That is not what I experience. The thing I refer to when I refer to "flow" or being "plugged in" or "in the zone" is that all of the relevant paradigms and info

That is not what I experience. The thing I refer to when I refer to "flow" or being "plugged in" or "in the zone" is that all of the relevant paradigms and information are in my working memory. When I'm in a flow state, I see and understand not only the function in front of me, but the functions it calls, the functions that call it, and the data structures involved. I can see the tree in minute detail at the same time I can see exactly how it fits into the ecosystem of the forest. It isn't that I'm not thinking hard. It's that thinking hard is possible, rather than interrupted by a constant need to regain context.