Time Travel: Consciousness vs. Physicality

In "The Constant," Faraday reveals that Desmond's consciousness, his mind, is traveling through time. I'm guessing that the natural tendencies of the island that cause this is the 'casimir effect' discussed in the Orchid orientation film. I'm also guessing that the experiments in the Orchid station are attempting to amplify this effect so that it isn't just consciousness that is caused to travel, but an entire physical being (like a bunny or a polar bear).

The Dragon Triangle

From the History Channel:

More Time/Space Clues

I listened to the latest LOST podcast which has writer/producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse answering viewer questions, although somewhat obliquely. They added some major fuel to the time travel/wormhole theory. Here's an excerpt:
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Damon: "Faraday was conducting some interesting experiments in 'The Economist,' and I was wondering, Carlton, if you'd like to explain to me at least, because I found it very intriguing, what's up with all this rocketry/digital watch fiasco."

Carlton: "Well there was kind of a time shift that obviously occurred. This rocket was launched and was synchronized with Faraday's watch, but in fact when it arrived the digital clock had a slightly different time. Which would suggest that there was some sort of time fluctuation that occurred in that rocket's journey from the freighter to the island, and I think that's something which is pretty important."

Damon: "That's interesting, that's why I was asking."

Carlton: "Thanks for asking, that was a good question. You picked up on something very important in that episode."

Damon: "That's good, because we wrote future episodes about that very thing, and if we hadn't picked up on it, it would have been a detriment to the show..."

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Carlton (reading a fan question to Damon): "How does a polar bear with a Dharma collar get in the middle of the desert?"

Damon (after some silly meandering): "There are properties of the island that are potentially capable of shall we say transporting things from the island off the island."

Carlton: "It might be helpful actually for those viewers who are interested in this question to go online and find the training film for the Orchid Station."

Damon: "Yeah, that would be a very good place to start."

Carlton: "Rarely do we actually have things that aren't in the show that are important to the show, but in this case it is important. Yet if you don't see the Orchid trailer, when we get to it later in the show..."

Damon: "But it's good to say that if you're curious about how a polar bear with a Dharma collar ends up in Tunisia, watch that film because that polar bear has certain things in common with say, bunnies with eights on their backs."

Carlton: "That's right."

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Carlton (answering a question regarding C. S. Lewis): "Let's just say yes, the homage to Clive Staples Lewis is very intentional, and there are definitely themes in the Narnia Chronicles that are very relevant to Lost.... Yes, I think a reading of the Narnia books is not only enjoyable but probably somewhat instructive."

Damon: "Yeah, in the same way that I think Alice in Wonderland is something that we refer to and Oz... What's great about those worlds is they're all world on the other side of earth. That is to say that they're not fantasy realms like Star Wars, Narnia is actually connected to the world that we know and so is Oz, as is Wonderland."

Carlton: "As is our Island."

Damon: "As is our Island."

Time Travel

In the book Lost Horizon, there is a crucial moment at the end of the story. Conway, the main character, and another of the plane crash victims struggle to make their way out of Shangri-La. With them is the character Lo-Tsen who looks about age 19, but has lived in Shangri-La for an untold number of years. When the three of them finally get out of the valley and into the mountains, Lo-Tsen instantly ages, becoming a frail old woman in a matter of seconds. It was as if time completely caught up with her the moment she leaves Shangri-La.

Last night on "The Economist," we were shown that due to whatever strange magnetic features the island possesses, time on the island moves more slowly. But I think the time difference between the island and the world is much more than 30 minutes. My theory is that time off of the island has progressed along with our own. While only 100 days have passed for the crash victims, in the rest of the world it's winter of 2008.

• In the ARG Find815.com created by the writers of the show, the ship Christiane I finds the remains of Oceanic flight 815 in the Sunda Trench, as later tied into the show. The timeline of the finding was very specific - it took place over Christmas of 2007. If the discovery of the wreckage took place before the freighter brought our four new characters to the island, then it must currently be 2008 or after.

• During this summer's Comic-con in San Diego, the writer/producers Damon Lindelof and Carleton Cuse were on hand to talk about the show and answer some questions. Here's an excerpt from the interview:
Damon: It’s interesting that you should ask about time because… you know… you’re making a basic assumption that they’ve been there, y’know, as long as they think they’ve been there. [Crowd murmurs, someone says “Oh, no.”] I would say by the end of Season 3… that very different idea…
Carlton: Stop right there, Damon, stop right there.
Damon: Well, I was just…
Carlton: Stop right there. Nope, nope, no.

Seems like he was talking about something very key to this season.

• In the new episode Confirmed Dead, the new character Charlotte Staples Lewis is introduced. Her name is a reference to author C. S. Lewis who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia. In those books, time passes in Narnia at a different rate - what seems like months and years in Narnia is only minutes in the outside world, and months passing in the outside world is a thousand years in Narnia.

So If time is moving the way I'm thinking, it could explain several things:

• Walt is taller because he began aging normally after he left the island. Several years have now passed for him.

• Mittelos Bioscience, the name of Richard Alpert's company, was confirmed as being the plot-significant anagram LOST TIME. This refers to the time lost while on the island.

• Alpert shows Juliet a CAT scan during the Mittelos recruitment. Juliet states that they appear to be from a woman in her 70's, while Alpert says the woman is only 26. It is possible that internal aging continues to occur at standard time, though time for the woman (and appearance) moves more slowly. It could also be the result of a woman leaving the Island; like in Lost Horizon, upon leaving the Island and reentering standard time aging may occur rapidly, thus a woman who only lived for 26 years (on the Island) could suddenly become old and die upon leaving.

• Alpert tells Juliet: "You're gonna be amazed at how time flies once you're there."


Regarding time, what might be most intriguing of all is the new orientation film for the Orchid station released by the producers last summer. In it, Edgar Halowax (aka Marvin Candle) says "The unique properties of this Island created a kind of Casimir effect, allowing us to..."
Later in the film a bunny identical to the one he's holding appears out of nowhere and everyone freaks out.

So if we do our research and look up what the hell the Casimir effect is, we learn that it's a physics term that relates to energy fields. This is a quote from the wikipedia entry:
"...the quantum mechanics of the Casimir effect can be used to produce a locally mass-negative region of space-time, and suggested that negative effect could be used to stabilize a wormhole to allow faster than light travel."

Ok, so suddenly we are introduced to the idea the the island has the capability to create wormholes in time/space. This would explain a lot.

• Perhaps when Desmond turned the failsafe key, perhaps he created a wormhole and was able to move freely about in space/time. He arrived at the place he wanted to be most - the time when he should've proposed to Penny.

• The polar bear found in Tunisia with a Dharma collar was an experiment in sending an animal through a wormhole to a different space/time.

• The reference to the book "A Brief History of Time"

• The recording in Room 23 saying "only fools are enslaved by time and space"

• Ms. Hawking (another reference to Stephen Hawking) - In an interview with ew.com the producers suggest that she travels through time.

• Sawyer is seen reading the book "A Wrinkle in Time" in the first season.

• The name of the airport that is shown to be used by Mittelos Bioscience in "One of Us" is "Herarat Aviation." Herarat is an anagram of Earhart, as in Amelia, whose plane mysteriously disappeared over the South Pacific. The reference to Amelia came back in Find815.com, when Sam overheard a transmission from the time of her disappearance on his radio in the cabin, which was unexplained by the radio station. The implication is that the transmission traveled through time.

Basically, my thought is that time on the island moves very slow, and contains the possibility of time travel.

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!

The Crash Synchronized

Thoughts on Jacob

So this Jacob character was at first presented as this all-knowing guru or guiding figure. He was considered leader of the others, had a list, and was loved by God. Ben seemed to use him as an excuse to do all sortsa crazy shit.

Here are my thoughts on Jacob:

In the episode "The Man Behind the Curtain," when Ben first meets Richard Alpert by the sonar fence, Ben explains that he was out there looking for his dead mother. Alper doesn't seem to think that this is a big deal. Only when Ben mentions that she didn't die on the island does Richard think Ben is pretty special.

This leads me to believe a couple of things. First, it kind of explains that seeing people on the island that were supposed to have died there, or their bodies are there, is a kind of natural occurrence (see Christian Shephard, Boone, Yemi, etc.). Second, it demonstrates that Richard thinks Ben is special, much like Walt was thought to be "special." So the others seem to put a premium on psychic abilities, powers, or what have you. With this I'm going to surmise a story about Ben and his relationship to Jacob.

In my Shangri-La theory, there was an older civilization on the island that lived in a kind of paradise on the island. In Lost Horizon, this place was ruled by the High Lama, who was originally a jesuit priest who made his way into the valley, combined western religion with eastern philosophies, and used the natural tendencies of the valley to lead people into a kind of utopian ageless paradise. For right now, I'm going to say that this character of Jacob represents this High Lama guy. But at some point in the history of the island, something went wrong. The original inhabitants were killed off, some crazy corporations took over to try and mine the place of its riches. There was an incident. Or something. This act of destruction caused Jacob to be left in some sort of limbo.

The others that Ben joins are westerners, possibly ex-dharma scientists, that somehow discovered the original history of the island and want to re-create the Shangri-La that once was. Already they've discovered some of the island's natural tendencies (like psychic reconstruction of the dead and agelessness). They know that the previous civilization was perhaps ruled by Jacob, that he's supposed to be in that cabin, but they're not quite sure how to talk to him. Enter Ben Linus. When he becomes initiated into their group, they think "just how special is this kid?" They tell him that he should try and communicate with Jacob, see what happens. So he goes into that cabin and tries, but doesn't hear or see a damn thing. But Ben's a slimy mofo, and out of fear of rejection or whatever, he lies and tell the people that he did, in fact see and talk to Jacob. So suddenly he's the only one that can talk to Jacob, and over time Ben uses this to become an authority on Jacob's wishes and leader of the Others.

Ben, being the twisted dude that he is, tells the others that Jacob wants all sorts of mayhem. Kill the scientists. Kidnap the children. etc.

So when Ben brings Locke to the cabin, he doesn't expect Locke to hear a damn thing. And when Locke doesn't hear anything, he would then tell the others that Locke isn't that special after all. But Locke does hear Jacob, and suddenly Ben is threatened. The entire authority that he's falsely constructed for himself is about to be challenged. So his only choice to stay in power is to kill Locke.

I would also say that this abuse of power is what caused Ben to get ill with the tumor. Locke keeps saying how Ben's wheelchair demonstrates that he's not the real leader. Somehow, the island picks its own, and Locke knows this. Jacob isn't this floating metaphysical entity that makes commands to steal children and kill the bad people, he's a guy stuck between worlds and needs help from our main man John MFing Locke.

Original Orientation FIlm

As time has gone by, I'm discovering that lots of people I've been talking to haven't seen or heard of the original Dharma film that was released online during the summer of 2006 ARG. If you haven't seen it, it's certainly worth a look:

Saying Goodbye to My Free Time

The new LOST arg starts here:

http://www.flyoceanicair.com/

And so it begins.

New Lost Webisodes

http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/missingpieces/index

I haven't actually watched these yet, but just thought I'd share that they're out there. I'll give comments once I've been through them.

New Orientation FIlm

Flash Forward

If this is your first time here, please click here for the main theory of this blog.



Okay, put on your earmuffs if you who still haven't read the book Lost Horizon and wouldn't like to have the ending spoiled. Here goes: in the end of the book, Hugh Conway escapes Shangri-La and barely survives the journey down from the mountains. Once back in the safety of western civilization and with a hero's welcome awaiting him back home, he decides to head back into the mountains and spends the rest of his life hiring whatever planes and mountain guides possible in search of a way to get back to what he now realizes is paradise.

Need I say more about this theory???!!

* A new note regarding motivations (thanks capcom!): In the book, Conway is presented as a very admirable figure. Like the traditional hero, he puts others' concerns before his own. But this kind of heroism is thrown into question when his need to help others becomes his own downfall when he feels that it's his responsibility to guide others out of Shangri-La. I think it's perfectly clear now that Jack faces the same kind of internal struggle. Jack needed to fill the role a hero for the survivors, and I know I've certainly rooted for him to kick ass, but his need to have something to fix has led to a form of self-destruction.

Alpert's Longevity

Richard Alpert (Batmanuel) doesn't age. For those new to the theory, click here.

Death on the Island

Ok, so this is something that I've been thinking about for a while, but unfortunately it has little to do with the "Lost Horizon" theory.

It seems that if one dies on the island, of if your body is there, death isn't the end: there's something else that happens to you, or you're not necessarily dead, or something. Here's what I'm talking about:

1. Dead people have been seen on the island. These are people who have died there, or they're bodies are there: Jack's Father, Eko's Brother Yemi, and Boone.

2. The Whispers. People contributing to lostpedia.com have deciphered what is being said during those moments. Just before Shannon died, we heard Boone's voice say this: "Shannon, meet me on the other side." Could the whspers be the voices of the dead?

3. Eko's death scene. When he went out, he had a smile on a face and said "you're next," as if to say that what was awaiting him and all others on the island who die is something profound and beautiful.

4. Ben on the operating table. Just before he was put under, listen to what he says and watch his expressions. He's anticipating something huge. He even says something like "After this, everything will be different" (feel free to correct me on this). It seems that Ben was looking forward being transformed somehow, perhaps looking forward to death.

5. Bea asked Mikhail to shoot her. She seemed awfully enthusiastic about this, and Mikhail was quick to give her what she wanted. Why was she so willing? What does she know that would be so threatening to the others that she's better off dead?

6. And finally, what about Mikhail? When Locke threw him into the sonic barrier, he told Locke "thank you" before he keeled over. Of course Mikhail and Bea could just be damn fool fanatics, but I think there's something more to this.

Further Comparisons

For those of who have read "Lost Horizon," I'm currently seeing of strong parallels between the characters in the book and in the show:

Locke = Conway
Jacob = The High Lama

I think now in the storyline Locke is being taken to Jacob, like Conway was taken to the High Lama. I bet we'll see Locke meet Jacob by the end of this season. Perhaps they'll discuss notions of utopia and longevity.

Also in the book, there was a female character, Lo-Tsen, who was a resident of Shangri-La but was the only native that wanted to leave, feeling like she was imprisoned. It seems that aspects of Lo-Tsen's character are being played out in Juliet and Alex.

The Idea of a Way Out

In the last episode, The Man From Talahassee, Ben tells Locke that the submarine isn't actually a way off the island, but that it's important for the people that have been recruited to think that there's a way off the island if they need it. He's basically saying that given enough time, people won't want to leave the island and the fact that there's no way off it won't matter to them.

In the novel Lost Horizon, when the westerners first arrive in Shangri-La, they are assured that they will be able to leave within a couple of weeks when porters arrive. After a period of time it's revealed that not only do the porters come only once every couple of years, but when the porters finally arrive, they'll take no people with them. There never was a way out of Shangri-La in the first place. When asked why they were lied to, they are told that it was initially important just for their peace of mind to think there was a way out if they needed it. But sure enough, by the time this is pointed out to them, all of the westerners (except one) want to stay in Shangri-La anyways.

The Road to Shambala

On last night's episode "Tricia Tanaka is Dead," in that great moment when Hurley pops the clutch in the VW, the 8-track kicks on and is playing the song "Shambala" by Three Dog Night. Not only was this a great choice in music for the scene, but there's a great connection to be made here.

The song is about the mythical kingdom of Shambhala, which appears in several Buddhist texts, possibly dating further back than the 10th century. Shambala is a mystical kingdom that lies somewhere within or beyond the Himalayas, and is believed to be a society where all of the inhabitants are enlightened. Shambhala is a sanskrit word meaning "place of peace/tranquilty/happiness".

In one of the ancient texts in which Shangri-La is described, The Kalachakra Tantra, it prophesizes that when the world declines into war and greed and all is lost, a king will emerge from Shambhala and usher in a new golden age around the world.

All sounds familiar, doesn't it? In fact, the word Shambhala looks and sounds a lot like Shangri-la. This is no coincidence. These ancient myths were an inspiration for James Hilton when he wrote the book "Lost Horizon." Before Hilton wrote the book, he visited the Hunza Valley in Northern Pakistan where the inhabitants lived long and healthy lives into old age. It is said that Hilton combined his own travels with the teaching of Shambhala to create Shangri-La.

Lost Time

There are three not-so-subtle clues about the concept of time embedded in the "Not in Portland" episode. No doubt the writers are throwing something important into our laps.

Mittelos Bioscience - The producers of the show have come out and said on the official Lost podcast that "Mittelos" is an anagram for "lost time." They've also alluded to the fact that time behaves differently on the island.


A Brief History of Time - Aldo, the guard that was watching over Karl was reading this book.

"Only fools are enslaved by time and space" - clever fans have run the entire room 23 scene in reverse, and have discovered these words spoken by a woman in the audio
(check it out here).

Finally, what exactly are the Mittelos recruiters asking Juliet to do? They show her a slide of a womb CT sequence. Juliet asseses that it is a human womb, and judging by the scan, most likely of a barren patient in her 70's. However, she is told that the woman is in fact just 26 years old, and that she could find out why if she joined them.

Ok, pause on all of these things for a second while we revisit something that happens in the book "Lost Horizon." The people who live in the valley of Shangri-La age very slowly. But in the end of the book, one of the women leaves the valley, heading into the snowy Himilayan Mountains. She seemed about 19 years old when she was in Shangri-La, but now that she's left, she begins to age very quickly, until she becomes a frail old woman.

Lost time indeed.

(Human) Nature vs. Technology

Then why the need for a good fertility doctor?

So we know there's some sort of natural phenomena on the island, some sort of healing /geomagnetic energies. My thought is this: what once was pure is now tainted. Before anyone discovered the island (during the time of the four-toed statue), there was an indigenous society living in harmony with the natural tendencies of the island.

But the island has changed. The indigenous people have been wiped out. The Hanso Foundation (along with the help of Widmore Labs), worked on ways to profit from the island, trying to find ways to harvest the natural health benefits, trying to find what made it tick, thinking that if they found the answers to Shangri-La, they could find the answers to the world's problems. But somehow it went too far, the natural energies were f**ked with, and we now have unnatural side-effects.

The incident.
The need for a smoke monster.
The need for the swan to regulate a fluctuating and dangerous geomagnetic field.
The need for quarantine and a vaccine.
The need for a spinal surgeon.
The need for a fertility doctor.

Room 23

The brainwashing room was incredibly interesting to me, and it brought lots of thoughts to mind. Notice the re-occuring theme on this show of "good people" vs. "bad people." I think that Jacob's list is what divides people into one or the other of these camps. If you're one of the others, and you're not on the list, not one of the good ones, or perhaps it's undetermined, then you get sent to the brainwashing room to get converted. If it worked for Ted Haggard, it can work for Karl.

My shangri-la theory is that they're trying to create/maintain a utopian society. No room for "the bad ones," which is why they feel perfectly justified in killing those that they deem bad.
If you don't want to kill them, you brainwash them. Or perhaps more importantly, you get them when they are children, before they can be spoiled by the ills of society, and use dharma-sponsored psychological conditioning.

Also note the continued use of Buddhist images and eastern philosophical text. Again, this connects to the eastern philosophies that Shangri-La is founded upon.