What is the Wired?
An explanation of Lain is impossible without a clear understanding of the Wired. There are are few "layers" of the Wired, and I shall explain each layer in detail:
1. The Electric Layer consisting of electricity moving in the Wired
2. The Surface Layer consisting of the Wired using the real world as a surface to display information
2. The Information Layer consisting of data moving in the wired. Data can be numbers, sentences, pictures, videos etc as well as VR environments.
3. The Record Layer consisting of people's recorded memories as an alternate world
4. The Resonance Layer where the previous three layers resonate with the collective consciousness via the Schumann resonance
5. The Bridge Layer where the spirit world connects to the wired via the collective unconsciousness
6. The Psi Layer where the collective consciousness is hooked onto the Psi system via Lain
7. The computer layer which Lain can access.
8. The Device layer which requires devices to access the internet of Lain's world.
I've included a simple explanatory diagram at the end of the article so scroll to the bottom if you need just a summary.
The electric Layer
Hodgeson mentions the weak electromagnetic frequencies emitted by the brain
The Earth itself has its own electromagnetic waves
Hodgeson mentions the weak electromagnetic frequencies emitted by the brain
Note: Click on the slideshow to swipe through
The electric layer is the simplest layer to understand. All electric information on Earth is composed of electric signals. Signals themselves have properties such as amplitude, frequency etc. It's because of electricity that technology works.
Now, we have to understand that the electric layer in Lain is not limited to just devices, but it also extends to the earth. Human beings are composed of electricity too, it's how our nervous system functions, which is why we can interact with touchscreen devices. We know this because of a scientist named Galvani who made frog legs move by testing them with electric sparks.
In the show, both these facts are brought up. Hodgeson brings up the electromagnetic emission by human brains in Layer 6:Kids while we know that the earth emits Extremely Low frequency Electromagnetic waves in Layer 9: Protocol.
The Information Layer
Arisu's screams become electricity that reaches :Lain
The Wired would eventually emerge as a proto-mind from its information
Arisu's screams become electricity that reaches :Lain
Now the information layer seems to be another important layer. The Wired consists of data moving all over the world extremely fast, that data being anything and everything being converted into electric signals. Kind of like the internet today. A picture on the internet isn't like a real photograph, it's the computer reinterpreting the photograph according to electric signal data.
Now considering that everything on the Wired gets converted into electric signals, what exactly are pictures and text? That's right, thoughts and feelings. And if every computer is sending and receiving information in an orderly manner, then these thoughts and feelings will, hypothetically, give rise to a neural network, as hypothesized in Layer 9. This is a phenomenon called swarm logic. Just as how a person who purchases a soda contributes to the self regulating economy, people talking on the internet create a brain.
In the show, we witness this happen when Alice's screams become an electric thunderbolt that runs across the Wired into electric cables right outside Lain's bedroom, which is then heard by Lain as electric information. We can conceive of the Information layer as the modern day internet as we know it, with additional VR capabilities.
The Record Layer
Lain's dad makes this statement in layer 5
A zoom out reveals a parallel isolated world
Lain's dad makes this statement in layer 5
In Lain, we see an alternate world pop up multiple times across the show. Usually when this happens, it's either on its own, or with an electric buzz hover over it. What I assume is happening is that people's memories are being uploaded into the Wired (or something larger, as we will discuss later) and this is manifesting as a separate world, as Lain's dad puts it in Layer 5. Basically, things uploaded to the Wired will be recorded as a sort of permanent memory unless something changes.
We see a clue of this happening when Lain accesses Mika's memories of her moment of getting hacked even though by this point in the show she is for all intents and purposes, dead, as well as the Accela guy's thoughts from Layer 2 appearing in Layer 3 even though he is dead by the end of Layer 2.
See the Common questions answered page and look for "What happened to Mika?"
In Japanese Mythology, the gods wee said to inhabit a parallel universe that is a mirror of our own. The Wired is repeatedly symbolized as a sort of afterlife and 'other side', so the idea of the Wired being a mirror reality does make sense if you are a Japanese person watching these shows.
The Resonance Layer
The emf frequencies are emitted by the brain
Lain is hearing voices in Layer 1 because of Eiri's program in protocol 7
The emf frequencies are emitted by the brain
Now basically in SEL, Layer 9: Protocol holds the most important key to what is happening in the show. It's by far the most important episode in the show.
In the final section of Layer 9, we see that the earth emits certain electromagnetic frequencies onto the Earth, but what it does to the human brain is not known.
Meanwhile, Professor Hodgeson in Layer 6, while explaining Psi, says that the human brain emits tiny electromagnetic frequencies.
We also come across these vague terms like "collective unconscious", "schumann resonance" and "protocol 7". What do these mean? Here are the definitions to clear it up for you.
Frequency: The amount of waves that pass through a point at a given time. When you pluck a rubber bands, the faster it oscillates means it has a high amount of vibrations.
Collective unconscious: The collective unconscious is a theory proposed by the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, where he stated that because of similarities he observed in completely disconnected cultures, humans must be connected at an unconscious level. This collected unconscious can be seen as a"cloud computer", where prexisting ideas are "downloaded" into us upon birth.
In Serial Experiments Lain, this is implied by the electromagnetic interactions between the earth and Man's brain, which brings us to...
Resonance: A phenomenon in which an external force or a vibrating system forces another system around it to vibrate with greater amplitude at a specified frequency of operation.
A simple example of resonance is an acoustic guitar, where musical notes are produced when the frequency of the air in the guitar's hollow box resonates with the frequency of the plucked string, producing musical notes. Plucking the string on its own with a shut airbox will not create any musical notes.
Schumann Resonance: In Lain, the schumann resonance is a frequency range at which the earth connects all beings on earth together via electromagnetic waves as implied in Layer 9.
Protocol 7: Protocol 7 is an internet communication protocol determining the information flow of the wired, information itself being electric signals. Masami eiri made electricity in the Wired vibrate at the same frequency of the Wired. This allowed the Wired and the Collective Unconscious of humanity to be somewhat connected wirelessly. Internet protocols determine how signals are processed on the internet.
This allows electricity to become thoughts and thoughts to become electricity. And since code is technically just applied electricity, by manipulating the wired you can manipulate people's perception in their heads, which what Eiri does to Lain throughout the show.
All those weird hallucinations and random voices? That's basically either Eiri or the collective consciousness interacting with Lain.
One important thing to note is that at the beginning of the show, protocol 7 is just beginning to see a rollout. So the blurring boundaries between the Wired and the Real world is partially due to the increased distribution of protocol 7 being connected to these signal towers, which is why they give that weird buzzing/humming noise.
So basically, these three factors allow one global communication network (the wired) overlap with another global communication network (the collective unconscious)
Why was the collective unconscious lost to time? Well I've worked with BCI's (Brain computer interfaces) personally, and the major problem with catching a signal is something called EMF interference. Simple metal sheets and electrical equipment can interfere with catching signals on the headset. This is why the collective unconscious was disconnected at some point.
This is basically an in-universe explanation of the concept of the noosphere.
The Bridge Layer
This Lain talks about the fact that dead people and their information seemed to exist on the Wired
We see Chisa's ghost at the end of Layer 1
We see Lain enter a separate world where she sees a memory of someone's death in Layer 1
This Lain talks about the fact that dead people and their information seemed to exist on the Wired
In the second half of Layer 13: Landscape, the sundress Lain asks:
“The Wired isn’t an upper layer of the real world. A network functions as a field to pass information. Information doesn’t stay in standstill, it always stays in motion. People’s memories aren’t personal or one part of human history. Not even just a part of the shared unconsciousness. Do you think human beings could store something that vast?”
Lain realizes that the wired was connected to something else. But what? Sundress Lain doesn't answer, saying that we don't really need to know.
But there is a very critical clue in the same episode. Sundress Lain herself tells Lain:
"Dead people's information isn't leaking out of the Wired anymore"
This means that in some way, dead people were being trapped in the wired. We see this happen in Layer 1 with Chisa's ghost, as well as the spirit of the gunman in Layer 11. So in some way that we don't know of, the Wired is most definitely connected to the Spirit world.
But the clue always existed in front of us, in Layer 9: Protocol. In Layer 9, we know that John C Lilly, probed his unconscious mind to come into contact with higher dimensional beings he called the E.C.C.O.
If work backward and assume this fact to be true, this implies that the Unconscious mind itself was a gateway into a world of spirits of some sort.
While it is arguable that the E.C.C.O are spirits, there are numerous examples of dead spirits roaming in the wired, some including the dead girl hit by the train in episode 1 and a similar one reappearing in episode 2, as well as some weird creepy blobs floating around. These are mononoke and Yurei or Japanese ghosts unable to move on.
The best confirmation of this is in Layer 13 after Lain splits the Wired and the Real world. Notice the sound design at 4:48–4:50. While for most of the show we were given one distinct hum, now it splits into two separate hums. At 5:00, this also splits into a 3rd distinct hum!
What does it mean? Obviously this is symbolism for how Lain split the wired and the real world apart, while also re-correcting and resetting everyone’s memories. But because Lain split the wired and the real world by blocking the collective consciousness, it also means that the collective unconsciousness was also disentangled from the Wired and the real world, thereby delinking the spirit world from the Wired.
For more confirmation of the spirit world parts of Lain, please see the Common Questions page and scroll to "What are red splotches in the shadows?", "Why does smoke come out of Lain's fingers" and "Who is the creepy girl in episode 2?".
This is confirmed in this interview, where the SEL's writers made a statement Wired is compared to the Ame-no-ukihashi:
"That story (what was a mail from a dead girl) is beginning as horror story,
and Lain's theme is overlaying heaven on the Network.
However, this theme wasn't our conclusion.
In fact, our start line was "(Maybe,) heaven connects to network."
....
....
Therefore, what the wired in the "lain" in the animation series is the middle earth which connect the reality world with the another world --- heaven or hell"
This interview from Animerica 1999 from the show's creators says that originally they could have substituted the collective unconscious with the Kabbalah or the Akashic records, both embodying realms of "higher transcendent knowledge".
The Psi Layer
We see a huge psychic blast come out of nowhere in Layer 8
Hodgeson describes PSI and the KIDS system
It seems that Eiri uses Psi to rebuild a body for himself
We see a huge psychic blast come out of nowhere in Layer 8
Psi is not a power that is properly understood in Lain, but basically it is a form of telekinetic power, like that of the pokemon Mewtwo. Psi is first explained in Layer 5 by professor Hodgeson. As Hodgeson explains, the original psi receptors of the KIDS experiment collected the psi energy from little children which resulted in a psychic blast.
In small amounts, psi can affect the probability of a coin by moving it very slightly or have a degree of intuition by somewhat seeing into the future. Logically following from this, large amounts can give you the ability to move objects and to sometimes see the future. We see this happen in Layer 6: KIDS, when children are able to see the Lain hologram in the sky before everyone else does.
Now in the final section of that Layer 4, the Tachibana labguy explains that some hole in protocol was exploited that allowed the Knights to connect Phantoma to some random children's game. Psi explains how the guy in Layer 4 was able to shoot the kid with his finger guns. Now remember, the reason why the guy could not escape phantoma and why he was able to use psi was because his mind was hacked and hooked into KIDS.
When Lain's curiosity made her hook into phantoma via her psyche chip, she basically connected the entirety of the Wired to the KIDS tech, and being the electric flow of the wired itself, this allowed the Knights to then hack into the billboards of Shibuya as well as the government information devices such as the traffic monitor in Layer 5.
Psi is also the reason why Eiri was able to build a body for himself out of Lain's computer components in Layer 12: Landscape. We see Psi get stronger throughout the show as more and more towers are fitted with protocol 7.
The surface layer
Multiple times throughout the show, we see the wired occur in the shadows of the real world, and often the wired will use the real world as a way to manifest itself in Lain's mind. This is why Lain as well as the Men in black can perceive the children's suicides in the shadows of the Wired. Yoshitoshi abe, the lead character designer for the show makes this statement in this interview:
"....actually, that wasn't my idea, but the director's, to signify that the Wired is in the shadow, even in the real world, it's still there beneath the surface."
Please see "Is the Wired Heaven or Hell?" in What is SEL trying to say? for why this stylistic choice was made
The computer layer
We see the computer blink in response to Lain's agitated condition in Layer 4
Lain's computer beeps this message after the Men nin Black are thwarted
When Lain assimilates everyone into her hivemind, thses supercomputer tendencies then manifested there as well. Lain's feeling of being unlovable as what she is prompted the global hivemind to say "let's all love Lain!"
We see the computer blink in response to Lain's agitated condition in Layer 4
The collective connected network of all devices on Earth make the Wired a sort of global supercomputer. Information from any point in the Wired can be accessed from any other point in the Wired barring security concerns.
As I'll explain in detail in Lain explained , Lain subconsciously controls the flow of information in the wired itself, and this allows the Wired to sort of "respond" to her emotional state. The idea of the subconscious responding to the conscious mind is a phenomenon documented throughout history through the archetypal symbols in dreams. The most notable example is the story of the discovery of Benzene's chemical structure:
I was sitting, writing at my text-book; but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed.
Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation: long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together; all twining and twisting in snake-like motion.
But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes.
As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis.
This methodology is also expanded by multiple gurus, such as the book "The new psycho cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz and " The power of your subconscious mind" by Dr Joseph Murphy.
We see this happen multiple times during the show, such as when Lain's computers bleep "intruder interrupted" in Layer 4, and in Layer 8 when Lain subconsciously looks for the imposter via her inner computer etc. This seems to be implying that Lain's mind is sort of interpreting information for her in a manner that she can understand, a notable example being the multicoloured shadows in episode 1, and the blood on the wires in Layer 1, when Lain is probably internally wondering what happened when the train crashed, later explained to be an accident.
This reoccurs across the episodes of the show, where the Wired acts as a sort supercomputer for Lain's subconscious interests. Lain's brain interprets this information in a manner she can understand, just like how our brains make sure they automatically flip the images we see in our eyes so that we don't see everything upside down. The configuration of our brains is a huge reason as to why we interpret things the way we do, which is why other animals probably interpret the world differently.
The Device Layer
We see individual body parts such as eyes and ears in the Wired
We see this happen after the Tachibana representative exclaims how the Wired is beginning to crumble in Layer 7
We see individual body parts such as eyes and ears in the Wired
The Wired, summarized
This short slideshow should be a good summary of how the Wired exactly works if the previous examples didn't make it clear. Click on the slideshow to expand it
I will expand these arguments in the next section, "Lain explained"