CONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY AND IMAGINING THE FUTURE Studies of memory have mainly focused on remembering past experiences, but an important function of memory is to allow individuals to simulate or imagine future experiences. A rapidly growing number of studies have shown that simulating future experiences depends on much of the same neural and cognitive machinery as remembering past experiences. To account for these findings, we have suggested the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, which holds that simulation of future experiences requires a system that can draw on the past in a manner that flexibly re-combines elements of previous experiences, sometimes producing memory distortions that reflect the operation of adaptive processes. This talk considers cognitive and neuroimaging studies that address both pitfalls and adaptive aspects of flexible recombination and episodic future simulation.