Tl;Dr: I'd be really careful with artists and things they tell you they have seen. Art careers often require a constant, heavy moderation of the gap between su

Tl;Dr: I'd be really careful with artists and things they tell you they have seen. Art careers often require a constant, heavy moderation of the gap between subjective sensory perception and objective (commonly perceived or measured) sensory perception. At first the artist may have to force the gap to become fluid. But over time the gap naturally starts to seem very fluid by itself. The imagination fills in objectively-perceived gaps of missing information very easily, either in terms of imagery or in reasoning/logic. When I did some casual qualitative interviews with cultist-artists, they were the one group that wanted to believe in their belief systems based mostly on subjective sensory experiences. They were the largest "I've seen things you wouldn't believe" group. (With respect to the individuals involved; other groups had different perception preferences that would also moderate various issues)