Mental time travel
Mental time travel is also known as Chronesthesia is a “hypothetical brain/mind ability or capacity, acquired by humans through evolution, that allows them to be constantly aware of the past and the future” (Murray). Chronesthesia is more about mental stability and health, which is vital to our daily lives. New discussion and research on the topic of time travel have stirred up the question in the minds of individuals whether time travel is possible. However, as time travel is still under-researched, the question of whether it is possible is rather almost impossible to answer. However, within the topic of time travel, some of its aspects have been proven to be possible. An example is mental time travel, where an individual recalls his past activities and projects his future ones too to be mentally aware of his/her progress. Practicing mental time travel can have positive effects like the lowering of amnesia “associated with either no memory of personal events or a difficulty in forming new memories about private events further related to no ability to project oneself in the future (Tulving, 1985b; Klein et al., 2002; Hassabis et al., 2007).
Various researches on mental time travel have stirred up ideas in my mind leading me to my main research question; what are the effects of mental time travel to mental stability, emotions, and physical development to the treatment of psychiatric patients and the broader population. I choose this research question to challenge myself to bring something new to the discussion of time travel. Most people tend to look at time-journey from the physical angle, forgetting the mental importance of chromesthesia. I intend to gather information and piece it together to make people understand the importance of mental time travel. I want to show the positive effects chromesthesia has on human beings. I also intend to show mental time travel is possible through the evidence on experiments carried out on animals’ brains and their similarity to the functioning of the human mind. I also intend to answer other questions like what is time, what is mental time travel that will help me properly introduce my topic to the reader. Some of these questions will help support my discussion toward the main research question, for example, what are the differences in emotion display of people who practice mental time travel against those who don’t, this question will help me drive on the relevance of time travel.
To effectively connect my ideas, I am planning to use sources that specifically talk about the effects of mental time travel on emotions. So far, I have gathered sources that summarize the research done on brain activities of animals and compared to human beings’ brains to show the health effects of time travel. I also plan to look for more research statistics on experiments carried out on people with a mental health condition using mental time travel to improve their circumstances and the outcomes. In the article The Archaeology of Time Travel. An Introduction by Holtorf, Cornelius, and Bodil Petersson. To show that mental time travel has been a concept stirring in our minds for a long time. The source also shows the different approaches to time travel in our era. I hope to prove through the sources I find that mental time travel has many positive health benefits to human beings.