Green summer hills, and rainbows play a part

In the original Journey Into Imagination, as you enter the Dream Port, passing by the Dream Vehicle being unloaded, you happen upon the Imaginometer. The Imaginometer measured things like Dreams (Daydreams or Night), Sounds, and Colors. Looking through the window into the Imaginometer you could see all sorts of colorful images flashing by.

These days the Imaginometer has gone the way of the Dream Port, and the Dream Vehicle, and, come to think of it, the Dreamfinder himself. However, careful inspection of a storage unit in the current Imagination queue, and you will find apiece of the Color gauge from the Imaginometer. If I am given free rein to decipher what this means (aside from the fact that Imagineers wanted to hide a piece of the original as homage), I have to believe that the Imaginometer was purchased by the Imagination Institute to try and uncover more about dreams than they could ever really understand. It was decided that dismantling the machine would, perhaps, give them more insight. After dismantling the contraption, they found they were no closer to discovering the true potential of Imagination, attempted to reconstruct the machine, and failed. They failed miserably because they forgot the key element in the Imaginometer’s, and the Journey Into Imagination's, original construction. That element? Why, Imagination, of course.