LITTLE PEOPLE

There is an ancient Celt legend on the Isle of Man that says it was once inhabited by a band of Little People who had magical powers that could transport humans into other realms, only to return hundreds of years later.

The concept of alien abductions, disappearing ships and aircraft in time vortexes, and strange electromagnetic properties of Earth's hot spots, have bolstered the concept of inter-dimensional transport to new worlds or new universes.  Consistent with these theories is the suspension of mortality in the travelers. They allegedly return to Earth as if only a day had passed when in fact it had been a century.

So these portal dimensions must be a place where there is no linear time line. A place where there is no concept of past, present or future just mere existence. Sound familiar? That was how the sideways world was explained.

It could be a reasonable definition for the after life. A mortal soul must travel somewhere to become immortal. It is why Christian told Jack that some of his friends died "long" before and "long" after his own demise, but they did not skip a beat living in the sideways realm.

How could that be?

Well, if you reverse the Earth's Little People's mythology, one can imagine that the souls in the sideways spirit world were abducted or taken to the island realm in order to experience new things, work out problems, or become re-acquainted with humanity.  This would suppose that the linear time elements of the human souls would be 1) flashbacks, to 2) sideways world, to 3) island realm, then back to 2) sideways world conclusion.

In ancient Egyptian culture, this chain of events is described as a soul's journey through an underworld. It could live in human body form in another dimension without knowing its own fate. It could think that it is living a human existence when in fact it is a second life. In this second life, the souls eat, drink, marry, fight, and die. So why would there be a need for a second life in the scheme of the after life?

If the lesson is that one cannot move on without sufficient bonds of love and friendship, than that is what occurred in the sideways church.  Without the characters having experienced the island tangent, they would have never experienced the deep bonds they missed during their earthly existence. One can imagine reincarnation of multiple existences in order to awaken one's final spirit.