Artists and the Flow State: Where Creativity Meets the Other Side

Artists and the Flow State: Where Creativity Meets the Other Side

Did you know that the same state artists call “being in the zone” is the one psychologists have studied for decades — and intuitives describe as the place where they receive messages or insight? It’s called the flow state.

The term was popularized by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who found that people are happiest when they enter a state of total absorption in what they’re doing. In flow, the sense of time fades, self-consciousness disappears, and the act itself feels rewarding. His research showed that athletes, musicians, and artists consistently described this experience — as if they had tapped into something larger than themselves.

Artists know this intimately. The brush moves before thought. The words write themselves. A melody arrives fully formed. In those moments, creation feels less like effort and more like channeling.

Here’s where it gets interesting: people who are sensitive to the “other side” — clairvoyants, mediums, intuitives — often describe receiving their information in exactly the same state. Not during everyday chatter, not in the noise of to-do lists, but in that quiet surrender where the conscious mind steps aside.

Neuroscience has even peeked behind the curtain. Studies using brain imaging show that during flow, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for self-criticism and time awareness, temporarily powers down. Psychologists call this “transient hypofrontality”. What rises instead is pattern recognition, intuition, and creativity — all heightened. For some, that’s the perfect opening to perceive information they feel comes from beyond.

So maybe flow isn’t just productivity’s sweet spot. Maybe it’s a doorway. A place where the boundaries between self and source blur. For artists, that means the canvas, the clay, the page aren’t just surfaces — they’re portals.

Next time you slip into that timeless zone — when the world hushes and your work takes on a life of its own — notice it. That’s flow. That’s science. But maybe, just maybe, it’s also spirit.