This theory will more or less end up in the same place as my “Eternal Sunshine” theory, regarding purpose of the button and punishment for failure, so it will likely include some of the same text.
In book 2 of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, “The Drawing of the Three,” the main character, Roland, approaches three doors on his trek down a beach. By passing through each door, Roland enters the mind of someone living in a different place and time. Roland is able to sit back and monitor what this person does, or he is able to take control of that person’s actions.
This is what occurs with Desmond after turning the failsafe key. The flashback sound transports us to the hatch before he turns the key. After doing so, all goes white and the sound of the countdown clock resetting is heard. Then, Desmond wakes up back in England, years before the Island, and even before his service in the military. I do not believe this was a side-effect of turning the key, however. I believe that this was the work of the Island.
The important thing here is unconsciousness. When Desmond wakes up in England, it was after falling off the ladder while painting and getting knocked out. He returns to the Island after being struck in the head by the cricket bat and knocked out.
Desmond was not physically transported back to England, but like Roland, he was transported mentally or psychically into the mind of his past self. The Island could only do this at a point in time where Desmond lost consciousness. Rather, Desmond of the past is sharing mental functions with the mind of our present Desmond. This explains why he freezes up when he sees and hears things in England that remind him of elements of the Island and the Swan station. His two mental selfs conflicting and overlapping with each other causes this confusion.
Now, as to why Desmond was sent back? I believe that it was the Island’s way of proving a point to Desmond. Desmond thinks he has been given an opportunity to start it all over, but he discovers he has not been given this chance when he attempts to buy the ring. Desmond’s whole life led up to him being stranded on the Island and pushing the button and that was the way it was supposed to be.
The jewelry store woman may have been one of two things: a genuine pre-cognitive individual who has a deep knowledge of future events, or she was an element of the Island following Desmond into his past. I tend to lean towards the Island option, because she seemed to disappear quite quickly after the building accident, leaving Desmond to deal with his new-found insight on the universe’s capability to course correct. In a way, the Island, having a knowledge of Desmond’s memories, is course correcting, preventing past Desmond from changing his overall course, ensuring that he end up on the Island. The Island also deliberately took Desmond back to the point it did because this was where everything seemed to ‘go wrong’ for Desmond personally, although it shows him that it served a purpose.
A dilemma that arises from all this is that Desmond does do things slightly differently in this new past. He changes some courses by telling his friend about the Island and confronting Charlie on the street. A rule of thumb of time travel is that altering even the slightest thing in the past can have drastic effects on the future. This could potentially mean that Desmond’s time travel has likely caused some kind of alternate future for the survivors to discover if they ever make it off the Island. Or it could cause an on-coming rift in the space-time continuum as proposed in “Back to the Future.”
However, we have an out for this, because there is another rule of thumb about time travel stating that if you were to go into the past and alter something about your life, doing so is not actually the first time you’ve done this. It creates a time loop scenario in which what your present self does in your past ultimately brings your past self to your current present. This can cause memories like in “12 Monkeys,” where Bruce Willis has a childhood memory of seeing his future self trying to alter the future. He does not realize this until the end of the film. Desmond is kind of in a similar situation. He remembers things from the past only because his future self brought him there to invariably revisit his own past in the future.
Confused yet?
So Desmond is stuck in a time loop he cannot change, or so it seems. I think he was sent back in time by the Island so the Island could show him that he was supposed to get to the Island and he was supposed to push the button. By saying that pushing the button was the only great thing he would ever do in his life, the Island is rebuking him for giving up on the button. Desmond failed the Island and that’s not something you want to go around doing.
[Here’s some repeat from my “Eternal Sunshine” theory]
Desmond was supposed to find the Island, because Kelvin was growing disillusioned with the Swan station. Locke was supposed to find the hatch and inadvertently cause Boone's death so he would beat on the hatch lid to assure a suicidal Desmond that the world still existed out there. Locke was NOT supposed to enter the hatch though (as evidenced by Walt's pre-cog warning not to open it). By knowing the world still existed, Desmond found renewed purpose and kept pushing the button.
Desmond was supposed to keep pushing that button, but he didn't. Locke blew open the hatch, Desmond fled, and Locke took over the button as a matter of faith. The Island expected him to keep pushing it. For one reason or another, the Island wanted that button pushed. Perhaps it keeps it hidden and does not wish to be found. That's something to be revealed later in the series.
Locke was growing disillusioned with the hatch and Ben (as Henry Gale) saying it did nothing. The Island then summoned Eko to find the ?, where he was challenged to accept faith in the button over seemingly empirical evidence stating the button was phony. Eko took over and the Island expected him to keep pushing it. Unfortunately, Locke halted all ability to push the button and Desmond was forced to use the failsafe key, knowing what little he did about the button's effects.
Desmond, Locke and Eko were the three most important button pushers as of late. The button was not pushed, the Swan went BOOM, and the Island got angry. The Island used the smoke monster to kill Eko as punishment for his failings, leaving Locke and Desmond yet to be punished.
[End of repeats]
Desmond was being shown that he was meant to get there and meant to keep pushing the button. He may not realize that Eko was punished for failing the Island, but he knows now that the Island means business and it has shown him through his time travel experience that things can be course corrected despite any effort to alter the grand plan.
[more repeat]
As we have seen, the Island is capable of bestowing gifts upon some of our Losties- Locke's legs, Rose's tumor, and potentially Jin's ability to father children. I believe the Island is also capable of dishing out curses and has given Desmond pre-cognitive abilities as punishment. He can see the bad things coming but now knows the Island intends to course-correct to thwart his efforts to save the day. He can also see good things as well, but seeing the bad things could be enough to drive him mad as punishment for failing at the button.
Desmond may be able to see bad things coming, and he may decide to try and stick it to the Island and prevent them, but I think this will cause the Island to escalate it's attempts, bad news for the beach dwellers, and will eventually wear Desmond out. Desmond will try to prove he is capable of being a great man, but the Island will try just as hard to thwart him. Classic Man vs. Nature (or Man vs. freaky paranormal Island in this case) scenario.
[end of repeat]
The unconscious part appears to be crucial to not only Des’s time traveling, but also the Island bestowing it’s gifts and curses on people. Looking back, you can see that both Locke and Rose were unconscious after the crash, and woke up with their "gifts" of healing. As Jin is still up in the air, it seems like perhaps the Island needs you to be knocked out before tampering with you.
Now, Des could actually revolt against the Island and the normalcy of the space-time continuum by using his pre-cog abilities to his favor. If The Lost Experience from last summer is canon and the things it revealed about DHARMA and the Numbers is all true, then I think this makes Desmond an important cog in altering the sequence of the Valenzetti Equation. While the Island may be punishing him by allowing him to see who is going to be dying and supposedly not be able to a darn thing about it, Desmond just might be able to prove the Island wrong, reset the equation and save humanity.
So, Desmond did in fact travel through time and space (at least mentally) and discovers that he is seemingly stuck in a time loop where he keeps making the same decisions over and over, resulting in restarting the time loop time after time, much like Roland from The Dark Tower series. The only difference is that Desmond may be able to break the time loop.
The producers of Lost have admitted a love for Stephen King’s work, making this possibility all the more interesting.
Theory by g-man
In book 2 of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, “The Drawing of the Three,” the main character, Roland, approaches three doors on his trek down a beach. By passing through each door, Roland enters the mind of someone living in a different place and time. Roland is able to sit back and monitor what this person does, or he is able to take control of that person’s actions.
This is what occurs with Desmond after turning the failsafe key. The flashback sound transports us to the hatch before he turns the key. After doing so, all goes white and the sound of the countdown clock resetting is heard. Then, Desmond wakes up back in England, years before the Island, and even before his service in the military. I do not believe this was a side-effect of turning the key, however. I believe that this was the work of the Island.
The important thing here is unconsciousness. When Desmond wakes up in England, it was after falling off the ladder while painting and getting knocked out. He returns to the Island after being struck in the head by the cricket bat and knocked out.
Desmond was not physically transported back to England, but like Roland, he was transported mentally or psychically into the mind of his past self. The Island could only do this at a point in time where Desmond lost consciousness. Rather, Desmond of the past is sharing mental functions with the mind of our present Desmond. This explains why he freezes up when he sees and hears things in England that remind him of elements of the Island and the Swan station. His two mental selfs conflicting and overlapping with each other causes this confusion.
Now, as to why Desmond was sent back? I believe that it was the Island’s way of proving a point to Desmond. Desmond thinks he has been given an opportunity to start it all over, but he discovers he has not been given this chance when he attempts to buy the ring. Desmond’s whole life led up to him being stranded on the Island and pushing the button and that was the way it was supposed to be.
The jewelry store woman may have been one of two things: a genuine pre-cognitive individual who has a deep knowledge of future events, or she was an element of the Island following Desmond into his past. I tend to lean towards the Island option, because she seemed to disappear quite quickly after the building accident, leaving Desmond to deal with his new-found insight on the universe’s capability to course correct. In a way, the Island, having a knowledge of Desmond’s memories, is course correcting, preventing past Desmond from changing his overall course, ensuring that he end up on the Island. The Island also deliberately took Desmond back to the point it did because this was where everything seemed to ‘go wrong’ for Desmond personally, although it shows him that it served a purpose.
A dilemma that arises from all this is that Desmond does do things slightly differently in this new past. He changes some courses by telling his friend about the Island and confronting Charlie on the street. A rule of thumb of time travel is that altering even the slightest thing in the past can have drastic effects on the future. This could potentially mean that Desmond’s time travel has likely caused some kind of alternate future for the survivors to discover if they ever make it off the Island. Or it could cause an on-coming rift in the space-time continuum as proposed in “Back to the Future.”
However, we have an out for this, because there is another rule of thumb about time travel stating that if you were to go into the past and alter something about your life, doing so is not actually the first time you’ve done this. It creates a time loop scenario in which what your present self does in your past ultimately brings your past self to your current present. This can cause memories like in “12 Monkeys,” where Bruce Willis has a childhood memory of seeing his future self trying to alter the future. He does not realize this until the end of the film. Desmond is kind of in a similar situation. He remembers things from the past only because his future self brought him there to invariably revisit his own past in the future.
Confused yet?
So Desmond is stuck in a time loop he cannot change, or so it seems. I think he was sent back in time by the Island so the Island could show him that he was supposed to get to the Island and he was supposed to push the button. By saying that pushing the button was the only great thing he would ever do in his life, the Island is rebuking him for giving up on the button. Desmond failed the Island and that’s not something you want to go around doing.
[Here’s some repeat from my “Eternal Sunshine” theory]
Desmond was supposed to find the Island, because Kelvin was growing disillusioned with the Swan station. Locke was supposed to find the hatch and inadvertently cause Boone's death so he would beat on the hatch lid to assure a suicidal Desmond that the world still existed out there. Locke was NOT supposed to enter the hatch though (as evidenced by Walt's pre-cog warning not to open it). By knowing the world still existed, Desmond found renewed purpose and kept pushing the button.
Desmond was supposed to keep pushing that button, but he didn't. Locke blew open the hatch, Desmond fled, and Locke took over the button as a matter of faith. The Island expected him to keep pushing it. For one reason or another, the Island wanted that button pushed. Perhaps it keeps it hidden and does not wish to be found. That's something to be revealed later in the series.
Locke was growing disillusioned with the hatch and Ben (as Henry Gale) saying it did nothing. The Island then summoned Eko to find the ?, where he was challenged to accept faith in the button over seemingly empirical evidence stating the button was phony. Eko took over and the Island expected him to keep pushing it. Unfortunately, Locke halted all ability to push the button and Desmond was forced to use the failsafe key, knowing what little he did about the button's effects.
Desmond, Locke and Eko were the three most important button pushers as of late. The button was not pushed, the Swan went BOOM, and the Island got angry. The Island used the smoke monster to kill Eko as punishment for his failings, leaving Locke and Desmond yet to be punished.
[End of repeats]
Desmond was being shown that he was meant to get there and meant to keep pushing the button. He may not realize that Eko was punished for failing the Island, but he knows now that the Island means business and it has shown him through his time travel experience that things can be course corrected despite any effort to alter the grand plan.
[more repeat]
As we have seen, the Island is capable of bestowing gifts upon some of our Losties- Locke's legs, Rose's tumor, and potentially Jin's ability to father children. I believe the Island is also capable of dishing out curses and has given Desmond pre-cognitive abilities as punishment. He can see the bad things coming but now knows the Island intends to course-correct to thwart his efforts to save the day. He can also see good things as well, but seeing the bad things could be enough to drive him mad as punishment for failing at the button.
Desmond may be able to see bad things coming, and he may decide to try and stick it to the Island and prevent them, but I think this will cause the Island to escalate it's attempts, bad news for the beach dwellers, and will eventually wear Desmond out. Desmond will try to prove he is capable of being a great man, but the Island will try just as hard to thwart him. Classic Man vs. Nature (or Man vs. freaky paranormal Island in this case) scenario.
[end of repeat]
The unconscious part appears to be crucial to not only Des’s time traveling, but also the Island bestowing it’s gifts and curses on people. Looking back, you can see that both Locke and Rose were unconscious after the crash, and woke up with their "gifts" of healing. As Jin is still up in the air, it seems like perhaps the Island needs you to be knocked out before tampering with you.
Now, Des could actually revolt against the Island and the normalcy of the space-time continuum by using his pre-cog abilities to his favor. If The Lost Experience from last summer is canon and the things it revealed about DHARMA and the Numbers is all true, then I think this makes Desmond an important cog in altering the sequence of the Valenzetti Equation. While the Island may be punishing him by allowing him to see who is going to be dying and supposedly not be able to a darn thing about it, Desmond just might be able to prove the Island wrong, reset the equation and save humanity.
So, Desmond did in fact travel through time and space (at least mentally) and discovers that he is seemingly stuck in a time loop where he keeps making the same decisions over and over, resulting in restarting the time loop time after time, much like Roland from The Dark Tower series. The only difference is that Desmond may be able to break the time loop.
The producers of Lost have admitted a love for Stephen King’s work, making this possibility all the more interesting.
Theory by g-man
