Discussion Forum > How I got to be future me
Michael:
I'm curious to see where you end up. After 2 months of experimentation, I've stopped using the Dreams format. What I've retained is a variation of a Future Self (I audio record my own version of self-coaching in the AM... of how I'd like my day to go), and then an audio recording at night of how my day went. I also do an audio recording of a weekly review i.e. my progress, or lack thereof, on major projects.
However your post is awakening some positive feelings about the Dreams process... so who knows? I might start mucking around with my 3-5 year Future Self again.
I'm curious to see where you end up. After 2 months of experimentation, I've stopped using the Dreams format. What I've retained is a variation of a Future Self (I audio record my own version of self-coaching in the AM... of how I'd like my day to go), and then an audio recording at night of how my day went. I also do an audio recording of a weekly review i.e. my progress, or lack thereof, on major projects.
However your post is awakening some positive feelings about the Dreams process... so who knows? I might start mucking around with my 3-5 year Future Self again.
August 21, 2011 at 13:44 |
avrum
avrum
I think I have had resistance to listening to my future me, so I've had to come to more acceptance of the idea. Partly I wanted to go it alone, partly I had an expectation that my future self would speak to me in a similar way to Mark's - but it doesn't! I have had some wonderful suggestions from my future self expressed in a very different way from Mark's so I would suggest just playing, allowing, inviting and experimenting. If stuck, just pretend! The rest will follow.
August 22, 2011 at 11:58 |
michael
michael
"just pretend!"
My biggest hangup with talk of a Future Self is that there really isn't such a thing, and yet people write as though there is. I'm convinced the reality is that we are extremely good with imagination and it can be very helpful to deeply imagine the result of achieving our dreams. It's not dissimilar to askin constantly, "How would [role model's name] handle this?", except it's more thorough.
My biggest hangup with talk of a Future Self is that there really isn't such a thing, and yet people write as though there is. I'm convinced the reality is that we are extremely good with imagination and it can be very helpful to deeply imagine the result of achieving our dreams. It's not dissimilar to askin constantly, "How would [role model's name] handle this?", except it's more thorough.
August 22, 2011 at 13:03 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
Alan wrote:
<<"just pretend!"
... I'm convinced the reality is that we are extremely good with imagination and it can be very helpful to deeply imagine the result of achieving our dreams.>>
Well, yes! If people can imagine themselves cured of cancer (a.k.a. the placebo effect), then we can imagine ourselves talking to our future selves. It only works if you buy into it. I have accidentally planned highly resistive projects just by starting to tell my future self about the project. In my experience, these tips are very helpful:
1. Your Future Self is just a means trying to think like the person you want to become, and thought leads action,
2. The reason we don't ask our FS questions is that there isn't really anyone there to give you answers that you don't already know. It's not a Magic Eight Ball or a Ouija Board!
3. Just imagining your FS' questions is enough to draw your thoughts in the right direction.
4. You pretended when you were a child, you pretend every time you allow a movie to evoke an emotion (those little colored pixels are not actual people, you know!), and you dream all sorts of crazy stuff now every night, so why be embarrassed about pretending this? This one actually has a constructive purpose.
5. You are perfectly allowed to give yourself permission to talk to your own Future Self, and Mark's Q&A exercise won't work unless you do so.
6. Unless you are taking your final breath right now, you do factually have a Future Self, and there's no one more qualified than you to imagine that person's traits.
I hope that helps!
The role model approach might be helpful too, if one can find a suitable role model, but I imagine one might get hung up wondering what that other person would actually do and miss the point of informing one's *own* future direction.
<<"just pretend!"
... I'm convinced the reality is that we are extremely good with imagination and it can be very helpful to deeply imagine the result of achieving our dreams.>>
Well, yes! If people can imagine themselves cured of cancer (a.k.a. the placebo effect), then we can imagine ourselves talking to our future selves. It only works if you buy into it. I have accidentally planned highly resistive projects just by starting to tell my future self about the project. In my experience, these tips are very helpful:
1. Your Future Self is just a means trying to think like the person you want to become, and thought leads action,
2. The reason we don't ask our FS questions is that there isn't really anyone there to give you answers that you don't already know. It's not a Magic Eight Ball or a Ouija Board!
3. Just imagining your FS' questions is enough to draw your thoughts in the right direction.
4. You pretended when you were a child, you pretend every time you allow a movie to evoke an emotion (those little colored pixels are not actual people, you know!), and you dream all sorts of crazy stuff now every night, so why be embarrassed about pretending this? This one actually has a constructive purpose.
5. You are perfectly allowed to give yourself permission to talk to your own Future Self, and Mark's Q&A exercise won't work unless you do so.
6. Unless you are taking your final breath right now, you do factually have a Future Self, and there's no one more qualified than you to imagine that person's traits.
I hope that helps!
The role model approach might be helpful too, if one can find a suitable role model, but I imagine one might get hung up wondering what that other person would actually do and miss the point of informing one's *own* future direction.
August 22, 2011 at 14:09 |
Bernie
Bernie
Alan, it's not the same as imagining yourself talking to any other role model, because your Future Self is already in you. Actually, you have many different Future Selves in you and you are trying to draw out the one that you would most like to be. My own future Self is a more actualized version of who I already am today. When I talk to my Future self I am affirming my own gifts, my own inner power, and helping it to manifest more clearly. It's quite different to imagine myself talking to any other role model, which puts the power outside myself. That's my take on it, anyway.
August 22, 2011 at 14:42 |
silviastraka
silviastraka
The Future Self in "Dreams" is supposed to be you in imagination having achieved your Future Reality. It's not intended to be some sort of "higher self".
The rationale behind the concept is illustrated by the following two instructions:
1) Describe the steps by which you will achieve Goal X.
2) Imagine you have achieved Goal X and describe the steps by which you achieved it.
Instruction 2 produces a higher quantity and quality of answers than Instruction 1.
The rationale behind the concept is illustrated by the following two instructions:
1) Describe the steps by which you will achieve Goal X.
2) Imagine you have achieved Goal X and describe the steps by which you achieved it.
Instruction 2 produces a higher quantity and quality of answers than Instruction 1.
August 22, 2011 at 23:37 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
The work of Benjamin Libet is interesting here. He found people could respond to stimuli before they reached conscious awareness - access to the future! We live in the actual past but we interpret it as an experiential present. The world we live in is not, actually, the present, and it is subjective.
For example, your future self turns out to be an ace tennis player. You hit the tennis ball. Half a second later you become consciously aware that you did a brilliant return of serve. You played a brilliant shot before you made the decision to do so. How can I react to something of which I am not aware?
There are several ways of construing that but one way would be to say we subjectively refer events backward in time. Libet proposed a theory of the conscious mental field (CMF) to explain how the mental experience arises from physical neurons. I'd like to suggest that idea could be extended to a temporal field where we unconsciously have access to future events.
For example, your future self turns out to be an ace tennis player. You hit the tennis ball. Half a second later you become consciously aware that you did a brilliant return of serve. You played a brilliant shot before you made the decision to do so. How can I react to something of which I am not aware?
There are several ways of construing that but one way would be to say we subjectively refer events backward in time. Libet proposed a theory of the conscious mental field (CMF) to explain how the mental experience arises from physical neurons. I'd like to suggest that idea could be extended to a temporal field where we unconsciously have access to future events.
August 23, 2011 at 10:57 |
michael
michael
Of course there is no future anyhow. The only moment that is ever experienced is the "now". The past is just memories, the future just imaginings. So time management is a flawed concept. Existence is just a field of potential experience, created by consciousness. Our recollections of the past create it. Our decisions about the future create it. We might be better with a better concept of time. I'll do that tomorrow. After I've finished on the holodeck.
August 23, 2011 at 11:13 |
michael
michael
michael:
<< The world we live in is not, actually, the present, and it is subjective. >>
You have to be careful how you interpret this. If you decide that the world is subjective and therefore you are going to jump off the top of a tall building you will discover very quickly that the world isn't subjective at all.
The way our brains work with reality allows humans to make tennis returns, drive cars, play the piano, recognise faces and identify spam better than any computer.
<< The world we live in is not, actually, the present, and it is subjective. >>
You have to be careful how you interpret this. If you decide that the world is subjective and therefore you are going to jump off the top of a tall building you will discover very quickly that the world isn't subjective at all.
The way our brains work with reality allows humans to make tennis returns, drive cars, play the piano, recognise faces and identify spam better than any computer.
August 23, 2011 at 11:37 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Mark: I agree we have to work with our existing belief systems. These can also be expanded of course. And changed to work better for us.
August 23, 2011 at 12:40 |
michael
michael
michael:
<< I agree we have to work with our existing belief systems. >>
I'm not sure what you mean by saying you agree with me. I didn't say that.
My point was that If you jump off the top of a tall building the result will be the same _whatever_ you believe.
<< I agree we have to work with our existing belief systems. >>
I'm not sure what you mean by saying you agree with me. I didn't say that.
My point was that If you jump off the top of a tall building the result will be the same _whatever_ you believe.
August 23, 2011 at 14:16 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Another view of the brain (and one I favor) is that it is a very sophisticated prediction machine. With the right training and experience, one could return a tennis serve or hit the brakes when a child's football bounces into the street and not think about what happened till later. The brain has made all the calculations below the conscious level and then executed them through the body with lightning speed.
This prediction mechanism can go awry, though, when I get a terse email from my boss and I begin to imagine that he's mad at me because of X and so I'll be fired and then I'm in a state of anxiety all day. Or I dread opening up that file because my brain is predcting that the work will be hard and will make me unhappy. Or I dread going to a party because I hated the last one and so my brain is predicting I'll hate this one too.
In these cases, my brain is (rather simplistically) predicting catastrophe based on minimal input and is torturing me. That's when it's nice to have tools like David Burns' Feeling Good book, which can surface those unspoken assumptions and beliefs and bring them up to consciousness where they can be logically refuted and the feelings altered (Cognitive Behavior Therapy). When done well, those exercises can reprogram your brain's prediction mechanism so no anxiety is generated when you're triggered.
Where am I going with this? Dunno :) Except -- maybe the future reality exercises help to prime and program the prediction mechanism. So that when opportunity comes, it's recognized and put into action more quickly.
This prediction mechanism can go awry, though, when I get a terse email from my boss and I begin to imagine that he's mad at me because of X and so I'll be fired and then I'm in a state of anxiety all day. Or I dread opening up that file because my brain is predcting that the work will be hard and will make me unhappy. Or I dread going to a party because I hated the last one and so my brain is predicting I'll hate this one too.
In these cases, my brain is (rather simplistically) predicting catastrophe based on minimal input and is torturing me. That's when it's nice to have tools like David Burns' Feeling Good book, which can surface those unspoken assumptions and beliefs and bring them up to consciousness where they can be logically refuted and the feelings altered (Cognitive Behavior Therapy). When done well, those exercises can reprogram your brain's prediction mechanism so no anxiety is generated when you're triggered.
Where am I going with this? Dunno :) Except -- maybe the future reality exercises help to prime and program the prediction mechanism. So that when opportunity comes, it's recognized and put into action more quickly.
August 23, 2011 at 15:54 |
Mike Brown
Mike Brown
I think you're right. It seems the brain generally has an advanced pain-avoidance system that makes going through life easy, unless you want to venture into "dangerous" areas. Your subconscious may fight you, and your conscious needs to work to keep charge, overcome fear, sloth, etc.
August 23, 2011 at 16:17 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
Let's not forget the advanced pleasure-seeking capabilities.
August 24, 2011 at 8:06 |
michael
michael
...and now here I am 1 month or so in the future.
I persevered at developing my relationship with my future self because I believed it was important, and because I was puzzled as to why so many people were put off by it. Here are some observations:
1. some people do not have a positive view of what lies ahead. It can be seen as more slog or challenge, or as a slow decline. This makes us averse to optimism and hope and constricts the energy of motivation. Pessimism and hopelessness dominate and we maintain the view of tacit acceptance of the status quo. That there is no power or potential in the possible.
2. we may not be very welcoming to the idea that we need help from anywhere! "I can do this on my own". If we think willpower is all we need we can become aggressive toward ourself, using our will against other parts of ourself, knowing what should be done but choosing otherwise.
3. we may need to improve our relationship to our past self first. If we carry resentment or hurt or disappointment toward our self for how life has been we must surely taint our expectations and wishes for our future.
I persevered at developing my relationship with my future self because I believed it was important, and because I was puzzled as to why so many people were put off by it. Here are some observations:
1. some people do not have a positive view of what lies ahead. It can be seen as more slog or challenge, or as a slow decline. This makes us averse to optimism and hope and constricts the energy of motivation. Pessimism and hopelessness dominate and we maintain the view of tacit acceptance of the status quo. That there is no power or potential in the possible.
2. we may not be very welcoming to the idea that we need help from anywhere! "I can do this on my own". If we think willpower is all we need we can become aggressive toward ourself, using our will against other parts of ourself, knowing what should be done but choosing otherwise.
3. we may need to improve our relationship to our past self first. If we carry resentment or hurt or disappointment toward our self for how life has been we must surely taint our expectations and wishes for our future.
September 23, 2011 at 23:37 |
michael
michael
You stuck with yourself for one month, and figured out how to stick/why many people don't. I hope something positive came of this besides!
September 24, 2011 at 12:41 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
Alan: i think it's improving and strengthening the energy I feel from my future self. For me like many it started as a useful piece of pretending. My dialogues with him were no where near as long as Mark's but now my dialogue are longer and I have an expanded perspective, like looking down on my whole life : past-self, present self, and future self. I find this gives a context and meaning to episodes of my life that I hadn't seen before. This all cam after analysing where my relationship to my future had got jammed.
September 28, 2011 at 20:59 |
michael
michael
I start from the view that all possible variations of who I can be already exist, potentially at least. Then I intend to dialogue with the highest and best possible version of me, so I can guide myself from that perspective. That perspective is the me experiencing my current desires and wishes. As Marks says in "Dreams" ...more important to be the person having that experience than to have the experience. The aim then is to begin to match that variation or version of me in thought, attitude, perspective, word and deed. That starts to close the gap. It also helps me to feel that reality as if it were happening now. I ask myself "How does THAT me go about DOING what THIS me has to do in current circumstances. That also closes the gap. The time that elapses for the dreams to be created might depend on what depths of oneself need to be changed, and how easy or difficult that is perceived to be