The Hawkins Lab numbered child experiments are encapsulations/ manifestations/ artifacts of each year of Will Byers’ or Mike Wheeler’s life traumas.
[a #LabNumbersGate theory]
And the interactions between these children probably represent psychic tethers between those ages of their lives. For example, how one trauma at a certain age (an older number) ends up influencing them at a later age (a younger number).
The famous numbers are:
001 -> Henry Creel / Vecna -> 1 year old Will/Mike -> maybe Will went through something as a baby; maybe this is the year when he was handed to Dr Brenner (or some other exploitative entity) by a certain family member to be experimented on and taken advantage of, just like Henry Creel.
008 -> Kali Prasad -> 8 year old Will/Mike -> 1979, the year of the Massacre at Hawkins Lab; also, Brenner’s (or Henry’s, can’t remember) 8th birthday party references in The First Shadow play. #Birthdaygate. This year of Will/Mike’s life is probably the most traumatic of them all. This is why its manifestation is Kali, a reference to Kali the Hindu goddess of chaos, fierce protection, raw emotion, rebellion, vengeance, violence, time, complete liberation of both good and bad, etc. (probably a chaotic neutral force, bordering on chaotic evil.)
011 -> Eleven / Jane -> 11 year old Will/Mike -> i am almost sure Eleven represents the age at which “the first i love you” happened between Byler. It’s innocent first love. Eleven is the physical manifestation of Byler and their budding romance. However, she was taken from her mother / became an orphan shortly after birth, in the sense that Byler was “shut down”, “stolen” or forcibly hidden by *someone* even before it had the chance to be developed.
The famous relationships are:
001 mentors 011 -> Henry mentors Eleven -> Will/Mike’s 1 year old life events & psychology influence their 11 year old life events & psychology.
001 kills all the other numbers except 008 and 011 in 1979 -> some part of Will/Mike’s mind that was derived from their 1 year old stage causes drastic ripples in their 8 year old life stage and makes them forget their traumatic events from the other years (the killed numbers). However they aren’t gone “for good”, because they were psychically “absorbed” by 001/Henry’s mind. Meaning that 001/Henry/Vecna is currently encapsulating and harboring those memories and traumas, stopping them from “getting out” and being properly processed.
011 sends 001 to Dimension X -> also during the 1979 traumatic event, Eleven (Byler’s love) rejects the chaotic and destructive influence of something that went terribly wrong in their 1 year old life stage, burying that memory/force and making it dormant, however inadvertently causing its further corruption and development of Vecna.
008 mentoring 011 -> Kali mentors Eleven -> Will/Mike’s 8 year old life events & psychology influence their 11 year old life events & psychology.
This is still a very budding / underdeveloped theory, but there is SO MUCH more to explore. I’ll try to find the time 😭