How Could Desmond See Both Spiritual Planes in “The End”?

There has been a lot of discussion about Desmond in the aftermath of Lost's finale.  Desmond is the only character who seemed to  be able to cross planes, having an awareness of and in the sideways world before he died.  Desmond has always been referred to as “special.” His consciousness has been known to move through time, and Desmond has a unique resistance to the Island's powerful energies. 

Widmore brought a drugged Desmond back to the island, calling him a failsafe.  He subjected Desmond to an electromagnetic experiment, which seemingly resulted in Desmond's consciousness traveling to the flash-sideways plane.  Soon after, Desmond's flash-sideways consciousness “became aware.”

Later, in the light cave, Desmond acknowledged to Jack that he wasn't afraid because he knew there was this whole other world.  He told Jack he expected to travel there when he pulled the Egyptian Plug.    If the sideways world is the plane of existence to which we pass after death, how was Desmond aware of it while still on the Island?

What is the Smoke Monster? Applying the Big Bang Theory to Lost

What is Smokey?

One of the burning unanswered mysteries associated with Lost is “What is the Smoke Monster?”  I contend that season six gave us the clues to put the pieces of this puzzle together.  Smokey need not remain an enigma in the minds of Lost fans.

Now we found out in early seasons that the Smoke Monster was some sort of security system for the Island.  We also found out that Jacob created the Smoke Monster when he hurled his brother's beaten body down the waterfall that lead to the cave housing the source.  We found out that the smoke monster could scan people and read their minds.  He also could apparently take the form of dead human bodies that had not been burned, buried, or otherwise appropriately interred.  Although rain did not defeat Smokey, he was somehow bound to the island, and could not cross its waters unless he assumed a human appearance.  When bound to a mortal body, he could partake in mortal activities, but he also had mortal limitations.  However, he could not be slain with traditional weapons such as guns.  Were explaining the Smoke Monster that simple, however, I would not be writing this post.  To truly understand the Smoke Monster, we must go back to what is the island, and what exactly makes it so special.

If you have not read my post entitled “What is the Island”, I suggest you do so before continuing.  In part, it defines “The Source” as the remnants of the energy that created the universe, the very part of the big bang that created our Earth.  The Island is “ground zero” for life as we know it.  The big bang theorizes that several types of energy, matter, and anti-matter collided and created our universe.  The energy that is at the source of life as we know it is made up of exotic matter, light particles, and dark matter. 

Wikipedia has this to say about Dark matter:

During the 1970s and 1980s, various observations showed that there is not sufficient visible matter in the Universe to account for the apparent strength of gravitational forces within and between galaxies. This led to the idea that up to 90% of the matter in the Universe is dark matter that does not emit light or interact with normal baryonic matter. ...The evidence for dark matter comes from its gravitational influence on other matter...

So, in other words, there is this dark stuff that doesn't interact with other stuff, including gravity, in a normal way.  It actually pulls other matter into itself.  Scientists particularly became interested in studying this stuff during the 70s and 80s (or during Dharma times on our island.)  This dark stuff contains another kind of dark juju, called dark energy.

Wikipedia says this about Dark Energy:

Measurements of the redshift–magnitude relation for type Ia supernovae have revealed that the expansion of the Universe has been accelerating since the Universe was about half its present age. To explain this acceleration, general relativity requires that much of the energy in the Universe consists of a component with large negative pressure, dubbed "dark energy"...Since dark energy does not cluster in the usual way it is the best explanation for the "missing" energy density...Negative pressure is a property of vacuum energy, but the exact nature of dark energy remains one of the great mysteries of the Big Bang.

So, expansion and life has a kind of an opposite.  This stuff doesn't look like matter as we expect it to.  It's kind of a dark, hazy, misty mass.  It behaves completely differently than the light stuff, and interacts with the environment in a different way.  Where the light spurs growth, the dark draws collapse.

Modern observations of accelerated expansion imply that more and more of the currently visible Universe will pass beyond our event horizon and out of contact with us. The eventual result is not known. The CDM model of the Universe contains dark energy in the form of a cosmological constant. This theory suggests that only gravitationally bound systems, such as galaxies, would remain together, and they too would be subject to heat death, as the Universe expands and cools. Other explanations of dark energy—so-called phantom energy theories—suggest that ultimately galaxy clusters, stars, planets, atoms, nuclei and matter itself will be torn apart by the ever-increasing expansion in a so-called Big Rip.

So, we're neither sure of how this dark stuff behaves nor cogent about how it interacts with our world.  We have pretty much figured out that its uncontrolled release could cause the end of life as we know it, and possibly, even implosion of the universe.

Let's summarize what we know again and see if it reminds us of anything within the context of Lost.    Many different types of energy were a part of the big bang, parts of it creating land, water, and fish, trees, birds, and eventually, human beings.  Other parts of this energy are dark, repelling all types of light, and acting somewhat like a vacuum, working against the light energy, sucking everything back inside of itself.  It is a hazy, amorphous dark thing.

What is the Island?

During one of their many pre-finale interviews, Damon talked about people's need for answers, where answers may not exist.  He quoted Mother's line about every answered question just leading to another question.  Damon alluded to the scientific explanation for the creation of the universe: The Big Bang Theory.

“What came first...the big bang.  Well, what came before that?  A bigger bang.”

Damon was giving us a huge hint there.  The light at the heart of the island stems from that big bang.  And to understand that, we must learn a little about the big bang theory and what it asserts.

5 Minute Assessment of Lost

I have frequented a site called DarkUfo throughout the last few years.  DarkUfo was recently voted the #2 Lost Site on the web.  After spending several hours chatting with other Lostheads, I posted this quick assessment of the show:

The island is a metaphor for that supernatural, unexplainable part of living that man just can't stop trying to understand. Dharma was a metaphor for man's quest to explain everything through science; Radzinsky went mad when he finally realized that there were some things science would never be able to explain. The Island is that spiritual part in all of us, something Jack had lost touch with. Volunteering to replace Jacob represented Jack's reaffirmation of his spiritual side and his realization that sometimes it took more than mere medicine to fix things. That is the answer. The sideways was a metaphor for the "no man is an island" philosophy, and a statement on the necessity of community to help us through the trauma. It was Jack's idea of what a "happy life" would look like for them all if there were no island and 815 had never crashed. Hurley's act of letting folks leave the island represented believing that science and spirituality can coexist in a modern world.

The answers were there, as much as they could be. You just have to look for them.

  I also posted this thought:

After spending like 3 hours in chat after the ep ended, I get it and I loved it. The island was real. Everything that happened there was real. When Jack assumed the role of protector (for all of that 10 min or so), he changed the game. The ALT is what he "wished" for everybody in that moment he reignited the light. That's why they needed him to "wake up" so that they could move on, and why they all looked like Jack remembered them in the ALT. It was NOT purgatory--it was Jack's idea of what their happy lives would look like had 815 never crashed. There's a lot more to it, of course, but I'm getting into theory length rather than comment length, so I'll stop here. I'm sure I'll get it even better after a full rewatch or 2.

 I'm repeating these comments here to whet your appetite for what is still to come.