Wouldn’t It Be Wonderful To Have Your Own Personal Time Machine?

In Some Ways, You do!

We all have a form of time machine. Our minds. We travel back in time when we remember past events. We call those memories. When we use our imaginations to plan something in the future, we travel forward in time.

There is one other aspect to mention about our special time machine. The awareness of the “NOW”. This very moment. Because, it is the only reality we can actually do anything with. When we really learn to relax, we can spend more time in this moment and benefit from our memories and goals.

I think we have more control over this time machine, our minds, than we might think.

Part of this has to do with how our memory works. No-one really knows how memory works. There are numerous theories and certainly much experimentation and research on the various aspects of how it works. But no-one, as far as I know, knows exactly what is happening or exactly how or where individual memories are stored. For our day to day, it doesn’t matter. What matters is whether we are helping or hindering ourselves in the way we think.

There are problems with our time machine though. Every single one of them is unique, because all of our experiences are unique to us. It may sound like a cliché, but it really is true.

At the same time, our memories are imperfect and changeable. Our imagined future does not always work out the way we foresee it.

Let us consider memories first of all.

In general terms, most of us believe our memories are accurate representations of what happened in certain circumstances.

However, it is interesting and quite disconcerting, to find oneself in a situation where our memory of an experience does not match up with someone else’s memory or interpretation of that event. I know what it feels like. I’ve been the outsider.

As an example, imagine going to a high school reunion after ten or twenty years. A group of friends are reminiscing about something they all experienced. But one person’s memory of certain aspects of it differs from what the others are saying. Their group description is quite different to this person’s memory. The others may all disagree with this version and remembered perception of what that individual experienced. Rightly or wrongly. This individual may feel really confused, like the others are all crazy and don’t know what they are talking about. Perhaps they think they are the crazy one. How could this be so?

Consider this. Perhaps you have seen a news report on TV where a number of people are being asked about what they experienced in a particular situation. Let us say they were all witnesses to a car accident. Each person interviewed happened to be standing on different corners of an intersection when two cars collided. Their Point Of View (POV) is completely different, because they are all perceiving it from a different angle.

This is similar to a movie or a book where you are transported into different characters as the story progresses. First you get one character’s version (POV), then you get another character’s view. It is a reasonably common concept in dramas. Indeed, the best film directors are able to imagine what the audience experience will be, even while shooting the movie. They imagine what it would be like being in the theatre, as an audience member, viewing the finished product.

Back to the scene of the accident. The first interviewee saw the cars collide and a certain series of events occur. The second person didn’t actually see the crash but looked around when they heard the screech of brakes and collision. The third person had their headphones on, rockin’ away, and only noticed something when the people around them reacted. Every person, not just the ones interviewed by the TV news crews, experienced and perceived an entirely different occurrence. The gist of it is the same but they experienced it from their Point Of View. Also, depending on what they were thinking about at that precise moment, their state of mind, fear, shock, adrenaline and so on, will also have had an effect on their experience and memory. As they reacted, it will have a profound bearing on their perception of the event. Their prior life experience will colour, to some degree, that perception. This is just in relation to the few moments of this particular experience. As they process and think about it, they put everything into their own perceived sequence of events.

Perhaps they are interviewed by numerous news crews. Each news anchor asks a slightly different question and the interviewee answers using slightly different words and sentence structures each time. Already they are rewriting the history (memory) of the event in their own mind. Interesting.

Over the years as they retell the story at a bar or a dinner party, certain details may be altered, embellished or forgotten. They may have used even more different sentences and descriptive words each time, discussed it with others, been interrupted, left bits out, perhaps even added a few little ‘special effects’ to enhance the telling. History is changing. At least for that individual. At the same time, for them, it is a true representation of what happened.

Some of the people at the accident might just take it all in their stride. On the other hand, it may have been so shocking to some people, that they just block it out. Every time they think about it, they think something like, “ Oh I don’t want to think about that”, and they suppress the memory. Perhaps over the years, every now and then, it pops into their mind, or perhaps they experience another similar experience, but they just go, “ Oh I don’t want to think about that,” and push it even further down. They haven’t forgotten it. They just don’t think or want to think about it. They hide it from themselves, and often from others. The body and deeper psychological memory of the experience is still there.

When I was going to high school in the early 1970’s, (remember, this is my subjective memory) I and some of my friends, used to often catch a public bus rather than a school bus, because the timing was just better for us. Sometimes, there was another passenger on the bus we would chat with. He was in his mid twenties and we first noticed something odd about him one day when a truck horn blasted right next to the bus. He instantly dived under the seat of the bus. His reaction shocked us. It was loud, but it was just a truck horn. It took him several minutes to calm down and then come out from under the seat. As teenagers, we were of course intrigued by what he did, so we asked him about what had happened and if he was OK. He told us that he was a recently returned Vietnam veteran. He had been very close to an explosion that had killed and maimed some of his fellow soldiers. This was my first contact with someone with what we would now call PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The reason he caught buses was that he wasn’t allowed a drivers license because of the way he reacted to sudden unexpected noises and movement. He was incredibly sensitised to loud sudden noises. It affected his life profoundly.

Some people are afraid to drive in busy areas, over bridges or through tunnels. It can be for all kinds of reasons, perhaps an unpleasant experience in a tunnel or confined space, maybe something from a long time ago. They might be aware that there is no real reason to continue this behaviour, but they just can’t help themselves. For some people, this is incredibly debilitating and limits certain things they can do. They may worry about going on a journey for days, weeks or months before they are even leaving for the journey. They might even drive long circuitous routes to get to their destination just so they don’t have to go through a tunnel or over a particular bridge. There are endless potential causes for this kind of reaction. Even though they may have forgotten or suppressed the sensitising event, their autonomic nervous system takes over in a fraction of a second and they react. The stress, anxiety and memories persist, even at a subconscious level and it can start to affect other parts of their lives. They don’t necessarily consciously relate these problems to that sensitising event, but it is still affecting them. They may be reacting to that hidden memory and changing their whole lives to deal with it.

Remember our friend above, attending their school reunion. Who is right? Does it matter?

The Process Of learning to Change Our Mind

Reacting Vs Responding

Often, the work I do on a day to day basis is to assist my clients to learn to respond instead of react. To explain, the way I look at it, it is as if these sufferers have a hidden button inside them. Certain situations or experiences may mean that this button is sometimes pushed. It is analogous to a light-switch in some ways. You can walk over to the light-switch on the wall and flick it on and off as many times as you like. Presuming no interruption to the electricity supply and that the bulb doesn’t blow, the light will go on and off as many times as you flick the switch. This is a reaction. The light bulb has no say in the matter. In the modern world it is becoming increasingly common to have smart lights. They may have a number of sensors. Perhaps it contains a movement sensor, an ambient light sensor, perhaps more. When we walk into such a room, the sensors evaluate the situation. So maybe if it is night-time, the movement sensor notes movement and turns the light on. On the other hand, in the middle of the afternoon when light is streaming in through the window, the ambient light sensor overrides the movement sensor and says, there is already plenty of light in here, we don’t need to turn the light on. This is a response. These sensors, evaluate the situation and supply a response as opposed to the simple reaction of the ordinary switch light.

With practice and training, special forces soldiers can learn to deal with and respond, rather than react to extreme situations. We too can learn to deal with our subconscious reactions as well. Whatever the cause, anyone can learn to better understand and manage these reactions. Using some quite simple techniques you can begin to disconnect the old reactions and learn to respond to stressors or negative thoughts in a much more positive manner.

So, back to our time machines. How can we manage our time machines better?

Before I move on, if you are a sufferer of serious anxiety or PTSD, it is best to consult with an experienced therapist who can assist you in learning techniques for your specific situation. The key to understanding your situation better is in understanding the kinds of things that trigger the effect in you. For some, this will be an on-going process of understanding how to manage the problem. At the same time, learning to relax will assist greatly in dealing with this process of healing.

Many people need help and techniques today. My goal is always to create a positive practical mindset which can benefit anyone today. From my experience, I know that therapeutically, we can use our memories and our imagination (time machine) to lessen and perhaps heal some trauma and unpleasant experiences quite rapidly.

Let us explore a simple example of this process.

It helps to change our mindset so that we can deal with stress better. It is beneficial to have a process and strategy for how we are going to approach it. The first thing is to get into a relaxed state. To help, you can use the relaxation audio from my previous article here.

Free 5 Minute Relaxation Audio

Get yourself comfortable and spend a few minutes allowing your mind and body to slow down. Once you feel quite relaxed I would like you to think of something that would normally make you feel tense and uptight. Choose something relatively minor that troubles you in your life. It could be a difficult person you have to deal with or a situation you find tricky or where you feel out of your depth. For the sake of this example, I’ll choose the former.

Let us say there is a colleague at work you find a bit bristly. Perhaps they are brusque, rude or overbearing. Maybe it is a manager or colleague, who keeps piling tasks on you, even though it is not really part of your job. “Could you just do this little thing for me?” Perhaps you have trouble saying “No” to people like this.

While in your relaxed state, imagine how you feel when this kind of thing is happening. It can help if you clench your fists for the count of ten while thinking about it, and then relax. Let your hands relax and take another big deep breath and let go. Consider where you felt the tension in your body while you clenched your fists. Perhaps you felt it in your hands, maybe in your shoulders or head? Was it your chest or stomach? These are all common areas that we feel stress and tension in difficult situations. But it could be anywhere in your body and it could be an emotion like anger or sadness, or a combination. Everyone is different.

Once you have isolated those feelings, I would like you to use your imagination. Imagine if you could be in the situation you thought of and imagine if you could handle it in a really calm relaxed way. Imagine that no matter what this person said or did, or how the situation made you feel, you could handle it the way you would really like to be able to do it.

It could be something from the past, or something in the future you are worried about. Whatever it is imagine doing it in a calm relaxed way.

For some that might mean just walking away from the situation. For others, it could be being able to stay really calm and letting whatever it is roll off you like water off a ducks back. Wouldn’t that be great? Imagine it just doesn’t bother you in the slightest anymore.

Once you have a clear concept in your mind of how you would like to do it, take another nice big deep breath and let any of the remaining tension go.

Now, while still in this relaxed state, imagine how things would change if you started handling this situation in this way today. Instead of getting all worked up and tense about it. Imagine how things would be different for YOU, six months from now if you could do it the way you would like to. Wouldn’t you be less stressed? More relaxed and calm? When we use our minds to create this interference pattern with the old ways of thinking, we are changing our minds. That is all. Just changing our minds. By using our time machine in a positive creative way. Thinking about what we want, rather than what we don’t want. Oh, by the way, if you started today, you wouldn’t have to wait six months to get the benefit.

The more you interrupt the old stress patterns by taking the time to relax, the faster your improvement will take place. Look at it this way. If you are an anxious person, you have probably practised being stressed by these things for a long time, so you need to practise relaxing to undo the negative aspects and set up a new pattern. You may have become an expert at being tense, anxious and uptight, because you have done a lot of practise. Time to change. Time to update the wetware.

By practising simple, short, relaxation exercises regularly, we can create the necessary interference pattern, that allows us to spend more time in the calm now, quite quickly. At this very moment, while you are in this calm space, nothing is wrong. There is no point in worrying.

Certainly, this will take some practise. With a little perseverance you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can learn to deal with stressful situations more effectively. As well, you might find yourself making better decisions.

To gain the maximum benefit from these ideas, regular daily practise, even for a week or two can make an enormous difference. I would recommend that you sit down and relax four or five times a day. Just for three to five minutes. So for example, in the morning, at lunchtime, afternoon tea-time, in the evening when you get home from work and most importantly in bed at night before you go to sleep.

Maybe you are thinking, “I don’t have time to do that.” I figure, that if you are really stressed and anxious, you don’t have time NOT to do it. It might sound like a lot, but it is really only twenty or twenty five minutes a day. By practising like this, you are setting up an interference pattern with how stress affects you. Instead of the stress getting worse and worse throughout the day, by not really doing anything to alleviate it, you are tempering it. Even over a few days you will notice a difference in your levels of anxiety if you start doing this.

Also, if you do have the time to practise 10, 15 or 20 minutes of meditation or relaxation each day, do that as well.

When we are calm, comfortable and relaxed in our body, barely aware of our breathing, we are in this moment. The hardest part to becoming really relaxed and really being in this moment, the now, is usually the chatter in our minds. The time machine keeps jumping forwards and backwards, often all over the place. Distracted.

By practising simple exercises like the above, you can quickly learn to control your personal time machine much more effectively and make your enjoyment of life so much greater.

If you know someone who may benefit from these articles, please share.

I welcome any questions, comments or thoughts you may have.

All images by William, some with the help of DALL.E2