Desmond Time-Slip
+2 18 Votes
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By CrazyPolarBear
- Desmond Time-Slip
- Created: Aug 4, 2007
- Last updated: Aug 14, 2008
- After episode: 3.8: Flashes Before Your Eyes
- Status: Current
- Flag this theory:
I don’t know much about Quantum Theory, but I did read something in a book by George Smoot about ‘an object’s state being influenced just as much by it’s future as it is by it’s past’ so with that in mind heres my take on it.
When Desmond turned the failsafe key he instantly experienced he was freed from the confines of time and instantly experienced his entire life in that moment and because of his strong emotional connection to Penny he chose to dwell in the time he spent with her.
He did travel back in time, hence his knowledge of the island when speaking to Charlie. After the charge was released Desmond was stabilised and was returned to his own time. So Desmond’s flashes all stem from the knowledge he gained when he turned the failsafe key. Time is pre-decided therefore Desmond was always destined to turn the key, and that was how he knew that Sarah would be able to walk again in series 2.
Thats about it!
Key characters
| Short Name | Full Name | Episodes | Theories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desmond | Desmond David Hume | 2.23, 3.17, 4.5 | 851 |
Key episodes
| # | Title | Aired | Central character | Theories |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | Man of Science, Man of Faith | 9-21-2005 | Shannon | 195 |
Key locations
| Theme | Relevant Episodes | Theories |
|---|---|---|
| The Swan station | 2.20, 2.23, 2.14, 2.17, 2.1, 2.2, 1.11, 3.3, 3.8 | 461 |
Some good thoughts here, although I don’t know if you are trying to imply time travel! I hope not, anyway. Think, mind travel! Tharde5, made a brilliant post, about mind travel, try to give it a read! +1
You do make some good points, although I’m not sure how the scene at the stadium fits in with your theory since it takes place before he turned the failsafe key. That’s the point when he was able to predict the future. +1 from me!!!
I rather like this because it doesn’t imply time travel, but instead, a different take on time itself. We as humans experience time in a linear fashion, always progressing forward. From this theory, I gather that Des was experiencing time all at once when he turned the failsafe key - there is no past, no present, no future, there just…IS. His flashes are echoes from that experience of “time omniscience”. A rather hearty +1 from me.
Question: Desmond experienced multiple visions of Charlie dying, so are you implying that when he turned the key he envisioned all of these ways Charlie would die, and himself saving him from each death up until the final one?
CPB—I like that idea that Des is drawn to that time because of its emotional connection. And that actually fits with an idea that’s kinda growing on me that all the flashbacks are in some way being used to emotionally manipulate the losties—that is that the flashbacks aren’t just to show us, the viewers, how their pasts connect to their present. The past connection is being used to manipulate them in the present.
Ditto what Dab said about tharde’s post on mind-travel. Also ProfO’s post and the comments here relate to what you are saying: http://www.lost-theories.com/theories/2007/may/30/youve-got-lift-it/
CPB: good post. I got involved in tharde5’s post about mind travel, but it didn’t seem to apply to Desmond. What he was/is experiencing is highly unique to Des. A lot of the other stuff, flashbacks, etc, I posed were memory modification (which essentuially made mind travel a poor man’s substitute for time travel). I do not however have an explanation for Desmond’s phenomenon. Possibly related in some way to the Orchid video?
http://www.lost-theories.com/theories/2007/jul/13/could-it-be-mind-travel-not-ti/
I think Desmonds experience somehow is linked to what went on in The Orchid video.
Hoodoo: Check this out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence Decoherence theory provides for Des seeing more futures than one.
+1.. i posted a comment but it happed too long and i decided post it as a theory.
not bad, but, I still think that Des didn’t experience the past other than in his own mind. If he had actually gone back in time and talked with Charlie, Charlie would have remembered him on the island. Also, I think what happened with des is a near death experience where everything flashed before him, and his mind inserted charlie into the story.
Good post, although I myself believe Des had a vision when he turned the key and didn’t actually travel anywhere else in time (physically or mentally). He just seemed too skittish about everything that happened with Charlie to have “traveled” anywhere during the discharge. If we assume he went back in time to meet Jack at the stadium, then to me he looked much more relaxed and in control than he did when guiding Charlie to the LG station. I think if Desmond IS actually influencing the past, he’ll have to gain more knowledge/insight of how to do it and how to hone his new skill (more guidance from Hawking perhaps?).
YouAll: Desmond DID meet Jack in real life at the stadium. This was prior to the sailboat race, which eventually shipwrecked Desmond on “the island”. And when Desmond and Jack first met on “the island”, in the hatch, they recognized one another and had a discussion about their past meeting in that Los Angeles stadium! That certainly doesn’t sound like a vision to me.
Wow! So many questions, though edicius has pretty much nailed it there. Lockeko, I doubt very much that I would remember some nutter wandering past ranting about an Island several years after, even if I hadn’t been on a Heroin binge in the meantime, so that explains Charlie. It also is irrelevant that the meeting with Jack occurred before Des got to the Island because he was always destined to and when he turned the key the resulting Time Anomaly affected his mind at every point in his life, so he would always have experiened flashes at certain times in his life even before the event occurred in ‘real-time’. It’s as simple as that!