All that is real is imagined, and all that is imagined is real. The real and the imagined are not two things - separating them one from another is just another discrimination of the mind, another non-dharma/dharma.
But in the upright state of zazen, balanced between making the effort to practice and letting go of expectations of practice, we can glimpse behind (or beneath) our thoughts, and actually experience ourselves as we really are, without the dualistic discriminations of the cookie-cutter mind. Zen Master Dogen understood this, and after returning from his awakening experience in China, one of the very first things he wrote was Bendowa (A Talk on Pursuing The Truth), which includes the following passage (my interpretation, mashed up from several different translations):
All buddhas constantly maintain and dwell in the state of natural balance we experience when making effort without intention, and none cling to any of their thoughts or perceptions, regardless of what arises. When living beings function in this state, aspects of reality do not appear to them as separate recognitions and perceptions.
The effort in pursuing the truth that I am now teaching makes the myriad dharmas real in experience; it enacts the oneness of reality on the path of liberation.
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