ZZZZZZZ Were the Passengers of Oceanic 815 Dead the Whole Time?
An emphatic NO! I have re-watched Lost every year since it ended in 2010. I am currently on my 15th iteration of my annual Lost-a-Day marathon where I watch the show one episode a day from start to ending. I just finished watching Walkabout (S01E04) this morning. Everything that happened on the Island actually happened to the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 and “The Others”. All the “flash backs”, all the “flash forwards”, all the time shifts and all their trials and tribulations actually occurred. The “flash sideways” (the subject of Season 6), however, was not real in the ordinary sense. It was a construct created by the passengers and other principal characters where they could meet in the afterlife. It takes place some “time” after their deaths which occurred for some earlier and for some later. This construct exists outside of space and time in some spiritual place. Some consider this to be Purgatory and perhaps it is,, but not all souls reside here, only those who “constructed” this place. In the end those in the chapel “move on”, where they move on to is not specified. Some other characters remained behind to resolve issues left unfinished in their lives.