Narrator: What if, back in 2008, you were invited to play a game set in the fall of 2019? A game that simulated a global respiratory pandemic, complete with supply chain disruptions, misinformation campaigns, and widespread social upheaval. Participants in this very real simulation, called Superstruct, imagined how they would adapt, from the challenges of working mothers juggling homeschooling to the social resistance against wearing masks. When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in early 2020, these players reported feeling less anxious and more prepared. They had already "pre-felt" the future. This powerful idea—that we can prepare our minds for the unthinkable by simulating it first—is the central argument of Jane McGonigal's book, Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything. The book serves as a practical guide for developing the mental habits of a futurist, transforming anxiety about the unknown into a sense of agency and urgent optimism.

Narrator: The core premise of Imaginable is that it is better to be surprised by a simulation than blindsided by reality. McGonigal, a game designer and futurist, argues that future simulations are not about predicting the future with perfect accuracy. Instead, their true value lies in stretching our collective imagination and building psychological resilience. By immersing ourselves in a detailed future scenario, we pre-process the anxiety, uncertainty, and grief that often accompany major shocks.

McGonigal provides two compelling examples from her own work. The first is Superstruct, the 2008 simulation that eerily foreshadowed the social and emotional ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly ten thousand participants from around the world simulated their lives during a fictional outbreak. They predicted that large gatherings like weddings would become superspreading events, that young people would resist lockdowns, and that public health guidelines would be difficult to follow without significant economic support. When the real pandemic hit, these players were able to adapt more quickly because they had already built the mental pathways to navigate such a crisis.

A second simulation, EVOKE, was run in 2010 for the World Bank. It was set in the year 2020 and asked players to tackle compounding global crises, including a respiratory pandemic, social media-driven conspiracy theories, historic wildfires on the U.S. West Coast, and a power grid collapse. A decade later, the headlines of 2020 and 2021 mirrored these fictional storylines with uncanny accuracy. These simulations demonstrate that by playing with possibilities, we can develop the flexibility and agility needed to respond effectively when the unthinkable becomes real.

Narrator: To effectively imagine the future, McGonigal asserts that we need to give ourselves enough room to think. She argues that the ideal timeframe for this is ten years. This "ten-year trip" creates a sense of "time spaciousness," a psychological sweet spot where our minds are free from the constraints of the immediate future and open to dramatic change. Thinking about tomorrow is too similar to today, but a decade is long enough for significant personal, social, and technological transformations to seem plausible.

The book points to numerous historical examples of profound change occurring within a ten-year span. The Civil Rights Movement in the United States made monumental legislative gains between 1955 and 1964. The internet grew from a niche tool for sixteen million scientists in 1991 to a global platform for a billion people by 2001. The first iPhone was released in 2007, and by 2017, a majority of people on the planet owned a smartphone. These examples prove that a decade is a powerful interval for change. By adopting a ten-year outlook, we are more likely to set ambitious "maximal goals" and feel more optimistic and creative, because we perceive that we have ample time to develop skills, gather resources, and overcome setbacks.

Narrator: The cognitive mechanism behind this future-thinking is what scientists call Episodic Future Thinking, or EFT. McGonigal explains that this is not just abstractly thinking about the future; it is the mental ability to transport yourself forward in time and vividly pre-experience a future event. It is a demanding cognitive task, activating eleven distinct brain regions—more than are used for remembering the past or daydreaming.

This mental simulation involves three key processes: scene construction (building the future world), opportunity detection (identifying how to achieve goals), and pre-feeling emotions. The benefits of practicing EFT are significant. Research shows it is strongly linked to increased optimism, motivation, and a sense of control, while reducing anxiety and depression. It also boosts creativity and is a highly effective tool for behavior change. People who vividly imagine their personal futures are more likely to make healthier choices, save money, and stick with long-term goals. By regularly practicing mental time travel to a point ten years from now, we are essentially training our brains to build a "memory of the future" that can guide our actions in the present.

Narrator: A key principle in futures studies is Dator's Law, which states, "Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous." McGonigal argues that it is precisely the weird, seemingly impossible possibilities that are most likely to catch us off guard. Therefore, we must train ourselves to take them seriously. An idea that seems outrageous or impossible reveals a potential blind spot in our imagination.

To illustrate this, the book challenges seemingly unchangeable facts of life. For centuries, human reproduction required the genetic material of one man and one woman. Yet today, "three-parent babies" have been born using a technique that combines DNA from three people to prevent genetic disease. Scientists are also working on methods to create babies from two same-sex parents using stem cells and gene editing. The idea of artificial wombs, once pure science fiction, is now being explored in labs, raising profound ethical questions about the future of gestation. By actively looking for evidence that challenges our most fundamental assumptions, we develop the ability to spot change faster and adapt more effectively.

Narrator: To ground our imagination in reality, futurists don't just invent ideas; they look for "signals of change." McGonigal defines a signal as a concrete, observable example of how the world could be different in the future. It is a real thing happening now, on a small scale, that proves a specific kind of change is possible. Developing "strangesight"—the ability to notice unusual and surprising things—is the key to finding these clues.

McGonigal shares a personal story of encountering a "No Drone Zone" sign at a regional park. This small, strange signal sparked her curiosity. Her investigation revealed a global trend of regulating drone use, the rise of "selfie drones" in China, and the potential for both good and harm, from citizen journalism documenting injustice to drones causing ecological disasters. A single signal can be weak, but when you find multiple, aligned signals—like the drone sign and a story about a drone crash wiping out a seabird colony—it points to a stronger trend. By collecting and analyzing these clues, we can transmute them into rich future scenarios and have more informed conversations about the world we want to create.

Narrator: A common response to overwhelming future forces is "learned helplessness," a feeling of powerlessness that leads to inaction. However, McGonigal, citing newer research, argues that the brain's default response to adversity is helplessness; we must learn that we have power and control. We can train our brains to do this by imagining ourselves acting effectively in future scenarios.

This is what McGonigal calls "answering the call to adventure." Instead of just passively imagining a future crisis, we should actively consider how we can help. The book offers a practical exercise called "Pack Your Bags for the Future," which asks you to identify your unique skills, knowledge, communities, and values. By inventorying these personal assets, you can begin to imagine how you might be of service during a specific future crisis, like the "Alpha-Gal Crisis" scenario presented in the book, where a tick-borne allergy to meat becomes a pandemic. This act of imagining yourself as a helper, rather than a victim, activates the part of the brain responsible for agency and control, turning the freeze instinct into a fight, flee, or—most importantly—help instinct.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Imaginable is that the future is not a fixed destination to be predicted, but a creative space to be actively shaped. The true gift of the future is creativity. By training our imagination, we develop the agency to make things different, both in our own lives and in the world. The goal is not to be right about what's coming, but to be ready for anything and to see ourselves as capable participants in the unfolding story of humanity.

McGonigal leaves readers with a powerful challenge that fosters this mindset: the practice of "urgent optimism." This is not a blind hopefulness, but a clear-eyed recognition of the serious challenges ahead, combined with the confidence that we have the power to contribute to solutions. The ultimate question the book poses is not what the future will be, but what you will do to help create it. What is the you-shaped hole in the world that only you can fill?