"Time to Pretend" is a song by the American indie band MGMT, released as the lead single from their debut studio album Oracular Spectacular (2007) on March 3, 2008.

From a quote from live at Abbey Road: We wrote "Time to Pretend" our senior year of college, and the music was inspired by a praying mantis we had in our house.

She laid eggs and it died, and we laid the egg case on this kinda model pirate ship on the mantle piece, and the eggs hatched and all these baby praying mantises were climbing up the rigging of the ship, and it was pretty crazy...uhm so the music was inspired by our praying mantis that liked to dance to The Clash {laugh} and the lyrics are just about us imagining being rock stars ... and yeah, fantasy rock star life.The music video for the song contains references to Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 film The Holy Mountain[7] and the 1954 novel Lord of the Flies.

Kevin O'Donnell wrote in Rolling Stone that "Time to Pretend is a space-rock gem that mocks the clichéd coke-and-hookers rock-star lifestyle, over big synth whooshes.

MGMT performed the song "Time to Pretend" on Late Show with David Letterman on January 8, 2008.