Mental time travel can make us better people | Hacker News Reader

Mental time travel can make us better people

nautil.us

121 pointsdnetesn40 comments

At least for me, this can also have a negative effect. Thinking about the future sometimes makes me very anxious about things changing for the worse, for example parents dying or myself becoming sick. Those thoughts do not make me more “prosocial” as they sometimes contribute to depression, facing inward, and having a sense of a lack of control and pointlessness. This feeling was pronounced during 2020 in particular, but I’ve been doing better in 2022.

The book "Stolen Focus" had an interesting point on this effect that resonated with me. While mind wandering -- letting your mind explore the past and future -- can be a gift and creative boon, it can only do so in a low-stress environment. People often rate "mind wandering" as one of the least pleasant daily activities, even below chores, because, mind-wandering in a high stress environment leads to rumination, and "ruminating on negative emotions becomes torment."

As somebody who's often suffered from depression, I try not to think about the future or the past. The past makes me sad and is filled with pain. The future feels like an ominous and oppressive und uncertain presence.

It seems like the healthiest behavior would be to allow yourself to think about the future/past, constrain yourself to be kind to yourself while doing it, and critically, _move on_ and think about something else next.

Where rumination gets dangerous, in my experience, is when it becomes an infinite mental loop.

I don't really get how you move on from something. Is this something you decide? Something that happens? Can you stop thinking about something only by wanting to?

Whenever people talk about moving on, I feel as if they were talking about using their third arm, that I just don't have.

Check out rumination-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, ideally with guidance and support from a therapist.

I used to hear "just let it go" and think I was being asked to do something impossible! Using a third arm is a great way of putting it.

Turns out the self-regulation needed to "move on" is just a developmental skill. Like any skill, it can be practiced and improved over time. Hope you find this encouraging!

Thanks, it helps a lot to know that it's a skill that you can develop!

+1 for what grepLeigh has said. CBT is a huge help.

> Can you stop thinking about something only by wanting to?

Absolutely, yes. If I catch myself in a death spiral of thoughts, I can literally tell myself "no, that's enough, I'm done with this" and do something else instead. It takes introspection, acceptance, understanding, compassion (for yourself and the subjects of your thoughts), therapy, and practice. Meditation can also help.

There's no single piece of advice I can give because it was a lengthy and painful process, but maybe it's enough to say that yes, it's possible to learn, because it's something I had to learn and I managed to figure it out.

Knowing that someone else managed to learn it and can now just stop spirals of thoughts is a big help, thanks for sharing that

Noticing it is the first step. Believing you can change it is the second.

It sounds so cheesy to say, but I really wish they would teach mindfulness in schools. It's such an important life skill, and it's one I had to realize on my own was important.

Conceptually, I agree with you. I've put a lot of effort over the years into being able to control and stop rumination, which has been a huge boon. However, nothing I've tried has changed this fundamental inability to imagine any future that isn't more of the same that I've already experienced (as in painful and disappointing). I think without making enough positive experiences to convince my brain to change how it processes/interprets events, that's something that can't change.

The question then becomes, how do I make positive experiences? If I make what I think is a positive experience, I end up worrying about parts of it and wondering about its negative aspects. That's also something I have to work on and change. It's a cycle, it's slow and iterative, and I feel like I'm making progress, however little, but I am how I am right now, and I'm okay with that.

I relate.

A good project is your best friend

Call it "escapism", except without the feeling of worthlessness that comes with drowning yourself in fiction.

"Und" made it sound even more ominous und more uncertain.

Hah, didn't realize I'd snuck that in there.

Thinking of the future in and of itself is not responsible for those reactions. Habitually agonizing about negative possibilities is a problem that remains whether you make predictions or not, and should be addressed. CBT or 3rd wave CBT like MCT are good options

You might benefit from talking to somebody professional about this, but I'm also going to suggest an app that might at first make you feel quite anxious but I promise with use might make you deal with these thoughts more comfortably: https://www.wecroak.com/

It's self explanatory. I've used it every day for a few years now. It makes me feel far more centred, far less anxious, far more able to deal with the swells and dips of daily life. It has also made me face those fears about parents or myself becoming sick as an inevitability that can have a beauty to it. Ignoring it won't make it go away or any better, just all the more painful when it railroads into your life.

Wish you well my friend, good luck with whatever you do, but if this approach feels overwhelming, definitely consider having a chat with somebody about it.

Yes, mental time travel! I do that.

The past was always so wonderful, bathed in a rosy glow of nostalgia. The present is so ho, hum.

So mentally travel forward 20 years and put the present through the nostalgia filter. Oh, were times good then. We were younger, the kids were still small and cute, blah blah. All the hassle of day-to-day life will be forgotten and only rosy nostalgia will remain.

Ditto, travel back 20 years and simply fill in those memories with the stuff you know happened back then too. Social embarrassments, missed sleep, stress at work, worries about the future perhaps. Oh right, the past was ordinary too.

One of my favorite Macklemore lines: “I wish somebody would have told me that someday these will be the good old days”

Macklemore is truly the voice of his generation.

"only got 20 dollars in my pocket"

-Macklemore

I'm gonna borrow this one, thanks

Yeah, sometimes when I'm having a shower a random thought pops up from my childhood.

Brain: Remember that thing you did when you were a kid? You effing idiot.

Me: Thanks, brain. I was a child back then. We've gone over this multiple times. This is not constructive. I've a meeting in 4 hours I need to prepare for and there's nothing in that memory helpful to the current situation.

Heh, i do that about everything. It's a really big flaw of mine. I have the same response as you, trying to mitigate the thoughts.. but to no real avail.

Hypothesis: could you have unprocessed childhood memories which contain useful information which your subconscious required you to acknowledge? I used to experience a lot of childhood memories until they were properly processed and understood. Maybe it's not random.

I think you might be right. I think they might be affecting me more than I'm willing to consciously admit.

The time in which this most often occurs for me is while lying in bed trying to fall asleep and often includes blunders as recent as 3-5 years ago. While showering is probably a close second though.

This is an anti-procrastination technique that I use (that I got from somewhere but forget where).

When I notice I am procrastinating on an important task I visualize my present self explaining to my future self all the consequences of my current inaction, and apologizing to future self for all he has to deal with as a consequence.

This also forces my to visualize the concrete consequences of my present actions and makes it much easier to understand the negative impact I’ll have on myself.

I also visualize myself doing this with other people when they are the most impacted. It’s a great technique.

Yeah, Dr Ben Hardy expands on similar ideas about the benefits of connecting with your Future Self as a means to improving your outlook and increasing the chances you'll become who you want to.

I learned this from Alex Hormozi.

I now have a photo of myself made with one of these make-yourself-old online apps. I printed it out and have it on my desk. I glance at it every now and then when I have a hard action to do. How would 55 year old dalys behave in this situation? What kind of person do I want to become in 20 years?

Plus it freaks out my mom whenever she visits.

I care way more about future me's judgement of present me than anyone else's.

Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then - Bob Seger

Holy sugar, those hands! (0_0) Is this a fad or something? Cisco-style clip-arts are back again?

On the topic: constantly thinking of the future in this cruel inhumane alien-ruled world is unbearable and made me an infoholic addict. (

The changing world order aside, there’s a big difference between relevant planning and worthless fantasizing. I personally benefit the most from imagine conversations with friends with whom I want to cultivate friendships. A good conversation over coffee can be greatly bolstered by thinking about how to steer a conversation towards mutual interests beforehand.

For me, it's helpful to think futures as attractors. We are their agents: futures pull themselves into being not only in blind compliance with physical law but also through us. Which will we welcome into our minds and, through this, into being?

Oh wow, people are becoming self aware enough to think outside the present. Maybe there is still hope for society.

That Begin surname tripped up my parsing of that first sentence

Reply on news.ycombinator.com