Reality Merge

Ok - I wasn't going to do this, but this keeps coming up for me... This was my original theory posted on Lost-Theories Aug 29, 2007.  I think it's still in the running.  There are more comments on the theory on the L-T site.

We’ve seen flashbacks with Desmond where he did not anticipate landing on an island and pushing a button, but in “Flashes Before Your Eyes” Ms Hawking told him about the island and the button. Either he did recognize the island and the button when he arrived at the Swan or we are dealing with two parallel realities – one where he does meet Ms Hawking, and the other when he does not.

Let’s assume that we’re dealing with the latter and consider the facts…

The first reality presented is the one we see in flashbacks; the one where Desmond doesn’t buy the ring and doesn’t propose to Penny. The second reality is the one we see in “Flashes Before Your Eyes”. Presumably in this reality Desmond does buy the ring and propose to Penny… or he was going to. Ms Hawking comes into the scene and prevents this from happening. So what was Ms Hawking up to – and how do we reconcile these two realities into the experience of the one Desmond that is on the island?

It seems obvious that Ms Hawking is attempting to steer events towards a specific outcome – the reality of Desmond activating the failsafe. Prior to this event, Desmond remembers only reality #1 … it is only afterwards that he remembers Ms Hawking, his regrets, and anticipating future events on the island.

My hypothesis is this… the failsafe was an instrument to merge the two realities together. The failsafe was activated in both realities, thanks to Ms Hawking. As the realities crashed together, Desmond did not die, but instead the two Desmonds merged and crossed over into the new reality that was created, landing naked in the jungle “Terminator style”. It seems safe to assume that this merging of the two realities was what Ms Hawking was trying to accomplish, whether Desmond surviving is the fly in the ointment or not.

What this suggests, is that some powers – yet unnamed are at work combining different realities into new realities for some yet undiscovered purpose. So who is the mastermind on the island? Can we all say it??? It’s Ben.

But why? Well… let’s throw out another assumption. Perhaps Ben and Annie were ‘an item’… and prior to the failsafe – in this first reality, Annie has died. Somehow finding the answer of how to do this within the Dharma initiative experiments, he has been manipulating these convergences step by step in order to arrive at a reality where Annie is alive.

Desmond’s flashes of the future are fragmented and contradictory. He is an amalgam – and so are his experiences of past and future. We see other amalgams on the island. Presumably there was a reality where Jack was successful in retrieving his father, but what we see is a composite reality where Christian is alive, but where there was a coffin on the plane – empty. Mikhail dies, yet lives. Is the whole Jack/Sawyer drama tied to the amalgam of Kate’s decision in one reality joined with the other?

Some realities that merge will be so similar that the amalgam has no perceivable effect. The lives most dramatically impacted by the failsafe being activated were Desmond’s and Charlie’s. Events further off the island even less affected still. As Ben continues his “realities merging” experiments, does this affect the development of fetuses conceived on the island? (Perhaps the fetuses conceived off the island are somewhat insulated from the amalgam effect because of their connection to the outside world.)

These sort of amalgamated realities have been brought up in relation to the Philadelphia experiment. Could this be why Jacob is both seen and unseen at the same time?