"Mythological elements include a scientific organization called the Dharma Initiative, a sequence of numbers that frequently appears in the lives of the characters in the past, present and future, and personal connections (synchronicity) between the characters they are often unaware of. That the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 are dead and in purgatory -- was specifically denied by J.J. Abrams. Damon Lindelof rejected speculation that spaceships or aliens influenced the events on the island, or that everything seen was a fictional reality taking place in someone's mind. Lindelof refuted the theory that the "Monster" was a nanobot cloud similar to the one featured in Michael Crichton's novel Prey. There are several recurring motifs: dysfunctional family situations, apocalyptic events, coincidence versus fate, conflict between science and faith." - Adriano