as a whirlpool sucking people and their lives into its drain at the center.

Crazy Mom who stole Jacob from his mother was living her own personal hell on the island as the guardian. Her punishment for her sins must have been an eternity guarding the light source. It is a thankless job with no reward, not even death. Until she found her own loophole, finding a candidate, a sinner, to replace her. When Jacob killed his brother, he became that new sinner trapped in the island hell for eternity. That is why he continued to bring candidates to the island to succeed him. Alpert was a sinner most likely killed for his crimes (or died on a slave ship) who found his soul trapped in what he immediately thought was hell, and Jacob being the devil. Likewise, Dogen's story of giving up his life for his son's means that Dogen's soul had to go to a place of punishment, the island. Dogen served Jacob, but did not replace him. We then get the Dharma group, who may have done human experimentation and sinned against nature in the quest for new technologies. Horace found his demise and eventually became a ghost on the island. Then we have Flight 815 characters who each had their own sins to atone.

From this perspective, the island is like a toilet swirling the lives, memories and sins of various people toward their own personal end. As such, the various time line of personal events can interchange, cross connect and flow past each other in non-linear fashion. Each person's event horizon in the island hell is separate and distinct from the real world linear time line.