Okay so I was rewatching a bit of Season 4 the other day and something has been bothering me. I think I missed something with the whole "Time on the island is different from time of the island" thing.

It seemed as if they were going towards time on the island was slower than off. For example, the characters have been on the island for around 100 days when off the island it has really been longer than that. I originally thought that was what was going to happen, but it didn't. And time off the island was just the same as it was on the island.

So what's the point with the time issues. Im confused, maybe I missed something?

Time on the island is the same as time off the island. The problem lies with traveling past the island's barrier where a bearing must be followed. Stray off this bearing, and there will be time effects.

Desmond and Sayid were gone for forever because they strayed off the bearing. The rocket took longer to get to the island in Dan's test because it traveled on the wrong bearing. The doctor appeared on the losties beach because he traveled on the wrong bearing, one that sped him up through time. His is the most perplexing, because he wasn't dead yet.

Yeah, the Island seems have its own kind of time force field type thingy (yeah, that's about as scientific as I get), so even though time goes the same on and off the Island, when you go through the force field thingy at the wrong bearing, thing's get confusing.

Okay, thank you! I get it now. And I understand that we don't exactly know WHY there's time lagging... there just is.

Thank you for helping me understand this!