Lost in Virtual Reality

Okay, I've decided to start posting again. Instead of just reviewing each episode I will give you my thoughts about what is happening. Some episodes provoke no thoughts while other's boggle my mind. I've said it once and I'll say it again: last season had a lot more meat to it than this season. A lot of the episodes this season have actually been boring! The episode that aired on April 5th was not a boring episode.

As we already knew from past episodes, Hurly used to be in a psychiatric hospital. In this episode Hurly hallucinates a man named Dave on the island. This is the same hallucination that Hurly used to talk and ineract with at the hospital. Dave tells Hurly that the island, too, is all in his mind. He tells Hurly if he simply jumps off a cliff he will snap out of it and things will be back to normal, with Hurly back in the hospital. As Hurly attempts to jump, Libby talks him away from the cliff by convincing him that the island and the events from the last 2 months are real. The episode ends with a flashback of Libby being a patient in the same hospital as Hurly.

While I don't believe that the island is simply Hurly's imagination, it did get me thinking. It got me thinking so much I think I've actually got this show figured out. In interviews the producers of the show have consistently said that, when all is known about the island, it will not be that far fetched of an idea. In otherwords, there is a logical explanation for the situation the passengers are in. While I was trying to get to sleep after watching this episode I had an idea: What if the characters on the show are actually involved in a virtual reality-type experience? Let's say that Dharma really exists and is involved with scientific experiments. They get people, either volutarly or against their will, to take part in said experiment. Each patient lies down on a bed and puts on the virtual reality helmet. The scientists then hook up the necessary wires to monitor the patients brain waves. In the VR helmet the patient experiences a different world, one that the scientists have created. While the patient seems to be interacting normally with the VR environment, they are actually still on the bed. The scientists would be in complete control of the VR experience.

In my opinion, this makes perfect sense. The black smoke, the ship in the middle of the island, the hatches, the other's, the polar bears; these types of things would not happen in the real world. Consider my idea for a second, and really, it does make sense. It could be that the scientists simply want to monitor how each character reacts to the situations.