Hi Friends,
In the 1980 film Somewhere in Time, Christopher Reeve plays a character who uses self-hypnosis to travel back in time to re-unite with Elise, a character played by Jane Seymour. His time traveling through hypnosis, not a tricked-out la-z-boy or a souped-up DeLorean, seems sort of far-fetched to me as a time travel trope.
Although it's not quite as goofy as John Carter jumping to Mars.
In the famous (famous if you're a fan of 1979 health studies) Ellen Langer's "Counterclockwise" study, a group of old men were transported, health-wise, into the past. These guys were sent on a retreat where they were isolated and exposed only to an environment that mimicked the 1950s. It was shown that after a relatively short amount of time, like a week or two, most participants became healthier, as if they had reverted to their younger selves.
Recently, a new study suggests that we can improve the accuracy of a memory if we not only think about the incident, but bring in as many contextual elements that surrounded the incident when the memory was being created.
They call this mental time travel.
Memories fade away with the passage of time but by mentally reinstating the temporal context that surrounded older memories at encoding the retrievability of the memories can be improved again.
Karl-Heinz T. Bäuml, Sarah R. Meixensperger, and Marilena L. Hirsch
In other words, if you're trying to remember your high school principal's name, it helps to go back to high school in your mind. Think of the bullies and the nerds, the assemblies, the awkward dances, the sports, and whatever else you were into in high school (I won't judge)—all that situational reconstruction will assist you.
It might actually be fun to mentally time travel.
Now, if we combine this with our brain's ability to create false memories, perhaps we're generating temporal paradoxes.
Imagine, you could go back (in your mind) to high school, cast your junior year English teacher as the principal and completely eradicate Mr. Riley from history, as if you had killed his descendants before he was born (like the T-800 tried with Sarah Connor in The Terminator). Now, the kindly Ms. Wilson completely alters your memory of the halls where Mr. Riley's shadow kept you all on edge.
What does that do to your memories?
Perhaps that flavor of the memory inspires you to do something today that you might not have. Maybe you pick up a sketchbook and start drawing or volunteer with animals in need. Or buy a motorcycle, get tattoos and join a gang.
In essence, you time-travelled and changed your own history and future.
How's that for a temporal paradox?
Happy writing, happy reading, happy time-travelling,
David