 For this episode, actor Chris Owens reprised his role as The Smoking Man; he had previously played him in the season's earlier episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man".The episode is based around the idea that Geschwind syndrome (a group of behavioral phenomena, of which one is the ability to recall every memory of one's younger life) can be self-induced by using a unique combination of technology and drugssomething that is not supported by modern medicine.When writing the episode, Goodwin was aware of the idea's implausibility and admitted that he took significant creative liberties with the disorder.