👁️ The Paranoid Downside of a Strong Imagination
New research shows a connection between vivid mental imagery and a vulnerability to paranoia
Paranoia is often thought of as an irrational belief that others intend to harm us, but it may be fueled by something quite ordinary: the way we imagine the future.
When we picture the future vividly—especially emotionally charged events—we’re not just daydreaming. These mental images can have real psychological consequences. A new study reveals that an ability to vividly imagine intentional harm from others is closely linked to paranoid thinking.
Thankfully, there may be a mental habit with a protective quality too: the ability to stay focused on the present.
🖇️ The connection between paranoia and negative mental imagery
In a 2025 study published in Personality and Individual Differences, researchers surveyed 120 young adults (mean age: 19.6 years) using a modified version of the Prospective Imagery Task. Participants rated the vividness of imagined future events—ranging from generic misfortunes to scenarios where other people intentionally caused them harm.
They also completed questionnaires assessing their levels of paranoia, anxiety, depression, and present moment awareness—a measure of how well someone stays mentally grounded in the here and now.
The researchers tested two main hypotheses:
That paranoia, more than general anxiety, would be associated with vivid imagery of future social harm.
That present moment awareness would weaken the link between vivid negative imagery and paranoid beliefs.
So what did the results show?
Paranoia was uniquely associated with vivid imagery of future interpersonal harms, like imagining someone deliberately mistreating you. In contrast, anxiety was more linked to general non-interpersonal negative imagery (e.g. becoming ill).
The vividness of negative interpersonal imagery predicted higher levels of paranoid thinking—even after controlling for depression. In other words, the effect wasn’t just due to low mood or general distress.
Present moment awareness moderated the effect. People who were better at staying present showed a weaker link between vivid imagery of future harm and paranoid beliefs. Their sense of paranoia was less inflamed by the vividness of their mental imagery.
These findings suggest that vivid negative mental imagery may amplify paranoid thoughts, especially when imagining harms that are interpersonal and deliberate. An ability to focus on the now offers some psychological insulation against this vulnerability.
⭐️ Takeaway tips
#1. Be aware of what you're picturing
If you find yourself frequently imagining future social harms—like being judged, excluded, accused, or mistreated—try to avoid a deep focus on the details. The more vivid and intentional your mental scenes feel, the more they fuel paranoid thinking. Occasional worries about what the future holds are normal, but excessive rumination about events that haven’t yet happened and may never happen will drive unnecessary feelings of threat and even paranoid delusions.
#2. Practice being present
Training yourself to focus on the present moment (through techniques like mindfulness) may buffer you from the emotional pull of imagined futures. Staying present can help you observe thoughts without getting dragged too deeply into them. Since the present moment is the only thing that truly exists, anchoring your thoughts to it protects against getting lost in future hypotheticals or past regrets.
#3. Don’t confuse imagery with prediction
Just because you can vividly picture someone trying to hurt you doesn’t make it likely to happen. Vividness gives images a false sense of realism, and those realistic images can distort our sense of probability via the availability heuristic—being able to swiftly picture vivid, traumatic events in the mind (e.g. plane crashes) can make them feel more probable. Remind yourself that mental imagery is just that—imagery—not destiny.
“Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due”
~ Proverb
This one speaks to me a lot. I am an expert catastrophizer, and need to get better at living in the present. I wasn't aware of the availability heuristic but that makes a lot of sense!
Suppose the real trick is to reliably distinguish imagined fabrications from empirically informed probabilities wherein present moment steps can objectively reduce room for harm.