Flashbacks, Memory and Non-Linear TimeBy J.M. BergerAnd therefore as a stranger give it welcome.There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (...) The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!  -- Hamlet
The Island is only half the mystery -- and half the story -- on LOST. With one exception ("The Other 48 Days"), every episode of LOST splits its focus between a "now" sequence that unfolds on the Island, and a "then" sequence that unfolds in flashback. But past and present are not distinctly separated -- and LOST's most compelling stories often stem from unusual transactions between the two timelines. The most common view of time is the "straight arrow" envisioned by Isaac Newton: Time marches in a straight line at a uniform pace from past to present to future, without variation. Time can only move in one direction -- always forward, never backward, certainly not to the left or right, and never in circles. Science left the "arrow of time" behind, after Einstein, Schrödinger and many others warped, bent, reversed and even broke the straight line using the mechanics of relativity and quantum physics. But our perception of time is still profoundly wedded to the arrow. Except under extraordinary circumstances, most of us viscerally experience time exclusively as a one-way ticket from past to future. The scientific concept of non-linear time is fairly recent, but there are ancient spiritual traditions which foreshadowed the science. These traditions have been highly visible on LOST, particularly in the second season, with the debut of the Dharma Initiative. Whether or not Dharma is a red herring in the overall plot of LOST, the symbolism attached to the Initiative almost certainly carries some weight. There are two main elements of the Dharma Initiative's logo -- the word Dharma and a circular arrangement of lines called the "ba gua" (the original phrase refers to the lines themselves and not the circular aspect). Both these elements stem from Buddhist-Hindu-Taoist tradition -- in which time is not linear but cyclical, repeating in a loop like a Möbius strip and always returning to the source. The cyclical nature of time manifests itself differently in each tradition, but the ba gua diagram represents the process through all the related spiritual paths. The eight sets of three lines are trigrams used in the i-Ching, a Chinese oracular system that was later integrated widely across Eastern religions. There are two commonly seen variations of the ba gua:  One is called the primal ordering (left), which is intended to represent the cosmic scheme of existence in its more purified form. The second version (right) is known as the temporal ordering. The primal diagram is symmetrical, while the temporal is not. The Dharma logo features the temporal arrangement, in an inverted form. The inverted form may be a clue to the nature of the Island, but the inverted version of the diagram is not uncommon in its ordinary context. The structural elements can get fairly technical, but the upshot is that the temporal diagram is out of balance -- not unlike a pendulum when it is set into motion -- and is thus meant to illustrate the cycle of how events unfold in linear time. There are many ways to interpret this layout. My own interpretation holds that the concept of time illustrated by the diagram is:
How does all this abstraction relate to LOST? Pretty concretely, as it turns out. Because on LOST, linear time is broken -- in often spectacular ways. On LOST, time is cyclical, and the cycle may be collapsing. In each episode, we are given a flashback with obvious relevance to the events unfolding on the Island. While this is, to an extent, simply good storytelling, LOST does not stop there. Instead of simply drawing parallels between past choices and current events, the past has a way of physically manifesting itself on the Island. For instance:
When an element is introduced, it seems to reverberate into the past and then re-emerge, sometimes transformed, in the present or future (as when the polar bear resurfaced in the "Orientation" film). There are other examples of reverberation:
These abnormal time shifts contrast with very specific measures of linear time on the Island itself -- measures which are almost always tinged with the surreal and the mysterious. Linear time behaves strangely on the Island. It presents paradoxes, conceals secrets and often simply malfunctions. Examples include:
We have had numerous hints that the question of time somehow relates back to the central mysteries of LOST. On the Island, time is broken and jagged. Its workings are opaque. As we unravel its structure, we will come to understand exactly what the Island represents and what rules dictate the shape of the world that has enveloped the survivors of Flight 815. Like Hamlet, our castaways are afflicted with ghosts -- both figurative and literal. And like Hamlet, they are charged with an unenviable task -- to set right a "time" that is out of joint. And, like Hamlet, they are caught in a strange nether place outside the realm of linear time where memory cannot be escaped -- but neither can it be ignored. Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat Or perhaps it is more fitting to turn to the i-Ching for insight into the challenges the Island holds. The hexagram most directly concerned with time is No. 32, Duration. As interpreted by Wilhelm, the passage could, in the final analysis, provide a fair summary of LOST's core concept and a fitting sentiment on which to close this analysis:
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