Rats and Scots with Nosebleeds

Here's a comment I posted on lost-theories.com this morning:

I saw the rat experiment much like Desmond’s flashes of the future when he was on the island. When he turned the key, he was basically hit with the 2.347 oscillating at 11, and from then on, he saw events in the future in the same way the rat had knowledge he had obtained in the future.

Desmond saw Charlie being struck by lightening, but then that event didn’t happen. So if that event never happened, how could he see it? Just like the rat was never taught the maze, so how did he know it? Same thing.

But I’m wondering, why didn’t Desmond’s nose start bleeding the first time he saw Charlie struck by lightening? If the rat died within 75 minutes of his exposure, why did Desmond live for weeks with no effects — until he got off the island.

That may be the key to why Faraday had to come to the island. When his Eloise experiment is performed on the island, you don’t die — and you can see the future. It’s only when you leave the island that you get the killer nosebleeds. But that begs the question, why does Faraday need to see the future? To finish his dissertation?