The First Central Mystery of LOST Explained 

Short answer, yes: the island and others used him. There are more videos to come but in Season 1: John was given the dream (which included information from Boone's flashbacks/past, absorbed during the vision quest episodes earlier). This sinister dream led them to the drug plane (where Boone died and John was almost killed by Shannon when people held John responsible). Then in Season 2: Evil dreams (full of hints and foreshadowing), that both Eko & John experienced, led them to the Pearl Station (which is under the plane that killed Boone), in order to break John's faith in the button, so that the overload of the pocket would kill everyone (to release the Monster from the Island.) Then later, as Christian, the Monster had John turn the wheel, which started the paradoxical loop that allowed (as far as the Monster knew/hoped) the death of the remaining Candidates (in the Incident in 1977), as well as appearing as a resurrected Locke to credibly order Ben to kill Jacob in 2007. But the Monster didn't know that the Incident sent the Candidates forward in time to 2007.