No. Just no.

[caranfindel]

Guys, I've had a horrible thought.

(No, it doesn't involve Dean and Sam and a hammer. That wouldn't be horrible at all.)

(Mildly spoilery for aired episodes only)

Blame fanspired, who said this in the comments on the 11.16 poll:

Oo! Even better: someone goes back into the cage with Lucifer and draws a celtic sigil while someone draws one outside. The cage turns out to be timeless so Sam's soul is still in there, but when the sigils are complete they kill Lucifer and boot Sam's soul back to the moment after he dropped into the cage in the first place, and the last 6 years (or 186 years in the case of Sam's soul) never happened!

In my review of 11.16, I pointed out that the hospital is named St. Eligius, which was the name of the hospital in the series St. Elsewhere.

Cropped for clarity

One thing St. Elsewhere is known for is the series finale, when it's revealed that the entire series apparently took place inside the mind of an autistic boy.

What if this is our clue? What if this is what's going on right now? The Sam!girls have noticed that Sam's unusually present this season. What if none of it really happened? What if it's all a figment of Sam's imagination, maybe in the seconds after Dean kills him with Death's scythe at the end of Brother's Keeper, just like An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge? Or if he's hallucinating through a fevered coma, still suffering from the sickness brought on by the Darkness?

What if the only reason Sam has been the hero of his own story for much of this season is because it's all happening inside his own head? What if they're going to have him wake up and realize, a la Dallas, that the entire season was all just a dream?

NO, SAM. ITS NOT A GOOD PLAN AT ALL.