Well, presumably much or even most of the imagination is out of our direct control.
I have very vivid, interesting dreams. They’re so real to me that I’m sometimes a little sad when I wake up and watch their constructed realities vanish quickly.
Although, If I sing or play a song in the dream, I can carry the dream with me and recall it.
[I’ve tested that out a bunch of times and it’s a consistent dream carryover tool for me which I’m grateful for]
But returning, people often use “pain” or scientific data as metrics for an external reality.
I’ve never been satisfied with them as metrics, completely.
I think for me what tethers me to this world is bickering. I argue in my head but its not like the bickering in real life, which can be mind-numbingly hardheaded in ways I don’t get internally.