I’ve always thought that the flashbacks we’ve seen throughout this show were not entirely accurate views of past events, and I think the recent Desmond episode backs that up.
My theory is that the flashbacks we see are the memories of the people involved, but only as they remember them now, which may or may not be completely “true”. In addition, I think the island (or something on it) influences these memories for some reason.
In addition, whatever process the island uses to do this is not strictly limited by time, so that it could perhaps influence the memories / thoughts that subjects had before they even got to the island, as long as they get there at some point (destiny, etc.)
Finally, Desmond was exposed to an extreme version of whatever force enables this distortion, which is why his recent “flashback” was so vivid, long and lucid (he was able to realize that he was experiencing a flashback but still participate in it, like a lucid dream).
One interesting question to ponder (whether this theory is accurate or not) is that the effect that Desmond experienced could not have been just seeing his future flash before his eyes, because that future has changed several times since. He said he saw Charlie die from the lightning, AND later die drowning trying to save Claire. So either Desmond saw multiple branches of the future timeline at the time he turned the key, OR he is continuing to see variations as things change.
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