THE SICKNESS

It takes a pandemic to put the microscope back on the deadly Sickness that haunted part of the LOST story. In today's world, people fear the coronavirus. It preys on people with pre-existing medical conditions and immune disorders. It is a novel virus which means there is no past immunity. It can spread quickly as it is a respiratory virus.

Characters in LOST were deathly afraid of The Sickness.

The Sickness manifested as a severe mental change on the part of the afflicted. In 1988, shipwreck survivor Robert tried to kill Danielle, his financee. In fact, except for Danielle, her entire party was taken over by the Sickness, which we thought was caused by the Smoke Monster attacking them at the Temple. Danielle began exhibiting what appeared to be similar paranoid delusions, though she claimed to be the only crew member to escape the sickness. Danielle personally killed all other members of her expedition and other characters wrote her off as insane. Sayid, after his infection, killed even more readily than usual, and he said he could no longer feel emotions. The Others were paranoid about the infection. The medical labs were obsessed with reproduction and Claire' baby. They injected her with an alleged vaccine, which did not work.  Claire post-infection became a mentally unstable, paranoid murderer and cradled a boar's skull to replace her baby.

Dogen, the Temple leader, tortured Sayid in order to measure his level of good and evil. According to Dogen, the infection was irreversible. As a result, he tried to trick Jack into poisoning Sayid.


What is believed the infection was in reality a demonic mind possession by MIB (Smoke Monster). It was part of his plan/game to get back at Jacob, who kept his "imprisoned" on the Island. If MIB could develop an army of infected followers, he could take down Jacob to get his freedom. In the last season, MIB was succeeding in the role as fake Locke when he massacred the temple occupants. Those who survived but not directly infected, were controlled by fear. Once there free will was compromised, they could be manipulated against Jacob.

It is a natural human instinct to fear the unknown. Death is the greatest unknown. Something you cannot see in the darkness, is a great unknown. A virus so small it is invisible can enter one's body to reek havoc. In today's panic world, daily updates of confirmed cases and fatalities has the world on edge.

People are told to stay at home. Shelter in place. They have panic purchased supplies including a vast run on toilet paper. It gets to a point of irrational behavior.

Just as in LOST's story line, it plays out in a similar fashion in real life.

BACK IN TIME

New research by quantum physics infers that it may be possible, in theory, to time travel. However, the scientists believe that one could only go back in time.

LOST had a bad mix of time travel events. Did the frozen donkey wheel create the time travel episodes? Or was it the containment field from the Swan station? Or was it all a red herring by the writers?

The island's "rules" lacked clear continuity. In the Star Trek universe, Gene Roddenberry set down a specific set of rules, including science fiction elements, which carried the series through to today. LOST's showrunners did not take the time or have the patience to forge a realistic, compelling and believable sci-fi doctrine.

The weird science is explained by the strange electromagnetics of the island, inferring that those island experiences are in a different sequence in time and space. When Sayid gets the radio working, they hear a radio broadcast from the 1940s. When Sayid, Frank and Desmond left the island, they experienced events in a different sequence. When Desmond survived the Swan implosion, he began seeing future events. When the freighter doctor's corpse washed up on shore, it was out of sequence with the real time on the freighter (where he was still alive).

In the orientation film for the Orchid station, scientists talked about the island allowing DHARMA to conduct experiments to move rabbits ahead in time and in space. When Ben and Locke turned the frozen donkey wheel under the Orchid station, they found themselves 10 months in the future in a desert halfway around the world.

When the survivors left behind after Ben's wheel turning experienced a time travel change, there was a blinding purple flash (similar to when the Hatch imploded). After Locke fixed the wheel, there was one last flash, but this time the flash was bright white, rather than purple. In all instances, the travelers experienced severe head pain, most likely caused by the extremely loud noise occurring during the flashes. 

People who weren't affected by the time travel appeared to be unaware of the blinding flash and loud noise. For example, Danielle didn't react to or mention the noise or light before Jin disappeared, and when he reappeared in her future, she thought Jin was sick because he disappeared.) It was the inconsistent treatment of people in the same situation which left the story weak and confused. There was no justification for allowing only certain people on the island to time skip while others did not.

For there to be a rational explanation for the differences in time travel on individuals, one must take into consideration that it may not have been time travel at all. How one experiences the passage of time is through consciousness and memory. If one can take an individual and alter, through mind control or neurologic drugs, their consciousness and memories, one could instill false memories including false time. It get backs to the possibility that much of LOST's story is not based in reality, but in the altered mind, memories or subconscious of the characters.

BIOHACK

The New York Post reports:

If you’ve ever tried out a virtual reality headset, you will understand the disarming sensation of pulling the headset from your eyes once it’s game over.

It’s incredibly easy to trick your mind into feeling sensations like fear, panic or even total calm and now — according to scientists in London — dreaming.

Scientists are beavering away at methods that can coax the brain into changing its perception of what’s real.

A group of scientists in London are putting volunteers into a dream state even though they are awake.
Carl Smith, director of the Learning Technology Research Center (LTRC) in London  that they have been successful in the process, called “context engineering.”

They can do this using a method called binaural beats, where a tone of a particular frequency is played into one ear and a different tone of another frequency is played into the other.

The brain tries to regulate the sound and creates a third tone that balances the two by creating an equal frequency.

Focusing on this third tone, a method called “delta entrainment,” allows people to drop into a dream state – without going to sleep.

Smith said:”When people want to go into a dream state they can do a 15-minute delta entrainment so their brain actually goes into the delta state, a sleep state, even though they’re not sleeping – and that’s just through listening to binaural sounds.”

It’s not just for inducing different levels of consciousness, these methods can help us regulate sleep patterns, calm us down and help us focus, they claim.

There are a variety of exercises you can perform to train your brain into focusing on senses we typically ignore.

This includes concentrating on your peripheral vision to gain a sense of calm, something athletes are adopting to focus their mind.

It’s part of a subculture called biohacking, which has gained notoriety among amateur scientists. 

The implications of this new process engineering the mind are intense. Tricking your mind to feel intense emotions such as fear and panic could be weaponized against an enemy. A soldier in a panic attack state is not concentrating on his training. He is vulnerable. A weak link.

The use of sound, a tone to stimulate delta sleep patterns, to force a waking person to go into a dream state seems like a plausible Dharma experiment. Viewers often questioned why the main characters were oblivious to their surroundings, the lack of questions to get answers, and a general malaise from the beach campers.

When Faraday remarked that the light on the island was "different," he was seeing it as being diffused or interrupted in its normal pattern. Like light, sound is also a wave form. It is possible that the island light refraction was a byproduct of tonal "context engineering" of the island inhabitants. In the last season, there was a strong hint that the characters had to "awaken" in order to be saved. Saved from what? An island experiment into mind control? The re-training of one's human brain to change into an altered state of consciousness to pass on to another dimension (as the ancient Egyptians believed in their burial texts)?

You can put all the characters missteps, misinformation, misguided missions and missed opportunities on the fact that they were sleepwalking through the series. Literally. Sleep deprivation by putting their minds into delta wave patterns mimicking sleep when they were not at rest. You could then "suggest" patterns of behavior like programming a computer to run simulations. For example, when Hurley's imaginary friend came to him in the island and convinced him it was all a dream - - - in his head - - - and the only way to "wake up" was to jump off a cliff, Hurley was going to do it until Libby showed up out of nowhere. And to keep Hurley grounded, Libby then became his unlikely girlfriend. This dramatic shift in Hurley's thought processes could be an example of how he was programmed to change course. And to keep him on the right path, Libby was constructed to give him a new purpose.

Is there a state of consciousness between being awake and being asleep? Does daydreaming create the bridge between those mental states. And can one scramble their defined positions to change a person's personality, thoughts, morals, goals and fears?

LOST was a series of manipulations. Powerful personalities were always looking to manipulate behavior in others. Some did it by intelligence. Some did it by force. Some did it by instilling fear. But the manipulation was to create order, obedience and leadership.

If these manipulations were a series of experimental biohacks, that puts the series in a new light. None of the characters were dead or truly alive. You could think you were immortal (like Jacob and Patchy) if those images were planted in your mind. They were lab rats in an open experiment.

But what was the end game of the experiment? If it was to get the characters to merge their collective thoughts to find the same finish line in the church, then they succeeded in that task. But what was the church? Was it the afterlife or was it merely the end of an elaborate video game? And the idea of the characters walking out into the bright white light (the symbolism of out-of-body death experience) could be the means of bulk erasing their memories by the scientists conducting the experiment.

Or it could have been a crazy military experiment to try to "expand" the territory of mankind by trying to find a way to "jump" into parallel universes or alternative realities (such as heaven after one dies and their spirit is released). One could have a great military advantage is one could control another world embedded in the present reality. People like Widmore saw the power in controlling the island (and its mind altering possibilities).

This news story sheds some more credence on a biohack premise to the show. The character(s) may have been mere test subjects outside the realm of Earth's physics and cultural common sense.

BRAIN HACK

With so many unanswered questions about LOST, time have given latent fans more science information to construct new theories about the show.

A new study published in eLife journal states that scientists have developed a way to remotely control your brain. By controlling the brain, scientists can send messages to your muscles that the person does not authorize. 

The experiment was done on a small scale but it has big implications.  Scientists stated that they were even able to prompt their test subject to run, freeze in place, or even completely lose control over their limbs. 

The effort, led by physics professor Arnd Pralle, PhD, of the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, focused on a technique called “magneto-thermal stimulation.” It’s not exactly a simple process — it requires the implantation of specially built DNA strands and nanoparticles which attach to specific neurons — but once the minimally invasive procedure is over, the brain can be remotely controlled via an alternating magnetic field. When those magnetic inputs are applied, the particles heat up, causing the neurons to fire.

The study included experiments where were performed on mice. Using the new technique, the researchers were able to control the movement of the animals, causing them to freeze, lock up their limbs, turn around, or even run.

Despite only being tested on mice, the research could have far-reaching implications in the realm of brain research. This research could very well be an important step towards that future for neurological treatments and re-stabilization of movement for paraplegics.

It is interesting to note that the methods used in this research mimic some of the plot points in LOST. Dharma used human experimentation as a means of control. Surgical implants and mind control rooms were shown to have been used by Ben to control the Others and the 815 survivors. The idea of electromagnetic research to alter brain activity was a theme in series.

By piecing these elements together, one could forge a theory about the island's role in the characters development. If one can control a person's movements through DNA infusions (remember the virus plot line with Clarie?) with EM transmissions (which was the Swan station control center), the next level of experimentation would be using this system to manipulate mental processes as well as physical actions.

For example, the mad Russian Mikal happened to throw himself in the path of bullets and explosions at the whim of Ben. Perhaps, it was involuntary. Ben could have been controlling him through EM/DNA. Over time, he had to submit his free will to serve his master. 

The theme of free will and character choices were strong in the show. But certain power brokers like Ben and Widmore used mental manipulation to control people. But a scientific way to control people would be more efficient. Hacking a person's brain to manipulate their will and values would have been a powerful tool that anyone seeking power would want to possess.

ORWELLIAN EXPERIMENTS

George Orwell's novel, 1984, sounded an alarm against a government dystopia run by Big Brother. Cameras were spying on citizens. Armed police forces kept citizens in line. There was a single groupthink.

The rigid society was made by taking away everyone’s free will with the power of fear.

That seems to be the basic formula for the island.

And since Dharma has tenets of militarism at its roots, one could assume that the island was set up for various experiments on behalf of the government, or its power elite.

Elections are messy things. Sometimes an outsider wins. Elections are expenses. Politicians feel it is beneath their stature to beg for campaign donations. If you can make the election process more of a show than a real democracy, by imposing a strict code of conduct on everyone, the authoritarian leaders will win.

But how do authoritarians go about crushing the independence of their people, especially in countries like the United States were individualism is treated as a sacred value? You start experimenting on human subjects on how to reshape their thinking to conform with a new order.

You prey on the weakest links in society: the loners, the malcontents, the criminally inclined anti-social types who do not fit into the parameters of the American Dream. LOST's main character list is filled with these types of people.

You take the disenchanted and disenfranchised individuals and make them believe that the "group" is their new family. That was what Locke was searching for his entire life. In some respects, Ben was also searching for a "better" family unit. Kate was running away from her family. Sawyer was trying to avenge his lost family innocence. 

So the island was a series of human experimentation programs. Room 23 was clearly a mind control station. Another station just spied on the other stations - - - using paranoia and information to manipulate others. 

But the biggest motivator on the island was fear. The unpleasant, highly charged emotion of dread and pain is known to be an easy way to change a person's attitude or behavior.

If anything could be said about the LOST ending, in the context of reshaping the individuals to identify and relate to the group of island survivors proves the point that the island can bring different people together, change their principles, free will, associations and connections into one happy family unit.

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.

HAPPINESS TRADE-OFFS

One of the main themes of life is finding and securing happiness.

But in the quest for happiness, something usually has to give.

In LOST, various main characters were searching for happiness, but most never found it.

For example, Rose and Bernard met late in life. It was a godsend for Bernard. Rose was his world. Until she got cancer. He panicked and tried to find any cure. That led to a strain in their relationship. Rose was a realist. Bernard was an optimistic dreamer. But for Bernard to secure his happiness with Rose, they both had to "die" in a plane crash. That was the only "cure" for Rose's cancer was that she became a spiritual being on the island.

For example, Jack's sole mission in his life was to get the acknowledgement of his skills from his father. As a result, Jack was never happy. He had no friends. He was obsessed with pleasing his father, and getting out of his father's shadow, that it caused him to be paranoid and obsessive in his relationships. His first marriage failed because of an alleged jealousy between his wife and his father. And his relationship in O6 arc with Kate fell a part as well. In order for Jack to be happy, he had to do the opposite. He had to control things. He had to have the final say. He had to be right.

And then there were characters like Locke who spent their entire lives trying to find happiness, but stumbled through it as a fool. His bitterness of being abandoned as a child clouded all of his life choices. It ruined his relationship with the one woman who cared about him and his disabilities. The only way Locke found any sliver of contentment was when he "died" and was reunited with his island friends.

Sociologists have studied this apparent personal paradox. Happiness is something we assume we want, but in reality, we sometimes give it up in exchange for comfort. Unfortunately, we’re often comfortable with not getting what we want, so resign ourselves to that fate. As researchers stated:

Though happiness is of course what we all fundamentally want, for many of us, it isn’t really what we know...it isn’t what we’ve come to expect. It doesn’t feel like home...Getting what we want can make us feel unbearably risky...Self sabotage may leave us sad, but at least safely, blessedly, in control. It can be useful to keep the concept of self sabotage in mind when interpreting our and others’ odder behavior.

Beyond that, next time you’re weighing a decision and thinking about the risk involved, it might help to consider the role of comfort and control.

The concept of self-sabotage fits Locke to a tee. It also fits in Jack's grinding personality flaws of being an unloved, control freak. It also connects Kate's selfishness with her self-destructive behavior when she constantly tries to escape responsibility for her life's decisions. 

Was Jack really happy in the end? I don't think so. Being a martyr and dying in the bamboo field was unnecessary. And when he went to the sideways church reunion, he was more in his own catatonic state than being in a state of happiness. 

DREAM ADVENTURES

Robert Moss is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original method of dream work and healing through the imagination. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming and a lively online dream school. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a bestselling novelist, journalist, and independent scholar. His seven books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Three “Only” Things,  and Dreamgates: Exploring the Worlds of Soul, Imagination, and Life Beyond Death. 


Moss’s Active Dreaming is an original synthesis of contemporary dreamwork and shamanic methods of journeying and healing. A central premise of Moss’s approach is that dreaming isn’t just what happens during sleep; dreaming is waking up to sources of guidance, healing and creativity beyond the reach of the everyday mind. He introduced his method to an international audience as an invited presenter at the conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams at the University of Leiden in 1994
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Over the past fifteen years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught in-depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Lithuania, Romania, and Austria and leads a three-year training course for teachers of Active Dreaming. He leads popular online dreamwork courses at www.spirituality-health.com, writes the “Dream Life” column for Spirituality magazine, and hosts the Way of the Dreamer radio show at www.healthylife.net.


He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast, and including The Diane Rehm Show on NPR, Michael Krasny’s Forum on KQED San Francisco, The Faith Middleton Show on Connecticut Public Radio, and CBC’s Tapestry program. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman’s Drum and Beliefnet.com.


He is a former history professor who has become a “dream archeologist." 


He says while “archeology” is often understood to be the science of unearthing and studying antiquities, the root meaning is more profound: it is the study of the arche, the first and essential things. The practice of “dream archeology” requires mastery of a panoply of sources, and the ability to read between the lines and make connections that have gone unnoticed by specialists who were looking for something else. It requires the ability to locate dreaming in its context – physical, social and cultural. And it demands the ability to enter a different time or culture, through the exercise of active imagination, and experience it from the inside as it may have been. These are the skills we need to excavate the inner dimension of the human adventure.


There is a growing line of dream practitioners who are training people to "control" their dreams. Some use the method of pre-sleep suggestion to get your unconscious mind to focus on a type of dream you want to take in REM sleep. Others suggest that what troubles a person before they sleep will find its way into their dreams as a brain's mechanism on how to solve problems or cope with waking issues. There are a few people who can control their livid dreams like a Hollywood director. In these situations, a person may not actually be totally asleep but may be in a stage between daydreaming and actual sleep. A light sleeper may be in more control of its conscious library of thoughts, ideas and images to enhance a dream experience.


It would be revolutionary for people to be able to control their dreams. 


But science still does not fully comprehend why humans dream. Most theorize that dreams take away from the active mind's routine waking tasks. It is a method of "re-charging" the body's energy levels and healing properties. The brain would normally continually be at full active levels like revving a high performance engine. But in order to calm it down, the human body rests or sleeps so the brain engine does not overheat. Other researchers think the brain is a very complex bio-chemical computer which needs to de-fragment its files every night in order to remember information, thoughts, memories and functions. Occasionally, people in dreams may "see" strings of numbers, letters or images zip through their mind's eye like a computer screen compiling lines of program code.


Spiritualists believe that in sleep, a person's soul awakens to analyze its host and to express its beliefs to the subconscious mind. In this view, a person and his or her soul are partners in life. One is in the physical world, the other in the inner, unseen, intangible world of self. The soul may be considered the "inner voice" that some people hear when having to make hard, split second decisions. The soul may also be the instinct and mechanism to protect yourself from yourself, through the use of fear, anxieties and survival modes.


In either situation, human beings for some reason crave adventure. In the real world, most people live real dull lives. Everyone craves some level of adventure, surprise and out-of-comfort-zone accomplishments. Dreams may be the easiest and safest avenue for the human mind to meet those needs of adventure. But at a certain point, humans who think about having new adventures get depressed if they do not have the courage of taking a chance and physically going out to do it. This holds true in the stress and introversion in personal relationships. Sometimes pulling the trigger and asking someone out can open the door to a great adventure or blow up in one's face. The fear of rejection and being hurt is one of those hard wired traits that holds most people back and makes the security blanket of their fantasy dreams harder to break because they can get what they want in their adventure dreams without being hurt by another person.


Most people would say that is living a false life. Life itself is an adventure that one has to take the reins and ride in the real world.

LOSING MEMORIES

This is a story right out of science fiction.

The BBC reported that a man who went to the dentist for a root canal left with his memories locked in on 1:40 p.m. on 14 March 2005 – right in the middle of a dentist appointment.

A member of the British Armed Forces, he had returned to his post in Germany the night before after attending his grandfather’s funeral. He had gym in the morning, where he played volleyball for 45 minutes. He then entered his office to clear a backlog of emails, before heading to the dentist’s for root-canal surgery.

“I remember getting into the chair and the dentist inserting the local anesthetic,” he said. After that? A complete blank. It is like any new memories were written in invisible ink that slowly disappears from his mind after 90 minutes.

Today, he only knows that there is a problem because he and his wife have written detailed notes on his smartphone, in a file labelled “First thing – read this."

Even the events leading up to his amnesia are highly puzzling. The dentist thought it was a reaction to the anesthetic or a brain blood vessel had burst. But other medical evaluations could not confirm a cause.

The patient could work out how to solve a complex maze, however, he had completely forgotten the skill three days later. “It was like a déjà vu replica of the same errors – he took the same time to relearn the task once more,” says his doctor.

One possibility is that this kind amnesia is a “psychogenic illness." Some patients report memory loss after a traumatic event – but that tends to be a coping mechanism to avoid thinking about painful past events; it doesn’t normally affect your ability to remember the present. However, this patient had suffered no trauma, and according detailed psychiatric assessments, he is otherwise emotionally healthy. 

The answer may be hiding in the thicket of tiny neural connections we call “synapses”. Once we have experienced an event, the memories are slowly cemented in the long term by altering these richly woven networks. That process of “consolidation” involves the production of new proteins to rebuild the synapses in their new shape; without it, the memory remains fragile and is easily eroded with time. Block that protein synthesis in rats, and they soon forget anything they have just learnt. 

Crucially, 90 minutes would be about the right time for this consolidation to take place – just as he starts to forget the details of the event. It is like the protein production just stops so memories cannot be locked in place.

This story is relayed to LOST fans for the simple reason as a possible explanation of the untold torment of what "awakening" meant to the main characters. They had to "awake" in order to move on in life. But why in the sideways world they could not remember the island past has always been a confusing bit of mythology. Instead of not allowing the memories to set in the synapses, the LOST characters' memories were "masked" by something until a traumatic or emotional event triggered the release of that mask. This falls into the category of circumstantial evidence to the premise that LOST's foundation story line was about mind control and illusion over reality.

BRAIN WAVES

Despite all the physical poking and question &  answer probing, we really don't know how the human brain functions. We think it is like a hard drive, but we cannot download its information. We can test stimulation to see where electro-neurons fire in a brain CAT scan, but don't know how information is stored in a biochemical, electromagnetic or other way. It may be the most important and confusing organ in our bodies; it plays a central role in both our intellectual and emotional states. In fact, the overlap between intellectual and emotional is razor thin.

WIRED published a recent article on how science is trying to probe further into mental illness.

A brain surgeon begins an anterior cingulotomy by drilling a small hole into a patient’s skull. The surgeon then inserts a tiny blade, cutting a path through brain tissue, then inserts a probe past sensitive nerves and bundles of blood vessels until it reaches a specific cluster of neural connections, a kind of switchboard linking emotional triggers to cognitive tasks. With the probe in place, the surgeon fires up a laser, burning away tissue until the beam has hollowed out about half a teaspoon of grey matter. 

This is modern psychosurgery: ablating parts of the brain to treat mental illnesses. 

Instead of a big scalpel, it is a narrow focus beam of light that cuts away gray matter. This is the new lobotomy, which was once in favor in the 1930s to treat aggressive, demented, or otherwise affected people.

Removing parts of a person’s brain is always a dicey proposition. But for people who are mentally ill, when pills and psychiatry offer no solace, the laser-tipped probe can be a welcome relief. Physicians perform these procedures as a last resort only on people who’ve failed to respond to at least three types of medications, and for whom months on a counselor’s couch have had no effect. 

In the 1990s that physicians  brought them back to treat a mental illness: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Without any visible biomarkers, obsessive-compulsive disorder is difficult to treat with drugs. But neuroscientists have narrowed down the faulty wiring involved in the disorder to fewer than a half dozen places in the brain—some of which psychosurgery can target. Probably the best target is a region called the anterior cingulate cortex. Put your finger on your temple, then move it about an inch back. If you were to triangulate a point between your fingertip, the top of your head, and the center of your forehead, you’d land roughly on the right spot.

This may seem strange, but drilling a hole and inserting a fiber optic tube to fire a laser into your brain sounds science fiction like Ghost in the Shell. But since medical science is not at the Star Trek stage of being able to diagnose at the molecular level, physicians are still fishing with hand grenades.

One can easily see the road being built in this field of study. And the pit falls. If one can insert an optic thread into the brain to destroy, alter or control a person's mental state, why can't at some point pull out the brain's information to be placed in another vessel (like a computer core). That's very Max Headroom. And considering the whole field of cryogenics is to keep people alive forever, keeping their brain, consciousness or information stored on a hard drive seems to fall in a solid second place.

We don't know how a patient reacts when parts of his brain are being probed by psychosurgery. Does he hallucinate? Does he dream? Does he travel to a dangerous tropical island to fight smoke monsters (the subconscious representation of a laser burning brain cells to ash)? Science gives a plausible sci-fi foundation for many LOST mental illness premise theories.

KATE AND BEN'S DEAL

We know Kate was supposed to be the lead character in the original manuscripts for the series. But in the rush of the pilot and early screenings, Jack emerged from an early dramatic death candidate to the leader of the survivors.

A pivotal plot point was contained in the episode "A Tale of Two Cities."

Jack, Kate and Sawyer have been captured by the Others. Unknown to them, they have been taken to a secondary island, Hydra, and held in cells (Jack inside the facility and Kate & Sawyer in outside polar bear cages).

Jack wakes up in a holding cell. He sees chains across the ceiling. He seems to be on some kind of table. He looks at the inside of his elbow, which has a band-aid on it where something had been injected or blood given. He tries to open some kind of hatch/door but it is locked. Some kind of electronic device used to "communicate" is on the wall, but it does not seem to work. Jack sees another door on the opposite side of the room, but when he walks toward it he collides with a glass wall blocking his way. Water is dripping from the ceiling. Jack tries to break the glass, unsuccessfully. He shouts for Kate, but there is no reply. 

Kate wakes up in a bathroom with "Mr. Friendly," Tom,  standing over her. He indicates a clean towel, a new bottle of shampoo and an unwrapped bar of soap, and tells her to take "a nice hot shower." She refuses to shower in his presence, but Tom laughs and tells her she's not his type; he then leaves. Kate sees that she too has a band-aid on her arm. 

Sawyer wakes in an outdoor  zoo cage. He looks around and sees speakers and a big tube with an unknown DHARMA logo. Also, he notices other nearby structures, including a cage similar to his, with Karl inside it. Sawyer tries to get answers from him, but the man does not respond. Sawyer looks around his cage some more and sees a strange contraption/button inside that has a large "button" with a knife and fork painted on it. He tries to figure it out, and pushes the button. A "Warning" sound goes off. Sawyer pushes the button again, the same sound goes off. As he is about to push the button for a third time, the prisoner in the cell opposite warns him not to. Sawyer pushes the button anyway, and receives a painful electric shock. 

We learn fairly quickly that Hydra station was for animal experimentation. It is also away from the main island, which adds another level of security and therefore danger to the castaways. Each castaway had been apparently "injected" with something in their arm. We would later learn that Sawyer has a chest scar, as Ben shows him that he is trapped on the island, that contains an explosive device set to go off with high blood pressure. Most people believe Ben was bluffing the con man, but Sawyer believed him enough to cooperate and control his anger and rage to escape.

It is clear that this episode shows the brilliance of Ben's evil mind. He has taken three strong willed survivors and put them into a situation where he can play each their fears, desires and self-interest off each other.

But the key plot point was the beach scene.

After Kate's encounter with Tom, she takes a shower. When she emerges, she finds that someone has taken her clothes and left her a dress instead. She puts it on, reluctantly. Tom and three Others bring her to a beach, where "Henry" is waiting at a covered table with chairs, freshly cooked food, utensils, and coffee, with a pair of handcuffs on the side. He tells her to handcuff herself or she gets no coffee. 

She asks "what did you do with Sawyer and Jack?" But "Henry" notices that she started the question with Sawyer and not Jack. Kate asks for her clothes, "Henry" tells her they burned them. When she asks why he's doing all this, "Henry" responds that he gave her a dress to make her feel "like a lady," fresh food to make her feel at home, allowed her a view of the beach because her friends are seeing the same beach, and utensils to make her feel civilized. He tells Kate that he gave all those things to her so she'll have something to hold on to, because "the next two weeks will be very unpleasant."

After some experimentation, and with the help of a large rock Sawyer found outside the cell, he soon figures out the mechanism that delivers food and water. The water streams out a pipe into a trough, kibble falls on the ground as well as a large fish biscuit -- animal food. As Sawyer drinks the water, Tom returns and he puts Kate into the cell that Karl had occupied. He takes off her cuffs. She also has visible cuts from the handcuffs and Tom remarks "cut you up pretty bad, didn't they." Tom, noticing that Sawyer was able to obtain food, first congratulates him, and then mocks him by telling him that the bears figured it out in two hours.  Kate is in the cell across from Sawyer's, and he tries to make her feel better by joking around. She seems distraught, so Sawyer asks if she wants something to eat. Kate says yes, so Sawyer throws her a biscuit which she eats pitifully.

And the unsaid aspects of the beach scene hover over the rest of this story arc.

Apparently, if Kate was still hungry upon her return to the cage, then she must have not eaten with Ben on the beach. That would mean that Kate decided not to cooperate with Ben. But what was the proposal(s)?

We know that Ben had risen to power by being brutal and controlling of the Others. But as king, he wanted to solidify his kingdom with a queen. Juliet had refused his romantic overtures, so Ben killed her lover and vowed to keep her a prisoner on "his" island. We could assume that in the beach conversation, Ben made a similar demand: Kate would work with him (or be his consort) or one of her loves would die.  When Ben picked up "Sawyer's" name first in Kate's concern, Sawyer got the chest bomb. (Some could argue that was the plan all along since Ben really needed Jack to do spinal surgery on him.)

Ben had all the intel on Kate's past, so he probably used it against her. Criminal minds think a like, and Ben was a master of leverage. He could have used Kate's secrets to claim that he could turn her over to the authorities and receive maximum punishment if she did not cooperate. Kate was always a runner; a person who never wanted to face her responsibility or accountability for her actions. She also had in the past used then discarded her lovers when she needed to keep running from the law. Kate could have decided to cut a deal to "stay" on the island, i.e. to be Ben's double agent.

It would then make sense why Kate demanded to go on ALL the remaining missions. If she was Ben's inside spy, she could tell the Others exactly what the castaways were planning to do. Juliet was a later obvious choice as a triple spy, using Jack's affection for her to get herself into camp leadership and trust roles (as a medical professional helping Claire), but also to balance or confirm Kate's potential spy activities. 

The deal could have also been that Kate had to choose between Jack or Sawyer. Ben probably pressed her to choose Sawyer, since he needed Jack to turn his back his feelings on her. And it worked. Out of character, Kate made a move on Sawyer which Jack "conveniently" saw on the bear cage monitors. With Kate choosing Sawyer as her island lover, Jack was heartbroken - - - and fell in line to help Ben.

It would not have been out of character for Kate to sell out Jack by pretending to bond with Sawyer. But like all Kate's decisions, she did not follow through very long with Sawyer (only enough to escape from the Hydra station.) There was conflict in Kate's mind since she immediately started to plan a rescue mission, but it was Jack who told her to NEVER return. When she did try a rescue mission, we saw the shock on her face when she saw Jack playing toss with Tom in the Barracks yard. Jack was suddenly integrated into the enemy camp - - -  and he looked happy and content. Kate was shocked - - - and she was taken away with the impression that Jack was lost to her.

At that moment, Kate's "bad" decision in choosing Sawyer over Jack was apparent. It was a decision that would haunt her for the rest of her life. She would only "remember" the pain and deep love for Jack when she awoke her soul in the sideways afterlife. This is the only rational explanation of why Kate would be so clingy to Jack in the sideways church at the End. She got her one second chance to be forever in love with Jack - - - something that would have not happened if not for her "deal" with Ben on the Hydra beach.

TROUBLED RELATIONSHIPS

As with the previous post on Jack and Kate's relationship, the other controversial pair ending was Shannon and Sayid.

To the vast majority of viewers, it made no sense.

Throughout the series, Sayid was shown pining for Nadia, a woman from his home land. A woman for whom Sayid tortured, then let escape - - -  turning himself into a cold blood killer (by taking out a superior officer to allow her to escape.) After the war, Sayid spent his entire life trying to find Nadia, considered by all to be "the love of his life." He went so far as to work for the CIA, a dirty deal to double cross a childhood friend in order to get a chance to meet Nadia. So, Sayid was deeply in love with Nadia.

But that is just one side of the story. Sayid's attraction and affection for Nadia was clear. But what was Nadia's true feelings toward Sayid. As a child, it would seem she had a crush on Sayid. Even in the school yard, Sayid was different: strong and a provider. But when there was political change in Iraq, Sayid would wind up on the other side: with the Guard, while Nadia and her family were in the rebel camp. This basic ideological divide would doom most couples.

But even when Sayid was ordered to torture her to get information about the rebels, Nadia seemed to forgive Sayid. As a result, Sayid's heart overwhelmed his training and rank to allow her freedom. However, some could argue that Nadia was using her past relationship to manipulate Sayid to grant her freedom - - - a ruse, a classic spy move - - - not out of love but necessity.

But the latter evidence seems to contradict this faux spy story. When Sayid was rescued as part of the O6, he was met at the airport by Nadia. They embraced. They began to start their new life together in LA. Now, various theorists don't understand how this even happened . . . why the airline would find a stranger, such as Nadia, to greet Sayid in Hawaii is a mystery. Perhaps the CIA knew her whereabouts under a protective custody program, but not an airline.

One theory has it that the O6 never made it to the awkward press conference in Honolulu. That when the freighter was blown up, the survivors were in bad shape. Penny's boat was actually a trailing shadow craft to pick up survivors for Widmore so as to reprogram the brains in a virtual reality "rescue" so as to have them volunteer to return to the island to fight Jacob/MIB. If Widmore could "fake" an underwater crash site including passenger bodies, then he could easily brain wash island survivors.

When Nadia was killed by a motor vehicle in a cross walk when Sayid was pulled by Jacob, Sayid was totally lost. He had lost his one, true love. He was a broken man. He could never love another woman. He turned into a zombie - - - easily manipulated to become Ben's assassin under the guise of getting revenge of those who killed Nadia. (This also shows a direct link between Jacob's influence to Ben's missions with Sayid.)

Even back on the island, Sayid never forgot about Nadia. So it was a shock to find Sayid winding up with Shannon in the End.  They only had a week long island affair. It was spurred by a matter of convenience and loneliness. Shannon's brother, her one protector, had died. Sayid was still seen as an outcast within the group. Shannon was in need of finding someone to take care of her since she was accustomed to the life of luxury. She used her one commodity, her beauty, as currency to find another man to be with her. But when she was killed in the jungle, Sayid was cut down to his core in emotional grief. Some think that Sayid's physical relationship with Shannon could have clouded his long term memories, or that he was actually re-living the terror of losing Nadia all over again.

Sayid was doomed at that point. Any woman he loved would die in his arms. He thought it was his fault. He could never love again because the pain was too great. In order to cut out the pain, he had to cut out his own heart - - - die and be reincarnated as an empty soul.

But when the cast was reunited in purgatory/heaven of the sideways world, the image-character of Nadia was present. But she was married to Sayid's brother, who was in trouble with the mob. Sayid had to "fix" it - - - to make Nadia happy. It was like the one woman he loved he could never have - - - but there was no evidence of that in the "real" world. So in that respect, Nadia's soul must have bonded with Sayid's brother while she waited for him to show up in the next level of existence. That must have paved the way for Sayid to release his feelings toward her, opening up the possibility of finding his second love, Shannon. But that is a weak appraisal of the overall Sayid-Nadia story line.

A week of passion with a different stranger is more important than a life long longing over a love that you finally found after years of searching? Sayid and Nadia were together in LA. They were happy. They went to Hurley and Sun's parties. So why did that love and affection carry over into the next world?

Sayid and Nadia's relationship was troubled from the beginning. He was a soldier, she was a freedom fighter. He was a poor boy, she was from an upper class family. He was repressed by his emotions, she was outgoing in her beliefs. In a world where opposites attract, they would be a perfect pair. But in reality, opposites often cause conflict in their own relationship. Deep, lasting relationships have as a foundation core similar values, goals, beliefs and mutual dreams. Perhaps Sayid's feelings toward Nadia were a dreamer's lust for something that could have been instead of actual love.

And in that regard, Shannon was the only person Sayid knew who loved him for what he truly was - - - she knew his background, she knew about all the bad things he had done, but she still took him in and loved him. Even that short term bond between two troubled souls could have a lasting impact.

INFECTION

One of the compelling plot points was the concept that the island had a mysterious "infection." People had to be given shots to ward off death.

Claire was told that she had to take shots in order to save her baby.

Desmond was told outside the Hatch was a hazmat zone, but he still had to take shots to ward off the infection.

The Others pregnant women continually died while in their third trimester, which some blamed on the island/infection.

Without a clear understanding of "what" the island really was, many people believe the "infection" story line was merely a ruse to control people.

But Juliet, who appeared at first to be an ethical doctor, gave Claire injections - - - if false, would violate her duty and oath as a physician ("do no harm to a patient.") Even a placebo that causes mental anguish as an intended result would violate that oath.

Perhaps, at one time, the infection plague was true. It was just passed down as a story, a myth, by the island natives and Others as a means of making visitors leave their island.

An infection is defined as the process of infecting or the state of being infected by a disease.
It is also defined as  the presence of a virus in, or its introduction into, a computer system.

The origin of the word is late Middle English: from late Latin infectio(n-), from Latin inficere ‘dip in, taint.'

The dictionary definition raises two points. The island infection could be a metaphor for people becoming "tainted" or infected by something, such as evil, if this was a place of the underworld, or judgment. The events on the island were merely tests of character and morality.

Another possibility is that the infection was actually a computer virus. Computer avatars would see a computer virus as a disease that could kill (delete) them (their program).  If you buy into the theory that LOST was merely a large MMOG, then the infection was one of those booby-trap hurdles one had to pass in order to level up to the next mission.

In any event, the infection angle showed a great deal of dramatic promise. But it quickly faded away without resolution.

BATTLES

When we think of "battle," we think of the ancient art of warfare in all its glory and blood shed.

You can imagine warriors on armored horseback, with a shield, a long sword, arrows or a war club. They would charge directly into the enemy's lines without fear or hesitation. Soldiers are trained to do only one thing: kill or be killed.

In LOST, when we were told of an impending "battle," we got a wet noodle fire work at best.

After Jacob was slain by Ben, the remainder of the followers were in panic. The statement that gave them great pause, "they are coming!"

Now, in the imaginative circles of the LOST community, this was supposed to be a brilliant "whoa" right story angle of monumental proportions.  At the time I wrote that I thought it would be cool that above the Tawaret statue would rise the silhouettes of men carrying spears. Then there would be a huge loud cracking scream from above, and the men above would suddenly sprout black wings. These would be Hell's soldiers returning to the island to reek havoc, since a central theme of the series was good vs. evil.

But alas, nothing as out-there or big as Hell's warriors coming to the island. There would be no pitched battles, hand to hand combat, or a reason why the island was under attack.

Who was coming - - - was another vague threat to raise dramatic tension.

Widmore? His men had already been on the island.
Jacob's reserves? The followers left in the Temple were wiped out by Flocke/Smoke Monster.
Jack and the Candidates? They were not organized to do anything, let alone fight against an unknown foe.

For if the one key battle was that of Jacob against MIB, then MIB won when Ben betrayed his master. But somehow, that did not stop Flocke's continued quest to kill off all the candidates, who still did not know their true purpose on the island.

For if the battles were more symbolic, mind games, then the resolution of daddy-issues, accountability, fear of loneliness or mental illness was anti-climatic.

I think somehow we are still owed a "battle" by TPTB.

Yes, there was a lot of red shirts in the struggles between the survivors and the Others, but those incidents really had little basis in true conflict. The Others claimed the island as their own, but did nothing to remove the survivors from it. The truce was created because the survivors lacked a killer streak, and Ben found it more useful to mentally manipulate the new castaways then to kill them all off.

No a real battle has to resolve real issues, like territory, property or even for a cause. None of those things were present in the characters final motivations. The heart of the island was unknown to them except for Desmond, Hurley and Jack at the end. Kate, Sawyer, Claire, and the rest were not fighting to protect mankind or the heart of the island from evil; they had no idea that it existed or what MIB was trying to accomplish by controlling it.

The build up of a battle without an actual battle was quite disappointing, and most fans do not dwell on it because the story rushed to an even more uneven ending arc.

PAGANS & A NEW ORDER

The oral stories have generational cultural significance as the basis of traditions, beliefs and rituals. In European Pagan cultures, they had similar myths and legends about human-gods with great powers who came to Earth to influence men. In Nordic culture, Thor was one such representation.

When Christianity spread through Europe, the southern troops came to conquer and wipe out the old Pagan ways. In some areas, religious sites were burned to the ground and new churches put in their place. It was a way of erasing the past with the present. It was a means of control.

In the latter religions, god and his messengers seem to be all-powerful beings. This is in contrast to the Pagan viewpoint that their gods had tremendous power and magic, but the one thing the gods could not do was overpower Nature.

Throughout human history, when a dominate philosophy comes to power with an army to enforce its principles, weaker cultures succumb or perish. Those who did not covert, died. But over time, even some of the old ways get incorporated into the new way of beliefs (such as Pagan holiday feasts being transformed into new Christian holidays such as All Saints Day around Halloween, the Night of the Dead festival).

There is probably an application of these long standing ways to LOST.

There is a progressive "conquest" history of people arriving on the island. Each new group attempts to impose its will upon anyone left on the island. The one exception to this is the Flight 815 survivors. They did not seek to change or control the island; they wished to leave it behind. Perhaps this is the one great change (loophole) that MIB mumbled about in his discussions with Jacob. The castaways did not want to rule, but to escape. With the prospect of controlling the ultimate power, the castways wanted to merely survive long enough to go home.

There is no religious belief canon in the island rituals. There is little worship of a god (that word is not used; Jacob is called a guardian). Religion plays no central role in the story. Religion plays only a minor role in a negative way with Eko's con of impersonating his dead brother in order to save his own life. There are Egyptian temples and deep history, but the Others practice none of the sacred rites. If the show is anything, it is a secular notion of non-belief in higher powers. But at the same time, it is not about empowering the characters in their own self-belief. It is a religious paradox: those who can't save themselves, can't ask for a higher power to save them. It would seem the only theology principle at work is "Live Together, or Die Alone" metaphor. In the primordial time, when chemical compounds began to group together to form amino acid chains (and the start of life), it is that same group connection that is the lesson of island life. And just as the ooze evolved into complex creatures, so did the island character connections grow into a critical mass to allow an eternal peace.

MOTIVATION

There were many driven characters on LOST. But what really motivated them?

POWER. Widmore was hellbent on reclaiming the island. In his banishment from the island, he amassed a great deal of wealth in order to "find" "his" island.

His son, Daniel, was looking for a different kind of power. One that could control time, as his lab rat experiments at Oxford would show was possible. But in his search for intellectual power, Daniel severely injured his assistant - - - and stopped his progress to attain power and its prestige.

Jack held the power of life and death over his severely injured patients. As a surgeon, his skill level would determine whether he would help or harm at patient. As with his father's demise for medical negligence, there is a fine line between being a miracle worker and a fraud.

CONTROL. Sawyer wanted to control his life after his parents deaths. He wanted to control his future for one event: revenge on Cooper. It gave him a narrow vision; and ironically turned himself into the person he hated most. He learned the skills of control by being a con man - - - looking deeply into the greed and desires of others, to manipulate them to his advantage.

Likewise, Ben wanted control of the island, not for the power but for the respect he never gathered from his own father. He banished Widmore so the Others would look up to him as their sole leader. Ben tightened his control by surrounding himself with new hires loyal to him.

However, Locke had the same want of being able to control his future as he received no respect from his father. But Locke failed because he never could formulate a workable plan where other people would follow his lead. And during the course of failure after failure, Locke became a bitter person.

Eloise was also a control freak. She knew of future events, and manipulated people like Desmond to get her chess pieces in place so she could have her own after death fantasy family life with a doting son and husband.

But those actions above were not the true motivations of people seeking power or control. The real motivation throughout the characters were their fear of loneliness. Widmore, Ben, Jack, Sawyer and Locke all battled against the stress of loneliness.

Kate was a flirty, gregarious child who got into trouble in order to connect with other people. She turned into a loner because she wanted to run away from commitment. But she found that made her even more alone.

Hurley always felt abandoned and alone when his father left him. Then his one best friend left him after he kept a secret from him. Hurley felt that he could trust no one with his new found wealth so he was crazed with the fear that his life would be one lonely road.

Desmond never fit in because he really did not want to try. He feared commitment so he took to the idea of being a loner. But after he met Penny, he wanted to free himself from the chains of loneliness but could not bear the confidence of being able to support Penny or win over her family.

In order to combat their lonely existence, the main characters found new hope when they were thrown together in an island survival story. None could make it on their own. "Live Together or Die Alone." They needed the friendship of each other in order to make their lives meaningful. They needed their friendships in order to move on with their lives. This is probably the clearest theme in the series.

LITTLE MAN COMPLEX

“ There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind. ” - - - Napoleon Bonaparte

A Napoleon complex is one of self-absorbed grandeur.  Some psychoanalysis of Bonaparte claim that his small stature but high dream expectations led him to become a tyrannical monster hell bent on conquering all of Europe. Great historical figures often have grand visions of their legacy. What better way to be remembered than enslaving an entire continent?

There were two characters who fall into the emperor category of conquest and control: Ben and Widmore.

Widmore was not a small man. He had apparently grown up on the island. He knew it contained serious power source. He wanted to control it for his own ambitions. He was once the leader of the Others, the self-proclaimed guardians of the island. Whether Widmore knew of or believed in Jacob is unclear. He had a relationship with a powerful woman, Eloise Hawking, and had a brilliant academic son, Daniel. But it was his lust for power and privilege that got Widmore expelled - - - his crime was having a child off the island (Penny) with another unknown woman. Why the island would have such a moral barometer on an out-of-wedlock daughter while allowing the Others to kidnap and kill visitors makes no logical sense. But being LOST, logic or common sense are not necessary elements in any story line.

Once forced to leave the island, Widmore used his ego and talents to build up a vast business empire. But that empire was only a means of gaining enough power to find his island and reclaim it. Widmore's quest was to return to the island, and get revenge on the man who kicked him off it: Ben.

Ben was a small man. His small size fits into the Napoleon grandeur of over-compensating for an inferiority complex. Ben did not have a good childhood. He had no close friends. His father blamed him for his mother's death at childbirth. He was lonely. He dreamed that people would look up at him in awe and fear. He wanted to control his own destiny. He wanted to rebel against the Dharma lock-step. He still had a measure of compassion when he did not kill Alex or her mother Rousseau even though Widmore had ordered it as part of Ben's initiation. Instead, Ben took baby Alex under his care and control. Perhaps this was his first lesson in turning an adverse situation into an advantage.

Both Widmore and Ben were clever in making other people do their dirty business. They both had elaborate plans to get what they wanted from other people. Ben used psychological mind games to confuse then submit people to his will. Ben became frustrated and angry when people, especially women, did not follow his orders.

When Ben got to the leadership role he wanted, he ruled like a tyrant. It was his way or the highway. In that way, even though he was a "bad" character, he was a compelling character. There is a part of human nature that would lash out like Ben did because of his back story. There is always an inner demon that burns to be liked and loved by other human beings; but when that does not happen - - - one becomes bitter, angry and more controlling over people around him.

 Ben was the most complex character. He went through the rollercoaster of being good (as a boy) to bad (as an adult) to at least repented as a dead soul.

CONTROLLING THE FUTURE

We can have peace if we let go of wanting to change the past and wanting to control the future. — Lester Levinson

It is probably universal for a person to want a few basic social acknowledgements in their life: acceptance, security, friendship, love, trust or accomplishment. It is when a person tries to go to extremes to reach those goals, he or she becomes anti-social.

In all of our character studies, the most extreme spectrum may have been Ben.

His back story is cruel. For no apparent reason, his parents decide to hike through the Oregon woods on December 19, 1964 while his mother, Emily, is very, very pregnant. As a result of the walk, she goes into premature labor. His father, Roger,  panics, but is there to deliver Ben. But his mother bleeds to death, sending Roger into a spiral of anger, depression and regret. He would blame Ben for killing his mother, which is a false statement  but it would haunt and change Ben forever.

After Ben's birth, a distraught Roger flags down a car driven by Dharma leader Horus. Horus and his wife, Olivia,  help the Linus family. It is this random meeting that would lead Roger and Ben to the island. Roger was unable to cope with the pressure of fatherhood, the loss of his wife, and the responsibility of caring for an infant. He drank heavily, and could not hold a job. This increased his hatred towards Ben. 

At some point, Roger reconnects with Horus, who invites him to work for Dharma. Roger accepts the offer, and Ben and his father reach the island with other new workers. But the cruel reality of Roger's life hits him again hard, when he finds that the job he gets is that of a lowly janitor. 

Ben has an opportunity to change his life on the island. He is an quiet 8 year old boy. He is smart, attentive, and polite, but extremely shy. His social skills have been repressed because of his father's mental abuse and alcoholic rages. Ben becomes bitter about his lot in life. He longs for a normal family life, and the Dharma group, even though they are nice people, cannot substitute for his family.

Ben's life was immediately different than from the states. The Dharma compound routinely faced attacks from the Hostiles, the native people on the island. Roger, now an alcoholic, neglected his son. Ben did make one friend on the Island - a young girl named Annie. On Ben's ninth birthday, Annie carved two dolls, likenesses of the two children, and Ben kept them for the next 30 years. That same night, he saw his mother's ghost in the jungle. He later packed his belongings and went out in search of her, and he came upon Richard Alpert, one of the Hostiles. Richard was intrigued to learn Ben had seen someone who'd died off the Island, and he said Ben may be able to join the Hostiles one day, if he was patient. 

Three years later, Ben thought he found his chance when he heard that Dharma had imprisoned one of the Hostiles. Ben brought the man a  book and food (earning Roger's abuse). Ben later broke him out of his cell, setting fire to a van to distract those watching. But the prisoner turned out not to be a Hostile at all - Sayid was a time traveler from Ben's future. Knowing what Ben would become, an evil psychopath, Sayid shot Ben in the jungle, leaving him for dead. Jin found the wounded Ben and brought him back to the Barracks where Juliet tried to operated on him and  Kate donated blood. When it became clear that they could not save him, they sought the help of Alpert. Alpert told the time travelers that if he took Ben, it would be irreversible; he would be changed forever. Ben was taken to the Other's Temple, where we would later assume he would have been put into the reincarnation pool like Sayid would be during the final season.  Apparently, the temple ritual  robbed Ben of his recent memories of being shot by Sayid (but we cannot be for certain) and changed him forever. According to Richard, from this point on, he would "always be one of us."

The Others returned Ben to the Dharma camp, but told him to be patient. When the time was right, he could join the Others. Young Ben was then primed with the mental time bomb of leaving his father and the Dharma collective. It was a long ten years or so that Ben endured living at the Dharma camp after his temple rebirth. 

Ben would remain with the camp, eventually becoming a "work man" like his father. But he remained in touch with the Others, and when Widmore ordered the Initiative eliminated, Ben sided with the Hostiles. On Ben's birthday one year, he  released gas that killed all the Dharma members. Ben killed his father personally with a separate gas canister, responding to years of ill treatment. Richard offered to retrieve Roger's body, but Ben declined.
Though he'd helped defeat the Others' enemies, Ben still answered to Widmore, and the two maintained a rivalry before and after the Purge. In 1988, Widmore ordered Ben to kill a Rousseau who'd crashed onto the Island. Ben discovered she had a baby girl and spared them both, kidnapping the baby Alex and bringing her to the Others. Widmore initially ordered the baby killed as well but eventually relented and allowed Ben to raise her. Widmore had a daughter, Penny, of his own with an unknown woman from off the Island. When Ben discovered this infidelity some years later, he had Widmore exiled from the island. Ben then replaced him as the leader of the Others. As leader, Ben frequently traveled to the mainland, developing a wide network of resources. He restricted most of his people from leaving the Island and used deception and secrecy to control them. Ben found himself a victim of secrecy as well - despite being the Others' leader, Ben never got to visit the Island's Protector Jacob.  Jacob communicated only through Richard and sent Ben instructions and lists to follow. It was a bit ironic that Ben's entire plan was to join then lead the Hostiles, but once he reached that position he continued to be controlled and put into his place by an unknown man, Jacob. 

Ben would become to associate Jacob with his father. Everything Ben did for them, he would not receive the acceptance, security, friendship, love, trust or accomplishment that he craved from a father figure. This simmering torment would lead Flocke to manipulate Ben into killing Jacob, thereby changing the balance of power on the island forever.

Ben only found peace when he gave up control, his ambitions, and his personal darkness, to become Hurley's assistant guardian. When he awoke in the sideways world, filled with his past memories, he decided to stay to "work things out" with his father, Rousseau and continue to protect Alex, even though they were apparently in the after life, and Rousseau and Alex's island memories of Ben would be harsh hatred for what he did to them. Even if Ben could try to "change" that past, in the sideways world he realized that he could not. Further, he could not control their future responses when they awoke, but Ben seemed to be okay with that - - - because he would try to influence the sideways present to repent for his past by being a kind, caring and trustworthy person. But we really don't know if that would have worked.

All of the couples in the sideways church has at least a strong bond on the island. Those who did not, like Locke and Boone, were left alone. It would seem that would be Ben's fate as well because he passed on moving on with Hurley's group. So there may have remained a hint of Ben still trying to change his past by trying to bond with Rousseau and Alex in the sideways world.

If there was a lesson here it is that no matter what you do, you cannot change the past or control the future because it has too many variables.

REVIEW: THEORIES PART 3

In the next examination of the popular theories prior to Season 6, a lesser viewed notion that the series was about the Island as a mothership.

This theory ties in with the deep American notion that the Rosewell UFO story was true. And plays into the conspiracy theories that surround most government dark projects.

This theory speculates that the island is not an island. We know that the island does not act like a Pacific land mass: it moves, it cannot be seen from the air, it can disappear without displacing a gallon of ocean water, it moves through both time and space at different rates than Earth.

It was called a "snow globe" by Desmond because those on the island could not go through its outer invisible barrier.

Further, the high tech science experiments conducted on the island further bolstered the notion that the supernatural elements inferred that a supernatural race of beings were controlling everything from behind the curtain. In Star Trek, the episode called "The Cage" explored a superior intellectual race viewing human behavior by capturing several star ship crew members to observe human behavior. Likewise, some speculate that the "coincidence" that all the 815 passengers had past connections and/or common personal issues too good to be not forced together by a third party.

As a result, the main characters were “Abducted by Aliens.” The island is not part of Earth. It could be cloaked in a stealth mode between our time and the alien's time.  The survivors may no longer on Planet Earth, as the island is a space ship that re-creates Earth like a holodeck, so the aliens can take back these human beings as examples for further experimentation, or be part of an alien collection such as a zoo exhibit.

The smoke monster, as a high tech alien security system to keep the exhibit pieces on the island, is an explanation for the strange events on the island. It would appear that all the Dharma stations could have been set up to keep the human captives "busy" and pre-occupied so they don't realize that they have left their own solar system.

Early in the series run, Damon Lindelof shot down this theory.  “There are no spaceships. There isn't any time travel,” he told Sci-FiWire.com. However, he also indicated that there was no purgatory, but the cast wound up in purgatory in the end. The series also featured both mental and physical time travel by various characters. The showrunners have always been inconsistent with their defense of the series against fan speculation to the point of being obstructionist. Again, there would have been nothing wrong with a premise that the 815 survivors were "captured" by aliens as the plane was about to crash into the ocean and teleported to their island cage for human behavioral experimentation. In fact, such a premise would actually lead the characters to rebel against a "real" foe instead of the illusory Jacob-MIB stand-off.

THE MAZE

This was an avatar I used on some LOST community sites. It was a depiction of Eloise the Lab Rat.

Eloise was Daniel Faraday's lab rat at Oxford University's Queen's College Physics Department in 1996. Daniel explained to Desmond that the rat's consciousness was sent forward in time one hour in the future, allowing the rat to run an unseen maze perfectly. The experiment was a success, but later in the day, Eloise died. The cause was unknown, but Faraday hypothesized she had suffered a brain aneurysm. According to his theory, not having any constant, her consciousness couldn't differentiate between the future and the present.

An Oxford janitorial custodian had the job of incinerating Faraday's dead subject rats so that no one would discover the purposes and results of his experiments. One would assume that order was at the direction of Widmore, who funded Daniel's Oxford experiments.

Widmore's only purpose was finding a way back to the island. So funding Daniel's experiments had to be tied to this purpose. Was it an actual means of finding the island, or was it payment to Daniel's mother for her help in finding the island for him?

There was some connection in Daniel's mind in conscious time travel and the island. When he first arrived on the island, he observed that the light was different. He also found that time would physically skip (after the FDW was turned by Ben). It was during one of those time skips where he met his mother, who was a leader of the Others. During that encounter, Eloise killed him. There is a debate whether at that moment Eloise knew she killed her (unborn or) time traveling son. But in later events, it would seem that Eloise was doing everything in her power NOT to awaken Daniel to his island's past when he was in the sideways (dead) world.

One of the problems with the LOST story was that it had no consistent mythology on time travel. The idea of mental time travel, based upon premonition theories, was one explanation to Daniel's research. But then, the characters physically time skipped to different years on the island. And further inconsistency, only some of the characters skipped while others did not. Selective involuntary mental and physical time travel is a confusing bunch of story line rubble.

We do not know the details of Daniel's lab rat maze experiment. One could think Daniel used highly charged electric magnetic energy to induce some mental time travel in his lab rats. If so, how can he get "inside" the rat's mind to teach it a maze if the rat itself was unconscious? It would make more sense that both the rat and Daniel physically time traveled an hour in the future, Daniel taught the rat the maze, then returned to normal time to start the experiment. At one point, Daniel said that he was "out" for 75 minutes "after" the Eloise experiment.

There are several theories on why Daniel's research was important.

First, if Daniel had harnessed the power of the island (i.e. mental time travel to the future to either see or alter present events), then Widmore would not have needed to return to the island. Since Widmore still demanded to invade the island for its power, we must assume that Daniel's machine was a failure (as shown with the vegetable state of his former lab assistant.)

Second, if the secret of the island was mental time travel, then why did only Desmond have known episodes of it? He was the person who unrealistically survived the massive EM explosion of the Hatch. This allegedly triggered his premonitions (though some of them proved false, such as Claire leaving the island on a helicopter). So if Desmond could see the future, but he could not control it, who could?

Third, if Desmond was the only one aware of this secret power of mental time travel, why did physical time travel harm Charlotte but not the others. The reason was she did not have a "constant" in both time periods. But in reality, a person has a constant in all time periods based upon family bonds alone. Unless, the time travel was before she was born then she had no one living in that time period. But if that was the case, the other time travelers should have succumbed to the time travel constant rule. Another explanation was that those time travelers had each other as constants in both time periods. But again, so did Charlotte. (Without a consistent rule, it comes down to the writers looking for red shirts to kill off for dramatic effect without realizing the story line consequences.)

Fourth, the cause of death of the lab rat and the time travelers who bled was that if a person failed to complete the events in where the conscious mind traveled to would cause death. For example, Eloise the lab rat Eloise died because the "future" event (instruction on how to complete the maze) that was to occur did not take place. (However, we were told she did complete the maze. So just the fact one mentally flashes to another time is enough to kill you?) Minkowski on the freighter died because he went to the island. The island somehow split his consciousness. But his mission was just to go see the island, which he fulfilled. Minkowski never indicated afterward in his flashes that he needed to complete some task. He was told he had no constant between his flash periods. But again, he did have family bonds in both time periods so that "ante dote" does not have a factual basis. He was merely randomizing into the state of dementia before dying of a brain aneurysm.

But then again, time travel and its alleged effects were immaterial and irrelevant to the island events conclusions. Desmond, as a weapon against MIB, was a non-factor. It was Jack who reset the island cork in the light cave. It was Jack and Kate who defeated MIB. Time travel or electromagnetic power did not destroy MIB or allow any survivor to escape the island.

Based upon the ending, was the concept of "constants" really the mental bridge between the island world and the sideways after life existence? If so, then that would assume that the person's soul (conscious and subconscious) were somehow split to be somehow "reunited" (i.e. awakened) in the sideways world. Time travel is then not time travel but spiritual realm travel.

But even that is inconsistent in the sideways world. Charlotte is in the sideways world. She hooks up with Sawyer through Miles (and Miles was the constant between the island patrol from the freighter with Daniel and Charlotte.) But Charlotte has no contact with Daniel in the sideways world. It is like Eloise is keeping Daniel's island experiences away from his conscious memory . . . that is why she berated Desmond to leave her and Daniel alone. She was willing to sacrifice Penny to move on in the after life, but not Daniel. It would seem that Eloise's guilt for killing Daniel in the island time skip flashed through to her after life fantasy life. Is the ticking time bomb for Daniel's awakening just the sight of Charlotte? If so, why did it take so long for Charlie to reconnect with Claire? Or Kate not remember Sawyer from her island trysts? Or Jack not recognizing the Locke's O6 death drove him nearly insane?

If LOST was a maze of clues, it had no logical exit point. The feature of the "constant" as being a critical requirement to understanding the physics and dynamics of the island does not hold up to any scrutiny. It was neither the cause or the effect of the events in the sideways world.