Lost: Only Fools Are Enslaved by Time and Space

I've had some time to digest last night's show. I definitely enjoyed it. I like Desmond, so I didn't mind that it was almost completely his show. He was in a flashback for 90% of it. Or was he?

So I guess the show is playing with concepts of time and space. Someone has taken the brainwashing scene from last episode and run it backward, and there is a female voice saying "Only fools are enslaved by time and space." Uber-creepy and definitely season-one-level creepy.

So Desmond woke up after the explosion to find himself back home. In the past. He ran into Charlie and could predict what was going to happen. Then he was told by an oracle-type woman that he couldn't change the future and that he had to do what he had done before - break up with Penelope, enter the boat race, crash on the island, and push a button for 3 years - in order to save the world. And now that he's on the island he can still see the future - thus his attempts to save Charlie from his impending death. (BTW, who cares if Chaaaalie bites it.)

Now that I'm utterly confused, could this means that everyone's "flashbacks" that we have seen are not actually flashbacks? That they instead actually went to those places because time and space are flexible on the island? So that would be why there are crossovers like how the Widmore Company appears in a few episodes and Sayid appears in Kate's flashback and Hurley appears in Jin's flashback and people's lives intersect. Did they actually intersect or are they appearing there because they are in the people's minds? I think the producers dropped this bomb so that I can distract myself from how bad the show was thus far.

Anyone else confused or does it make perfect sense?