I am dead, but I'm also here.

So far in the new season, they've presented us with plenty of new questions (Who are the Oceanic six? How do they get off the island? What is Hurley and Jack's secret? Who are the people on the boat? etc etc.). I'm guessing that the majority of these questions will be answered by the end of the season. But the main question, the big question we have for this show has to do with the biggest character of all: the island itself. What is the story of the island? Why is it the way it is? What exactly makes it so different, and why? (John Locke's character represents the search for this answer - when Ben told him that he had answers, Locke didn't want to know about the crewmen, he wanted to know what the smoke monster was, perhaps the biggest mysterious characteristic of the island) The question of the island is the big question of the show, and I don't think we'll get the full answer until the end of the entire series.

In the first two episodes of the new season, if we look past the other plotline mysteries they keep throwing at us, we'll see that they've been giving us some pretty strong clues about the nature of the island, and it has to do with death.

Naturally there've been plenty of clues about death earlier in the show, I even wrote a post about it (check it out here). But in the new episodes, there have been two larger efforts to make the presence of the dead on the island seem much more concrete. In the past, when we've seen or heard the dead on the island (Jack's dad, for example), it was treated almost as a hallucination, and it left the viewer wondering if the vision was real or imaginary. But now the dead are literally slapping us in the face. Hurley directly confronts Charlie with our own concerns. "You're dead, and this is just a hallucination, right?" But Charlie demonstrates otherwise, and another inmate sees him too.

And then we have Miles Straume. I think it's very significant that this new character, who might be even more matter-of-fact than Sayid, plays a ghost hunter. This is someone who seems incredibly practical and down to earth, unlike the new physicist Daniel Faraday. We don't doubt that he spoke to that kid in the bedroom and got the facts from dead Naomi. I think this is very intentional. Somehow the voices of the dead on this island are very real, not hallucinations, and this is a revealing bit of info on the island for us to chew on.

I see the island as a psychic amplifier. Whatever is going on with the electromagnetic anomalies it creates, it enhances all manner of psychic abilities, which also means people abilities to communicate with the dead, and vice-versa. If you are already gifted in this arena (like Walt, for example) it only makes your skills stronger.

Other thoughts:
- Perhaps all children tend to be better psychic communicators, have these skills, which is why they were being stolen.
- After seeing the ABC "Missing Pieces" short, I'm also convinced that Vincent the dog can see dead people.
- Perhaps the whispers we keep hearing are the voices of the dead.

I welcome your comments!