The Visual8

Artists don’t reason their way to new ideas. Nor do they use deterministic math.

They let the spark of imagination come to them.

Selise walks into her client’s house and drinks in the space. She “listens” to what the room wants for the design.

Her husband John is an impressive intellect. Engineering to the core. He delights in her magic sense though he cannot explain it.

Angelo works with creatives in the movie industry. He’s an Italian who’s from England and lives in Sweden. He is also a gifted orator, technologist, conversationalist, and says things that penetrate the soul.

On stage at the Data Innovation Summit 2025, he spoke of the “spark” of creativity in the shadow of AI. He pointed the audience towards Utopia because the consequences of technology are merely a reflection of who we are. Best to embrace our better angels.

Ask an artist how those sparks appear in our consciousness. Few, if any, can explain.

This post aims to visualize a framework for how it happens.

The practice of meditation helps understand the nature of consciousness.

Meditation teaches us to slow our racing minds to notice the nature of the mind.

The guide asks for attention to all of the senses at once. Fill your vision with a soft focus. Relax into the sounds from outside. Feel the weight of your body on the cushion.

Those instructions take us into the Well of Consciousness. We sit in the shallow depth of External Sensing.

The guide invites you to close your eyes and consider that which the senses do not touch. Our consciousness dives deeper into the well. This where emotions bubble in the lava. The Internal Sensing awakens.

But the well goes deeper still.

When we sit long enough in eternal nothingness, or contemplate infinity, more emerges. These are the objects we witness with Ethereal Sensing.

It takes practice to stare deeply into the well.

How you look is as important as where you look.

When we shine light into a body of water, the beam penetrates only so far. Those fish that swim near the top of the water are brighter and more colorful.

The ones below are murkier and difficult to make out.

And the fish swimming far below them pass by with out notice. That’s because we are using our senses to perceive.

Advanced meditators know how to sit senseless to await the Ethereal. This is the home of inklings and notions. They pre-exist words.

Deepest still is a level on consciousness that few attain.

This is the realm of nondualism. Those who follow Eastern spiritual traditions access the concept of Enlightenment through ancient writings.

Psychedelics are described as a gateway to this singularity by those who respect the plants as medicine.

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., tells her own story of dissolving into the universe after suffering a stroke in the shower. Her best selling book, My Stroke of Insight (2009, Penguin Books) and Ted Talk reveal her journey.

Artists reach into the Well of Consciousness without philosophy, drugs, or medical emergencies.

Curiosity steels their courage to wander into the unknown.

What happens afterwards is a careful trip back to the surface.

Artists communicate insights from the well’s depths. They make the invisible visible through language. 

Whether they are words, sounds, shapes, or movement, the idea is channeled through our senses.

Not all expressions come from same level in the Well of Consciousness.

Consider three different genres of writing.

Journalism prides itself on the retelling of facts. That which is seen or heard. They aim to show the “who, what, where, when, and why” of an incident. They turn their beam to reveal logic of the situation.

Emotions and opinions are retold to deepen the context. However, they fail to grip us as strongly as fiction.

Authors of fiction reveal insights about the world through made-up stories.

Their characters come alive in our minds. We experience the trials and triumphs of people that never really existed.

We feel transformed as the protagonists overcome their former self by overcoming their current situation.

Journalism concentrates on Description to make a point. Fiction uses Description to set up the real story.

Writers in this genre create stories of our time. This is why stories of the past struggle to keep our attention. They are lessons from an era that has little relevance for today.

Authors committed to poetry dance with words.

They swim in the deepest waters of the Well of Consciousness.

David Whyte talks about the concept of the Primary Imagination. That ability to make sense of reality in a pre-conscious fashion. A means to find our place and our relationship in this world.

This is not about inventing stories. That is Secondary Imagination.

Poets aim for Timeless Writing. From short vignettes to epic iambic pentameter, these artists want us to experience eternal truths.

This is not to say that prose cannot propel us to this depth. There are many examples in the genre of fiction. We are simply turning up the contrast to make a point about intention.

Poetry relinquishes the need for logic or linear progression.

It gives up the effort to entertain to keep our attention.

What is important to remember is that Well of Consciousness is available to us all.

We do not need to identify as an Artist to access our deeper self. Or to find the spark of imagination.

Think back to the five-year-old version of yourself. You had access to fundamental creativity the moment someone handed you a crayon.

Your bright idea on the walk back to the car yesterday seemed to come from nowhere. This is another example.

The question is not whether we were born with it. The question is how we are cultivating it.

Muscles need exercise to be strong. AI is removing exercise.

We are invited to consider doing things it cannot do.

Neil deGrasse Tyson shared several profound ideas in this new era of AI.

At Dell Technologies World 2025, he reminded us of an important insight. Throughout time, “the more we know, the larger our circle of ignorance is.”

He suggested that Hubble’s discovery of the expanding universe was a trigger for the notion of the Big Bang.

This idea emerged from the Well of Consciousness. It was made real by simply reversing the math.

He also claimed that we did not flinch when technology beat our best at chess. We did not melt down when it crushed our champion at Jeopardy.

We only took serious notice when Generative AI could write and paint in ways that seemed human.

In other words, our fundamental identity was challenged when creativity was on the line.

He invited Creatives join the ideation space to explore new frontiers beyond what AI can do.

He explained that they “embrace the comfort of not knowing.” And that those with practiced approaches do not “go beyond what is already there.”

It was a calling to dance in the circle of ignorance.

To travel deeply into the Well of Consciousness.

To find that spark which expands understanding.