Hello. From what I understand:

Desmond didn't go back in time, he just re-lived his past. He didn't change the past, he just relived it. If he did 'change' his past slightly, then that would mean Charlie would already know about the button, the island, and Desmond. Also, Desmond would'nt have talked or written to Penny whilst on the island since they broke up beforehand. The fact that Charlie didn't gain memories after the hatch explosion shows us that the event where Desmond talked to Charlie never really happened in 'reality'. All of what Desmond goes through in this episodes flashbacks (which aren't REALLY flashbacks per-say) happened moreso in his head.

Now I'm waiting for the Americans to watch the episode so we can really start talking about it. I don't think we can really work with the old lady at all, though. I wish they went more into it. I mean, at least make her work with someone. Oh well, maybe the things in her jewelry shop will reveal something.

somewhat

it reminded me of an occurence at owl creek bridge...but what of his knowledge of the future? what does that entail...I kinda saw this episode as Lost coming out of the closet as a science fiction and I dont mind.

It's largely based on

science fiction, but theoretically plausible science fiction. Time travel into the future is something you can say is possible, though travelling into the past is deemed impossible. I'm still not clear on how he can see the future when on the island. When he's in his dream it makes sense because he is seeing moments he's lived, but he didn't live moments like Charlie drowning already. If he did, they would've revealed that in this episode. No reason not to.
I mean, I was aware that the reason he could see the future in his 'flashback' was because he already lived those moments. I'm not really sure how he can see the future because he obviously hasn't 'lived' those moments yet. Strange. Maybe he simply also sees flashes of the future, though that'd be very inconsistent. I mean, the whole reason for him being in his own past is because turning the key sent him there. There, he sees flashes of his real present life and starts to remember his future life, but nothing beyond it.

This is the thing about the inconsistency I mentioned above. Maybe he simply gained the knowledge of people's fate, but why would it've been necessary for him to go back in time? Him going back in time and gaining the knowledge of his fate and those aruond him is a strangely random outcome and they don't really connect. Time-travel in his own mind and gaining the knowledge of people's fate... I dunno. Doesn't really connect.

And, yeah, the flashbacks in this episode were all in his mind. The old lady was basically his subconcious.

So he never truly lived through all those flashbacks, or did his mind come up with some?

and finally, is he really psychic?

how did he know those things would happen to Charlie?

This is what i don't get.

HELP!!!

Do we have any idea what is actually REAL and what isn't if we are seeing it from Desmond's perspective???
:confused:

It's all in his mind.
He relives 2 days of his past and learns about the whole fate ordeal. He then gets 'messed up' in ways we aren't aware as of yet and is able to tell the future.

To me, the magnet is somewhat associated with fate and somewhat. Maybe dharma used it to foresee the future of their expirements and see if they 'save human kind'. Either way, the blast seems to have provided a means to seeing fate/the future. Dharma has obvious uses for something like this. I don't want to go into detail about what cold've happened and what dharma coudl've used the magnet for because it'd basically be fanfiction. Eithr way, this episode explains some of the magnet's mystery.

How did he learn about the fate ordeal if the old woman wasn't real?

well in carlos opinion the old woman is his subconcious

In my opiniion...he is caught in a time warp of some kind..your thinking is the I think therefore I am philosophy....Think more John Locke philosophy....

"Groundhog Day" on the Island? ;)

I had this thought: I'm not sure when to use this spoiler thing, but I thought Desmond actually DID change something. He told the barman to duck, and then the attacker didn't hit the barman in the head. Instead, he hit Desmond. But, in the first time through, the attacker did hit the barman. So, I kind of thought he did change something. Of course, I don't know how we would ever find out if he changed something or not, now that Desmond is back on the island.

I'm not entirely against the idea but i dont think the flashes are in his head. You can't really learn something new from a Memory if it didn't happen. So how could he have learned about the Universe Course Correcting? So far the UCC has been proven twice already, so its safe to say that its true, meaning that the women he spoke too is real. Which can mean two things. A) He did in fact go back in time and relived those events or B) he dreamt those flashbacks, and the old women was interacting with him in his dreams.

Time travel into the future is something you can say is possible, though travelling into the past is deemed impossible.

No, it's the other way around, as described in Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

I get the whole he did go back in time and relive those events, but how is that effecting the fact that he can now see what will happen on the island beforehand?

OR...Is Desmond just a crazy loon? Who actually does have some pre-cognitive abilities...but his "visions" are all just in his head? For instance...perhaps he THINKS Charlie is destined to die...but in fact...he is not. The lightning bolt wouldn't have killed him...nor would Charlie have drowned had he been the one to swim out and save Claire....But Desmond is connecting the dots...that are trully just "flashes before his eyes".

I like the sci-fi/time warp theme entering into Lost...but I have a sneaky suspicion that TPTB are throwing us a red herring with regards to Desmond's true "abilities". I have a feeling that an explaination more tied to plausible reality will be revealed as to how exactly Des gets his "visions". For instance...

How come Des didn't just race back to the beach the second he led Charlie to Locke? He stood there for a bit...and THEN had a vision....and THEN ran off to save Claire. If he trully was attempting to save Charlie from drowning...then his vision would have had to of occurred BEFORE he led Charlie & Hurley away from the beach...and he wouldn't have stood around...acting weird...and running off like a mad man...with Charlie right behind him so closely. His story doesn't really add up, IMO.

I get the whole he did go back in time and relive those events, but how is that effecting the fact that he can now see what will happen on the island beforehand?


this is quite a perplexing episode. Not that I mind. To answer youre question, I believe that even this 'real time' that we are experiences with the characters on LOST are in Desmond's past.

That is, he knew the stuff that was going on in London cuz he was reliving those days, but he is still reliving those days on the island. Of course they come in flashes. his 'present day' is somewhere in the future.

Here's what I think.
He is either
A. caught in a time loop, or
B. time is folded onto itself and he is experiencing the past, present and future at once.

I like B. If time is folded, it is like he is physically in one space in time, either the past or present. But in the past, he sees flashes of the future (from the present island) as if he has already lived them. In the present he sees flashes of the future, (lightning, drowning, etc.) as if they already happened.

Time is folded, accordian style, with past, present and future overlapping and existing at once. Somehow, he is transcending space (and time), so that he moves physically between times.

Not sure what my take is on the woman yet.

Do you think if he hadn't told the barman to duck (and therefore preventing himself from getting hit) Desmond would continue to relive his past?

No, it's the other way around, as described in Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.
Huh? May I suggest a re-read?

Am I mistaken, or did I see the old lady on the island in a scene from next week's preview??

You can travel forwards in time by going near something like a black hole where time is slower than normal. When you are there, you age normally, but everything outside of the 'field' you are in is still going by at the same rate it was previously going at. You can then exit the field of time dilation. Your watch will only say 5 minutes have passed when time on Earth has gone by 500 years. This is how you travel forwards in time.

This happens to astronauts all the time, of course at a much lesser degree. :)

You cannot travel back in time, though. It's impossible.


By the way, I have learnt this from Einstein. I haven't read 'a brief history of time'.

Anyways, I think some people are making it too complicated.

Desmond was back in time in his mind. The woman could be his more knowleadgeable subconcious (due to turning the key). What I mean is it's kinda like having God talk to you or something like that (though I'm not inclining God talked to Desmond - I wouldn't go that far). Either way, it's a point of Enlightenment for little Desmond - it's that simple.

It could also be a more nowleadgeable force on the island. There's a lot we don't know yet, but I can tell you that the island life as of yet isn't the result of what happened in Desmond's flashback in this episode. That was all more of a simulation - a 'dream', if you will. Of course, it did happen for a reason. :D

What about the possibility that the Island was planting false memories in his mind? We know Smoky has collected stored memories. Doesn't explain his ability to foresee, though.

My understanding is that it's theoretically very possible to travel backwards in time, into the past, but time travel into the future is problematic. Well, except the slow normal way we're traveling forwards through time now, or if you took a spaceship and went really fast then came back, more Earth time would have passed than your personal time.
but yeah, Desmond goes into the past, then comes back to the present, and now he can see the future? weird. And that lady that looked like M from the 007 movies, she totally confused me. I thought maybe she was a psychic like Malkin, but now I don't know what to think of her.

My understanding is that it's theoretically very possible to travel backwards in time, into the past, but time travel into the future is problematic. Well, except the slow normal way we're traveling forwards through time now, or if you took a spaceship and went really fast then came back, more Earth time would have passed than your personal time.
.

You got that backwards and then corrected it by what you said. In theory..you cant go back in time but can go foward--relative the other obvservers. eg..The twin paradox..which is not a paradox BTW

i like the idea of some kind of time loop. it seems more like desmond is remembering things rather than predicting them, like he's experienced the future already.

this is quite a perplexing episode. Not that I mind. To answer youre question, I believe that even this 'real time' that we are experiences with the characters on LOST are in Desmond's past.

That is, he knew the stuff that was going on in London cuz he was reliving those days, but he is still reliving those days on the island. Of course they come in flashes. his 'present day' is somewhere in the future.


Wow, you may have something there. Desmond's current self may actually be off the island and jumping back to his past of after he turned the key. So Desmond gained this ability by turning the failsafe key, and our flashback from this episode is from his past, but so is everything on the island we see from this point forward. He stated that the flashes did not just stop there but are still continuing. These flashes might be Des still taking the place of his past self and bits of what he already went through are coming to him like the deja vu he was experiencing. They are coming through in in bits and pieces to make our cast think Desmond is seeing the future, but he is just remembering bits of his past that are still coming to him in bits. Desmond learned his lesson about not being able to change things when he still dumped Penny. Right now this "future" Desmond is stuck in the past of him being on the island and is just trying to prolong Charlie from dying as long as he can.

How come Des didn't just race back to the beach the second he led Charlie to Locke? He stood there for a bit...and THEN had a vision....and THEN ran off to save Claire. If he trully was attempting to save Charlie from drowning...then his vision would have had to of occurred BEFORE he led Charlie & Hurley away from the beach...and he wouldn't have stood around...acting weird...and running off like a mad man...with Charlie right behind him so closely. His story doesn't really add up, IMO.



If you remember back to before the break when eko was killed, Locke told them to bury eko where he was killed because there were too many deaths on the island recently and he didnt want the other survivors to become distraught with another funeral at the beach. Desmond most likely led Charlie and Hurley to Locke because they are of the "in" crowd of the survivors and did not want everyone else to know of eko. The vision had to have happened at the meeting.

Am I mistaken, or did I see the old lady on the island in a scene from next week's preview??

No, the old lady was played by Fionnula Flanagan; the actress in the preview is Diana Scarwid. They are both pretty well known actresses and to me look nothing alike, but people all over this forum are mixing them up.

Cardie

if the purpose of this episode was to explain desmond's future-seeing powers, than i would say that it failed. and if that wasn't the point of this episode, than what was?

in the flash-back he is able to predict the future because he already lived it, but in the present, he hasn't lived the future yet. we still don't know how he is seeing these flashes of charlie dying. i think that the flashback was just an island-influenced dream, otherwise he would be trapped in an infinite loop (his life would always rewind after turning the failsafe)

HOWEVER, desmond said "you don't want to know what happened to me." if it was in fact a dream, he wouldn't say that. so that kind of implies that he DID go back in time and relive everything again...

blah... messing with time is a verrry tricky thing to do successfully. if TPTB manage to make sense of this episode, i will be extremely impressed...

OT - Doesn't it seem that ABC scheduling Daybreak as a filler for Lost makes more sense now that we have Desmond reliving his life?

No, it's the other way around, as described in Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

Huh? May I suggest a re-read?

Exactly. Time Travel to the future is "possible", but it's relative. It's not really Time Travel in the science fiction sense, but more of a distortion of your own reality.

Time travel to the past is not possible, according to ABHOT (and most other publications). You can see the past through light refraction and using shifting radiation to "see" old stars, but you cant travel to them. If you traveled to them they would age at an incredible rate, thus negating the "time travel" aspect.

What I am wondering is this:

Are we to now assume that Desmond has lived through this island existence and is now revisiting it somehow? Is that the explanation of his knowledge of the future?

In other words, is there a future Desmond that is not shown, stuck in one of these flash-universes where everyone is still stuck on the island and Charlie dies? And now he has to prevent it?

Lending some symbolic credence to the time-loop theory (or strengthening the red-herring), the old woman's shawl brooch was an Ouroboros, symbolizing cyclicality.

Oh, man, I don't want it to be so, but I think we lost half the audience tonight...:frown: .

I think Cardie's theory of a time loop has just been confirmed with this episode. The one thing I think Cardie might have gotten wrong is the iteration number of this particular time loop we are seeing. I'll elaborate with a possible theory of what exactly happened in the eppy:

Up to the point when Desmond turns the failsafe key time is linear, that is, time has been moving as we perceive it every day. When Desmond turned the key, he went back in time and had flashes of the future, he tried to change the past but ended up in the same place (time loop #1).

Now, turning the key is a pivotal event in Desmond's fate, some events he can change, pivotal events, he can not, because the Universe will course correct. We could assume he's gone back many times and no matter what he does, he ends up on the island turning the key, until he gives up on changing that. Every time he turned the key he got to time travel, but he always ended up turning the key. He has now given up on changing that part of his life.

He then continues to live on the island until another pivotal event occurs that allows him to go back in time again. This event happens after Charlie dies, he's gone back twice to try to save Charlie but he can't.

Now, what remains to be seen is if Desmond will keep trying to save Charlie or if he gives up.

An alternate theory to all this could be that when Desmond first whacked his head while painting his flat with Penny he acquires the ability to see the future. In this case he is seeing years ahead. Time continues to move in a linear way, only Desmond can now see events in the future, he was going to try to change them when he he was rushing out of the bar, but he got whacked in the head, which could account for his losing the ability again.

When he turned the key he got the ability back, but he obviously does not see far into the future this time around. When he turned the key, he remembered the first time he got the ability but he thinks that he went back in time. While he was under, he hallucinated the old lady.

Yet another possibility is that he was able to go back in time or got crossed with his own self in a parallel dimension and coexisted in both present and past (or the dimension we see and the other one), but only for a brief period of time, the Universe course corrected and placed him back where he belonged.

When the producers said they would use a FB mechanism in this episode that they had never used before and will never use again, were they referring to no more warped time or to no more showing us specifically how time was warped?

Well, LC, seeing as Cardie explained the time loop theory in the Spoilers section I don't know if too many folks here have read it. While Cardie's explanantion made sense to me this episode just left me very confused.

For those that want to read Cardie's explanation, its in the Spoilers section in the Episode 11 DHARMA...thread.

"Groundhog Day" on the Island? ;)

oh someone HAD to mention it haha! :rolleyes:

How do we know that Desmond wasn't just having a flashback of his life just as it happened, just the same as every other episode. Why does time travel have to be involved. Am I missing something? Desmond said that after he turned the key, his life flashed before his eyes. He didn't say he relived his life. How do we know that it wasn't just a long flashback and that in the actual past Desmond could see the future?

OR...Is Desmond just a crazy loon? Who actually does have some pre-cognitive abilities...but his "visions" are all just in his head? For instance...perhaps he THINKS Charlie is destined to die...but in fact...he is not. The lightning bolt wouldn't have killed him...nor would Charlie have drowned had he been the one to swim out and save Claire....But Desmond is connecting the dots...that are trully just "flashes before his eyes".

How come Des didn't just race back to the beach the second he led Charlie to Locke? He stood there for a bit...and THEN had a vision....and THEN ran off to save Claire. If he trully was attempting to save Charlie from drowning...then his vision would have had to of occurred BEFORE he led Charlie & Hurley away from the beach...and he wouldn't have stood around...acting weird...and running off like a mad man...with Charlie right behind him so closely. His story doesn't really add up, IMO.

See, I totally get this. It's not that Des saves Claire or even sees Claire drowning. It's that Des sees Chahlie swimming out to "save" Claire [who's probably long dead by that point] and dying. Claire is kinda peripheral to the vision. He sees Chahlie die in a few minutes when they return to the beach and he seeks out Claire. Desmond tries to preempt this and saves Claire. But it wasn't a vision about Claire. Make sense? It does to me.

The idea that this is a vision, or implanted memory that has something to do with Smokey is a pretty cool idea. That does not, however, explain Desmond's new Cleo the Psycic gifts. I'm leaning a little more to the side that he has been granted a gift by the island. But, as with Locke (or Spider-man), his gift also comes with responsibility.

When we try to imagine time travel, we have a tendency to refer to physical time travel (ie Back to the Future, the Time Machine...) This may be a little more of a Donnie Darko instance, where the time traveller enhabits his own physical being in a different iteration of that specific period of time. The difference in this story that that the traveller is unable to bend the ultimate results of events.

Basically, I'm just rambling and I have no idea what to think... refer to any and all Stephen Hawking reading material... because I don't know what I'm talking about.

While I love my time loop theory and may write it up as fanfic some day, none of the events of FBYE particularly track with the way I envisioned the time loop, because in my theory a person's life prior to the hatch implosion wouldn't be affected by the loop, only the rest of their lives.

Cardie

Ah, Cardie, don't denounce your theory so quickly.

Just to be clear, A Brief History of Time is simply a book that documents all the groundbreaking discoverys about Time and Space in science. It starts with the earliest scientists and theories and builds up to the present (at time of publication) day.

In other words, it's not so much Hawkings theories and thoughts on the subject as it is a discussion of science. It's more of a textbook/novel about the history of time as we know it.

His next book, The Universe in a Nutshell is much more textbook-like and contains mostly the same information.

Any book about how Time is scientifically known to work would be acceptable, not just Hawking's book. Know what I mean?

I'm not entirely against the idea but i dont think the flashes are in his head. You can't really learn something new from a Memory if it didn't happen. So how could he have learned about the Universe Course Correcting? So far the UCC has been proven twice already, so its safe to say that its true, meaning that the women he spoke too is real. Which can mean two things. A) He did in fact go back in time and relived those events or B) he dreamt those flashbacks, and the old women was interacting with him in his dreams.

How do we know that Desmond wasn't just having a flashback of his life just as it happened, just the same as every other episode. Why does time travel have to be involved. Am I missing something? Desmond said that after he turned the key, his life flashed before his eyes. He didn't say he relived his life. How do we know that it wasn't just a long flashback and that in the actual past Desmond could see the future?

I've selected these two posts, but this a response to the thread, to the episode, to the very nature of existentialism. The way we were presented with Desmond's story leaves most anything as possibility:
It was a dream, Hawking was his subconsious.
He was "sent back", in reality, and the universe does cross-correct.
In the past, he began having 'memories' of the future, feeling that he had already lived them.

Because of the DesCartian maxim of "Cogito ergo sum", all one can ever be certain about, is that they themselves exist, at least in some form. Starting from that, our "reality" is made up of our percived experiences, whether or not those experiences are, in some sense of the word, real. Because we were shown Desmond Experiencing the events of this episode, what we saw was Desmond's "reality".

Now - that doesn't preclude this being a lucid dream/vision. The only way that we, in real life, distinguish between fantasy and reality is by comparative experience ("I know it was a dream, I can't fly in real life"), by forced acceptance (psychological problems lead to delusions, people must convince you that they are not real), or by detailed logic (in the time between laying down in my bed, and getting out of it the next day, I certainly could not have made that phone call, which I remember placing in the kitchen, in the daylight).

Well, in summary, there isn't much point in debating how "real" this episode was, we can't know for sure. Which Is why I love it.

ETA: Hey, great to see you around again, sier.

Here's what I think.
He is either
A. caught in a time loop, or
B. time is folded onto itself and he is experiencing the past, present and future at once.

I like B. If time is folded, it is like he is physically in one space in time, either the past or present. But in the past, he sees flashes of the future (from the present island) as if he has already lived them. In the present he sees flashes of the future, (lightning, drowning, etc.) as if they already happened.

Time is folded, accordian style, with past, present and future overlapping and existing at once. Somehow, he is transcending space (and time), so that he moves physically between times.

Not sure what my take is on the woman yet.

This is my take on what happened but I couldn't quite put into words so thank you.

When Desmond runs into Hurley he seems confused as if he trying to remember just when he is. He then remembers wrong -thinking he is after the speech when he was before. I'm afraid the implosion rippled through the space time continuum and set Desmond adrift. Not that I know what I'm talking about!

I love it when I can say I told ya so....

This was the podcast of the show that already happened......

http://www.lostblog.net/lost/tv/show/desmonds-flashback-was-not-a-dream

It says from TPTB that the flashback was not a dream!!

ETA: Hey, great to see you around again, sier.

You too =] It had been a while, but once the shows come back on I start throwing out posts again. Thanks for the welcome back =]

I love it when I can say I told ya so....

This was the podcast of the show that already happened......

http://www.lostblog.net/lost/tv/show/desmonds-flashback-was-not-a-dream

It says from TPTB that the flashback was not a dream!!

Carlton: I suppose people would wanna know… what does this mean?
Damon: Did it really happen?
Carlton: Yeah, did it really happen?
Damon: Yeah, I think it really happened.

......


Carlton: Right, I mean it’s entirely possible that he can have a traditional flashback as well.
Damon: Absolutely, what’s interesting is that there are certain things that happened the way they used to happen that he changed as a result of being in the past, that might sort of resonate over time, like getting hit in the face instead of the bartender, or the fact that the photograph of he and penny got taken the day they broke up. Maybe in another incarnation there were two photographs, that would explain how she got one.

Interesting. Of course, that still leaves some open holes, but it definitely rules out the "it was all in his head" theories. Im glad they addressed two photographs.

I wonder now if Donovan really does tell Penny that Desmond told him about the island and that is what makes her go looking for it.

I love it when I can say I told ya so....

This was the podcast of the show that already happened......

http://www.lostblog.net/lost/tv/show/desmonds-flashback-was-not-a-dream

It says from TPTB that the flashback was not a dream!!

There goes my Sunshine on a Spotless Mind theory.

Exactly. Time Travel to the future is "possible", but it's relative. It's not really Time Travel in the science fiction sense, but more of a distortion of your own reality.

Time travel to the past is not possible, according to ABHOT (and most other publications). You can see the past through light refraction and using shifting radiation to "see" old stars, but you cant travel to them. If you traveled to them they would age at an incredible rate, thus negating the "time travel" aspect.

What I am wondering is this:

Are we to now assume that Desmond has lived through this island existence and is now revisiting it somehow? Is that the explanation of his knowledge of the future?

In other words, is there a future Desmond that is not shown, stuck in one of these flash-universes where everyone is still stuck on the island and Charlie dies? And now he has to prevent it?


This is what I'm thinking. If he could go back once, why not repeatedly? Remember Desmond's catch phrase, "see you in another life", should we read that as his knowing all along that he was experiencing multiple versions of his life?

Wow, you may have something there. Desmond's current self may actually be off the island and jumping back to his past of after he turned the key. So Desmond gained this ability by turning the failsafe key, and our flashback from this episode is from his past, but so is everything on the island we see from this point forward. He stated that the flashes did not just stop there but are still continuing. These flashes might be Des still taking the place of his past self and bits of what he already went through are coming to him like the deja vu he was experiencing. They are coming through in in bits and pieces to make our cast think Desmond is seeing the future, but he is just remembering bits of his past that are still coming to him in bits. Desmond learned his lesson about not being able to change things when he still dumped Penny. Right now this "future" Desmond is stuck in the past of him being on the island and is just trying to prolong Charlie from dying as long as he can.

I like this... and notice the similarity of how Desmond was knocked out in the jungle, then awoke to "the present" (or maybe his past...) and how he was knocked out on the floor of his flat and woke to the past...

You too =] It had been a while, but once the shows come back on I start throwing out posts again. Thanks for the welcome back =]



Carlton: I suppose people would wanna know… what does this mean?
Damon: Did it really happen?
Carlton: Yeah, did it really happen?
Damon: Yeah, I think it really happened.

......


Carlton: Right, I mean it’s entirely possible that he can have a traditional flashback as well.
Damon: Absolutely, what’s interesting is that there are certain things that happened the way they used to happen that he changed as a result of being in the past, that might sort of resonate over time, like getting hit in the face instead of the bartender, or the fact that the photograph of he and penny got taken the day they broke up. Maybe in another incarnation there were two photographs, that would explain how she got one.

Interesting. Of course, that still leaves some open holes, but it definitely rules out the "it was all in his head" theories. Im glad they addressed two photographs.

I wonder now if Donovan really does tell Penny that Desmond told him about the island and that is what makes her go looking for it.

Finally the debate is over... Desmond did infact go back in time, and because of that, there is now certain changes in Time as a result of what he did. Now let part 2 of the debate begin!! What are the ramifications of what he did in the past.

Well... I know it's late now, and many seem to have made up their minds on this, but I just thought of something and thought I'd throw it out there:

Just before he turns the Fail Safe key, Desmond says, "I love you, Penny." This is clearly what's on his mind when he turns the key. The key is turned, a massive electro-magnetic pulse is emitted, and that thought in his head, an electric signal itself, is intensified. Desmond's brain, while actually unconscious on the island, is consumed by the "intensified" memory of Penny, giving him the sensation of reliving his past with her. Perhaps it is indeed something akin to what "Smokey" appears to do, "downloading" someone's memories. Desmond's mind goes back through the memory, but with the wisdom he has gained since, thus he attempts to change what he now feels were errors in his past. Then the sensation of being hit by the cricket bat in the memory snaps him back into consciousness on the island.

Just a thought... I take everything said in those podcasts with a grain of salt. I am also very loathe to accept actual time travel being introduced at this point, as the show could never possibly devote enough screen time to adequately explain and explore it. The paradoxes, the contradictions, the multiple iterations... please, no! We've got too much else to get to on this island!