[losty09]

I'm actually thinking overlapping dimensions, myself. Time and space clues have been obvious, thus far. It has been proposed to me that the island is the one place in the world where dimensions overlap. That is, various times and spaces can exist simultaneously and be "ripped" open, so to speak. The losties exist in a dimension where their plane did crash and they did actually survive, and were never found. In the parachutist's dimension, the plane crashed but was found, and all the survivors were dead.

The island would have been surrounded by a sort of force field, that prevented anyone from entering this place of overlapping dimensions... untill the failsafe key was used. It destroyed the force field, allowing people such as Naomi the parachutist to cross dimensions. I think that all of the survivors exist in every dimension, but their lives and actions are slightly different in each. I also think it is possible thag Desmond did die in the hatch implosion... and that the desmond we see now is a Desmond from and alternate dimension. He, for some reason, can see between dimensions, hence his visions of the future. In "Flashes before Your eyes," when he experienced his past with Penny and saw charlie, but charlie didn't know him... this was because he met charlie on the island of another dimension, another world completely. The charlie didn't know him. Desmond somehow switched dimensions, and is able to retain memories from both, and on occasion break through into other ones.

Anyway... maybe it's too crazy to make sense.