Einstein isn't simply saying dreams beat facts—he's identifying a structural problem with knowledge itself: it's always yesterday's answer to yesterday's question. Imagination, by contrast, lets us ask what hasn't been asked yet, which is precisely why a physicist thinking about falling elevators could reimagine gravity itself. Notice he doesn't dismiss knowledge as useless; he's saying it's a *tool* imagination must wield. When a nurse redesigns a hospital workflow or a teacher invents a better way to explain fractions, they're working with known facts, yes, but it's the imaginative leap that solves the problem no textbook anticipated.