Why the Future Feels So Engaging to the Mind
What Psychology Reveals About Imagining the Present & the Future
Last weekend I read a study that explores how differently we imagine the present compared with how we imagine the future [1].
The researchers asked people to picture a scene happening right now, and then to picture a scene set in the future. What they found was how incredibly the two forms of imagery diverged.
When people imagined the present, they stayed close to what they were already sensing. When they imagined the future, they began adding detail, emotion, and movement.
The future became something they constructed.
Possibly explaining why the future can feel emotionally richer even though it has not happened, as our minds build what is to happen ahead in a way they do not build the now.
How we imagine the present
You see, present-focused imagery stays close to whatever is already available to the senses. In the study, participants tended to picture what was immediately in front of them without adding much to it.
The scenes were concrete and uncomplicated, coloured by information the mind already had. There was no real impulse to create or expand.
Imagining the present was more a matter of noticing than building.
From a wellbeing perspective, I find this an interesting “limitation.”
When our minds stay strictly with the present, we rely only on what is already happening. There is no space for possibility or movement.
This narrower focus is useful, as it gives us a mindful sense of where we are.
This becomes relevant especially for those of us living with anxiety, because anxious thinking often begins with imagined outcomes rather than current facts.
Thus, staying with what is actually happening introduces a boundary, even if a temporary one, between the moment and the scenarios our mind might otherwise create.
Thus helping anxiety from becoming all consuming.
How we imagine the future
When the study turned to future-focused imagery, the transition was clear.
Participants no longer stayed with what was already available to the senses. They began to add details that were not yet there. The future invited them to fill in gaps, extend scenes and construct possibilities.
The future was treated as something to build.
It was only yesterday, while pencilling in a seminar for next March, when lo and behold, my mind immediately created its own version of that week: I pictured the weather, the people I would be meeting and the overall atmosphere.
None of that came from what I was sensing in the present. It all came from my mind’s tendency to create possibilities whenever it looks ahead. This is exactly what the study found. The future gives the imagination room to move, so it fills the space almost automatically.
In terms of our wellbeing, this flexibility has a mixed role.
It indeed helps us plan and organise our lives, but it also shows why the future can become absorbing. Once the mind starts constructing possibilities, it becomes easy to drift toward what might happen, even while the present is still in need of us!
Why the future pulls so strongly
I find it incredibly insightful to learn how differently the mind treats the future compared with the present. The present, because it offers a fixed set of details, tie our minds to whatever is already happening in the now.
The future, by contrast, has no such limits. Nothing has taken shape yet, so the mind approaches it as a space it can influence. That openness gives the future a psychological pull that the present cannot match.
This helps explain why we often find ourselves thinking ahead almost automatically, particularly at this time of year. Planning becomes more frequent, calendars start to fill and the mind meets each upcoming date as an opportunity to create a version of what might happen.
The future becomes the more engaging option simply because it gives the imagination more to work with.
What also interests me is how easily this can be mistaken for restlessness or lack of intentional living. But what the study suggests is something far more ordinary. The mind gravitates toward the future because it feels workable. It can be shaped, adjusted and filled in.
The present cannot. It is already happening.
This difference in psychological “richness” is subtle but important. It shows that our tendency to live slightly ahead of ourselves is not a flaw. It is built into the way the mind handles time. And it becomes especially noticeable whenever life moves into a transitional phase, such as the end of the year.
To Conclude
What the study makes clear is that the mind does not treat the present and the future in the same way.
The present gives us what is already happening. It is fixed, limited and concrete. The future is open and can be shaped, so the imagination moves into it with ease.
Neither mode is better. They simply serve different functions.
In daily life, we move between these two orientations constantly. We rely on the present for stability. We rely on the future for possibility. And at certain times in life, the balance tilts to one side more than the other. The imagination leans forward, calendars fill and the future becomes more mentally engaging than whatever is happening right now.
The study helps explain why this feels so natural. The mind follows the direction that offers the most room to think.
So the pull of the future is not strictly a sign that we are distracted or living too far ahead of ourselves. It reflects the way the mind handles time.
Understanding this gives us a clearer view of how our attention oscillates between temporal anchors, and of how those oscillations influence what we notice, how we interpret it, and where our mental energy goes.
Reference List:
[1] Hershfield, H. E., & Maglio, S. J. (2020). When does the present end and the future begin? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(4), 701–718. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000681
This is really interesting! It makes me curious about the link between future-focused thinking and creativity. Everyone has an imagination, and everyone has the ability to use it to envision future events, so I wonder what makes it easier or more difficult to engage their imagination in other kinds of tasks?
This explains why I love planning ahead…especially holidays…and find myself feeling excited about the possibilities. I think it’s why last minute holiday deals don’t appeal to me…they seem to deprive us of the delicious ‘looking forward to’ element of travelling somewhere new!