[nooni]

part 3..............

Chart 3:



This chart is kind of jumbled, but I tried to make it as readable as I could. You'll notice right away that some of the arrows are jumping forwards. These arrows again represent the jump Desmond's consciousness takes through time. A new color is also introduced; blue represents the period of time when Desmond's body is unconscious.

So we start out with the main green timeline. Desmond leads a perfectly normal life (ignoring all arrows) until 2004. Here, an event causes his 1996 mind to jump into his 2004 body. This act of time travel interferes with the pre-destined timeline and creates the red line of alternate events in 2004 as well as an alternate series of events in 1996 (where in this case he is not just sleeping in his army cot, his mind is actually missing). Very quickly, before course-correction even begins to set in, Desmond's mind is sent back to 96. Here, he has access to knowledge from the future and thus continues the red line of alternate events in 1996.

Again, before course-correction sets in, his mind is sent back to 2004, at some point after it left but before course-correction was completed. We can again see how the universe would have corrected itself, had 96 Des not come back, but now he has, and he is creating another alternate sequence. This back-and-forth repeats quite a few more times, but I only included a few to simplify the diagram...hopefully I've made the pattern clear.

Eventually, Desmond's 96 mind returns to 96 for good and his 2004 mind (presumably) returns to him, allowing both portions of the timeline to course-correct and align with the "proper" timeline.

I hope this has been able to help some dedicated LOST fans out there