Brain scans seem to confirm that imagining the future and remembering the past uses a largely overlapping core network in the brain, with distinct subsystems being observed to be used under closer examination.
An experiment with 77 people solving word puzzles at different times of the day indicates that our brains are better at integrating disparate pieces of information after a short bout of REM sleep.
The perceptual system may not give us enough information to accurately judge the size of distant objects, and so we may develop a system of compensation as we grow older.