Lain Iwakura has become unstuck in time.......

[Yui_Reborn]

It's been a while since I've seen Lain, so pardon me for being vague, but was anyone else extremely confused by the passage of time in Lain? Now I know that it was sort of the point, but I got the impression that we were constantly seeing different parts of the same day, only not in chronological order (not that the whole story was one day, but that most of the individual episodes were only about a day.......)

Like I said, given the theme of Lain I could see a reason for doing this, but did anyone find it so hard to follow again that it detracted from their enjoyment of watching Lain? Sometimes I found myself wishing that things were in a more coherent order so I could follow the story more easily.......

But hey, the medium is the message right? Couldn't have a story like Lain without experimenting with form........

[DrZepp]

well the theory has been thrown around that each segment is in fact lain changing reality.
if you watch closely i dont THINK (not 100%sure) that a lot of factors are carried over from segment to segment. so basically lain could be changing reality and every time "present day, present time HAHAHA" pops up it is the beggining of her newly created reality.
i have also pondered weather or not lain is in some ways like pulp fiction. i think some of it MAY be out of order (you know how pulp fiction was out of order) ill just throw that out there and see what people think

[Drizzten]

I lent my Lain eps to a friend, so I can't watch them for a few more days. I'd like to because this is a cool idea of a theory. This is one of those things where you need to hear the characters giving relative time measurements, like when Lain's mom talks about how Lain and her sister have slowly switched social places.

[heart havok]

i am a full believer in this theory...

"Present Day. Present Time."

we discussed this before when we had an 8 page long thread about Lain in the Other Anime Forums... and due to sleep deprivation, i mistakenly had mentioned the idea that the series was the same repeated day as opposed to the truly believed repeating WEEK.

[KEEL]

From Layer 05 - Distortion

(Mask) History is not merely a collection of points that we pass through on a timeline.
(Mask) They are connected by a line. No, perhaps it is more accurate to say that they are made to connect.
(Lain) By who? Who connects them?

Time itself is irrelevent. It's people's peception of time and what they believe happens which is important. That can be changed as we saw.

[Larva]

Note: I have only seen layers 1-7 so far.

Instead of argueing over a timeline, how about this for a theory.

I believe that its possible that many of the scenes and even entire layers have been a ripple in the wired.

The wired has no time boundries.

So the question is.... What is the 'real world', and what is the wired? In this we need to disconcern which is which when we watch the series. For instance, I strongly belive that 90% of layer 5 is existance in the wired.

Especially the 'prophecy' scenes with lain's sister.

[heart havok]

if you pay attention well enough, you can tell which is "real" and which is Wired.

[Drizzten]

You also have to discern the point of view for each scene...what is being observed and if that isn't a scene that is occuring in the mind of the focal character.