The buddha statue was in the brainwashing film that carl was watching. Was desmond ever brainwashed in the room and somehow that was flashing back to him? Was the whole scene just exactly like desmond said - I have a concussion and the woman was his conscienceness trying to wake him up? That would explain the familiar images he kept seeing. Could that be more plausible than time travel (which I am not totally ruling out, although I thought someone said that the producers said something like everything on the show can be scientifically explained or something to that effect) It's nice to have some off-island episodes where people can look cleaned up and stuff. I lends itself to the notion of a world-wide secret quazi-organization doing all kinds of crazy things.

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