More Explanation Why Sideways World is NOT "Purgatory" or an "Afterlife" by thepeopleschamp

Here is part 1 of my theory . . . http://theoriesonlost.blogspot.com/2010/05/sideways-world-is-not-purgatory-human.html#

People are too quick to take the final scene at the church and the things that Christian said and plug it into a mainstream metaphysical concept like "purgatory" or "afterlife". I say the producers are positing a vastly more complex theory of existence and the human predicament.

I say again, sideways world IS exactly what it first seemed: a splinter timeline that branched off when the jughead exploded. The producers showed us the island at the bottom of the ocean in sideways world. They also showed us a scene where Ben Linus' dad talks about the time they spent on the Island with the Dharma initiative. This tells us that at one point in the chronology of the sideways world, the Island was above water and had all the pre-incident Dharma initiative stuff happening on it. In season 5 they even show Daniel Faraday convincing Pierre Chang to order an evacuation. Furthermore, we previously saw a young Daniel Faraday state that he would create more time so that he could learn piano. This is exactly what he did! To cap it off, when the piano playing Daniel Faraday meets Desmond in sideways world, he specifically tells him that he had a quantum physics vision about how he thinks he set off a nuclear explosion that propelled them into a timeline that they're not supposed to be in! Hello!!??

I say again, in the cosmological world view of the Lost producers, there is no "real life", and no "after life". Human existence is something much much much more complex.

I say that when Desmond wakes up all the Losties in sideways world, he isn't making them realize, "hey we all died and landed in this magic world together that we can now leave", I say he's making them achieve a much more complex spiritual realization akin to Buddhist enlightenment. A pretty common theme in eastern religions is the inherent inter-connectivity of the universe and all things in it, which ties in directly with the quote from Jacob's crazy mommy about all men having a small piece of the light within them.

When the Losties walked through the door into the light, they achieved this transcendental state of oneness with the universe (essentially the ideal state of being described in numerous religions worldwide). I think this is something that in theory they could have achieved individually in a different timeline, but they all worked together in the "regular timeline" of Seasons 1-5 to create this splinter timeline and it was just kinda fitting for them to achieve this together. Smell the love.