There is no such thing as the “smoke monster” prior to Jacob throwing his brother (The Man in Black) into The Source. That’s what “mother” meant when she said that going in there would make you “worse than dead” and what The Man in Black meant when he said that Jacob had taken away his body.

The Man in Black became the smoke monster, so before this there was no smoke monster to impersonate his “dead real mother.” His dead real mother appeared to him and not Jacob because he had the ability to commune with the dead and to “know” things. This is why the smoke monster has these powers as well.

Anyway, it is obvious that I like the show a lot more than you, so I won’t try to belabor my points here. I will point out, however, that it’s much more fun to just sit back and enjoy the show than try to pick it apart so that you can write a blog post about it the next day that includes such phrases as “But I digress” and other critic favorites.