I've been thinking some more about this, and i think the 'looping' of Horace in he dream definetely signifies that Jacob/the island only has limited usage of 'dream effectors' - the same could be seen when Locke delved into his subconscious and was presented with a dream in which Boone guided him for that dream (3.03). 'Boone' (or Jacob's impersonation of 'Boone'?) only had a
limited time to effect Locke..this is illustrated by the 'cleaned-up' version of Boone which Locke first sees, and the bloodied and deathly vesion of Boone which Locke last saw when he was fatally wounded in the beachcraft plane:
.. this deathly version of Boone gives Locke the final piece of the message - to save
Eko, which in turn was another piece in the islands planning of Locke's
journey -
"lift your up your eyes and look north" etc.
So it would appear that the ability to guide Locke (and others) via dreams is limited..at's almost as if Jacob(or the island) can only use the 'impression' of a dream for so long, before that dream either has to re-loop, or end -
"Wake up, John!":
