The first part of your post made me giggle at you being accused of having an overactive imagination lol.
It reminded me of my own childhood. A teacher told me; "One day your overactive imagination will get you into trouble". She was right because the reply I gave her lead me to getting punished by the headmaster. I got six strokes with the cane on each hand. What I told the teacher was "Well at least I have an imagination". I was told this was insolence.
I dont think I could survive life without my imagination. I dont think human beings would move forward without imagination.
It was said that Einstein was often in trouble in school because he was looking looking out of the window and "imagining" things. I am sure that is true. But for better or for worse his imagination led to the most revolutionary thought in human history. E = Mc2. Apparently, Einstein´s father would pick him up from school on his horse and cart . The journey home went along the railway line When a train came along Einstein would ask his father to make the horse run faster to see if they could match the speed of the train. Einstein noticed that the faster they went the slower seemed the speed of the train. This was because they were matching the trains´s speed of course. We have all experienced this when driving our car and think nothing of it. Einstein however never forgot this. His overactive imagination lead him to wonder what would happen if we travelled at the speed of light. Once he got to that the rest was history.
If today, anyone tells me I have an "overactive imagination", I say "Thank you so much"