In the film My Old Ass, on a trip to an island with friends and some hallucinogenic mushrooms, Elliott has a unique experience where she gets to meet her older self. This sets the scene for a dialogue where 39-year-old Elliott gets to reflect and impart advice about the things she wishes she had done differently. She does this in the hope that 18-year-old Elliott will think about where her actions might lead.
While it’s unlikely many of us will get the opportunity to actually talk to our younger or older selves, many of us, I’m sure, daydream about what we would say. When we engage in this mental time travel, we do more than just recall the things that have happened or think about the things we know are going to happen; instead, like Elliott, we delve into a world of how things could be different.
Imagination is something we often consider to be unpredictable but it turns out that there are commonalities in the things we bring to mind. Like Elliott, we tend to focus on thoughts of ourselves and of our goals rather than other things going on in the world. There are also similarities in when we engage in this type of thinking – most often when things are not going so well or when doors to opportunities start to close.
