It is not imagination that matters, but the quality/intelligence of the imaginer himself. A stupid person cannot imagine himself to be intelligent, thus any attempt by the stupid person to imagine himself as intelligent is but more stupidity. However much the stupid person imagines, his stupidity remains.

That’s if you consider imagination in the greater sense to be only about imagery. Imagination is about much, much more…the creation of music is about the language of the imagination and that creative process…one can imagine sound as color, or taste and vice versa.
Imagination can incorporate all the senses. Smell, taste, touch and sound are all vehicles of the expression of the imagination.
Theories…in physics, chemistry and biology start with the imagination. They are simply not images of theories…mathematics can and is imagined.
Einstein imagined the workings of the Universe. The math was simply using another mathematical human language to try and prove it as a truth. Granted it is an twentieth century myth that has survived way too long…like Darwinism.

We in twentieth century are not building new myths…but that does seems rhetorical in a sense, (if one includes the myths created by the corporation or governments)…I should say that we are recycling, reconstituting and rebranding the old world myths. The old gods are being resurrected. With new and improved powers…technological powers. But they are still the old gods.
Imagination is not about creating another myth…myths are the basis of the propaganda of the priest class. Today science is that new priest class.
Imagination helps me find a path to a truth.
Imagination allows me to build my own reality. Free from the contraints and in some cases oppression of anothers.

Probably on a day when he is so miserable, that he starts dreaming of a better life. It happens all the time. Some people need to get to the bottom before they start looking for a way out of it.

By dreaming of a better life, he stimulates his imagination and BINGO… the doors of his mind open up magically.

Image-ination is the capacity to create totally new images, and that requires a freedom from ALL the old images that one has accumulated about self and the world.

It seems to me, that you are confusing “Wishful Thinking” with “Imagination”.

Wishful Thinking” requires faith. Just like in religion. You wish and have the faifth that God exist, even though he is invisible, just like the steak in your plate is invisible of course.

Imagination, requires no faith. You imagine something and you do it.
A painting, a scenario, or a music piece, or anything else.

Another example:

The Elites have proven that they have a lot of imagination. They, for instance, imagined one day, to create a system that could spy on all of us, all of the time. They didn’t know themselves, how to make it happen, but they presented their “Imagined System” to people who had the skills to make it happen.

And here we are today… Imagination has created a new reality.
We have lost all of our privacy.

I’m not sure if I understand you correctly, but it seems to me that it is the other way around.

Imagination will take you everywhere and will open every doors in your mind. Like Jon says: Imagination is the key!

If you wait for the mind/body to be deeply secure and whole, you may die before experiencing the power of imagination