To the brain,
remembering the past
and visualizing the
future look surprisingly
similar
Thanks
When Alice climbs through the looking glass, she encounters a topsy-turvy world. People are punished before
committing a crime, and sometimes fingers bleed before
a pinprick occurs. Those strange events reflect a memory that works
both ways in that world, allowing people to remember things before
they happen. As the Queen explains to Alice: “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”
Now, back in this world, scientists are discovering that human
memory does indeed work forward. A growing number of studies
show that the mental machinery for reliving your past performs
another — perhaps more vital — task: envisioning your future.
Other studies show that total amnesiacs report a “blank” when
asked about their personal futures. And severely depressed patients,
who tend to think about both the past and future in a nonspecific
manner, have difficulty visualizing positive future events.
Such findings have stimulated scientists to rethink the role of
memory. Rather than viewing it as a mere storehouse of facts and
autobiographical data, researchers are beginning to recognize that
memory also constructs, simulates and predicts possible future
events in an ever-changing environment. Perhaps, some say, this
