Buzz
Whether you're someone who makes decisions swiftly or someone who weighs every detail before committing to a choice, your past experiences likely shape your future in ways you might not expect. It's not just about learning from mistakes or letting past trauma influence your perspective. Instead, it’s about our ability to use the past to envision what the future might hold. This aspect of our cognitive abilities—referred to as 'mental time travel'—can enhance our decision-making capabilities.
What does mental time travel mean?
The term 'mental time travel' is utilized in fields like psychology and neuroscience to define our capacity to recall and reconstruct past events, as well as imagine how various situations may unfold in the future. In fact, some researchers suggest that the primary purpose of memories is 'to provide information from the past as the scaffolding of the future,' as noted by the authors of a 2023 study.
Other experts also view mental time travel as an essential survival skill, allowing us to anticipate and plan for possible future events. The capacity to create mental scenarios for situations that aren’t occurring in the present can also aid in the decision-making process.
How to apply mental time travel in decision-making
In her 2022 book, Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything―Even Things That Seem Impossible Today, Jane McGonigal, PhD—a futurist, researcher, author, alternate reality game designer, and 2015 participant in Mytour's 'How I Work' interview series—details how mental time travel can be incorporated into the decision-making process.
In essence, mental time travel—which is also known as 'futures thinking' or 'episodic future thinking'—is not an escape from reality or a mere daydream, but rather 'a way of connecting who you are today with what you might really feel and do in the future,' as McGonigal states. This is where its role in decision-making becomes crucial: According to McGonigal, it prepares us mentally, allowing us to adapt swiftly to challenges as they arise.
Here’s an exercise from McGonigal’s Imaginable—a portion of which is available in this excerpt—for anyone interested in exploring mental time travel:
Step 1
Take a moment, about 30 seconds, to picture yourself waking up tomorrow morning. Try to mentally describe what you see and answer the following questions:
In which room or space are you located?
What causes you to wake up—an alarm, sunlight, someone calling your name, or a gentle nudge?
Is it bright outside, or is it still dark?
Is anyone else with you?
What are you wearing?
How are you feeling emotionally?
And what is the first action you take once you're awake?
Make it a goal to continue until you can clearly answer—and vividly imagine—each of these questions.
Step 2
Take 30 seconds to visualize yourself waking up one year from now. Once again, mentally picture what you see and respond to these questions:
What has changed?
Are you in a different place?
Have you experienced any physical changes?
What’s your emotional state?
Have you adopted a new morning routine?
If so, what might that new routine look like?
Just like before, continue until you've addressed all of the questions.
Step 3
Finally, imagine waking up 10 years from now.
Where are you located?
What surrounds you?
What do you see, hear, smell, and feel in your environment?
What is the first thought that crosses your mind upon waking up?
What do you have planned for the day ahead?
In what ways have you changed physically?
Be honest: This exercise isn’t about fantasy or manifesting an idealized version of your life. Instead, use your imagination to realistically envision how your future might unfold based on the path your life has taken up to this point.
Decision Moment
McGonigal explains that most people find it harder to imagine themselves 10 years from now compared to just one year ahead. This is because, when contemplating the future, our brain naturally acknowledges that our lives could be drastically different in a decade. 'So instead of confidently projecting one possibility, it opens up a blank space for you to consider multiple possibilities,' McGonigal writes.
Now, repeat the final exercise by picturing yourself waking up 10 years from now. Don’t stress about creating just one definitive vision of your future. Allow your imagination to explore several possible—and still realistic—versions of what your life could look like in a decade.
Filling in all the details will take some time and effort, but according to McGonigal, that’s what makes mental time travel so effective: As your brain creates these imagined futures, they transform into new memories that can be revisited and used for future reference. When your brain revisits one of these envisioned scenarios, take note of any emotional reactions it stirs up.
"These pre-feelings can help guide your decisions: Should you alter your actions today to increase or decrease the likelihood of this future?" McGonigal writes. "And since you created this memory, you have the ability to change it at any time."
Since it’s been a few years since McGonigal released Imaginable, I asked her if she had any fresh insights on using mental time travel as a decision-making tool. As it turns out, she does, and they come from the expanding research on using mental time travel as an intervention for substance use disorders—and these insights are applicable to anyone.
One example comes from a 2023 study, which discovered that when individuals struggling with addiction practiced future mental time travel techniques during moments of craving, it helped them resist the urge for addictive substances and make the healthier choice to abstain.
"This discovery is relevant to anyone who wants to motivate themselves to do things that may be difficult in the present, but beneficial in the long run," McGonigal states. "If it works for addiction, it can help any of us make better choices, not just for today, but for our most significant long-term objectives."
