I guess our brain slowly comes to expect these rules to be kept which is why we get such a jolt when we see something that doesn't fit within a certain pattern.

How true. One can even make the case that without the "jolt" (the breach of the pattern), comprehension of a new paradigm is not possible.

Cubism comes to mind as a good example.* Or the works of Jackson Pollock or abstract painting generally.

Artists and poets are always trying to shatter the pattern, the existing paradigm, to awaken a new understanding, a new paradigm, a new way of looking at things.

BTW love "unnecessary cohesive slime". You are something of a poet yourself, Belligerentyouth.

"Another way that the cubist expressed their painting was by showing different views of an object put together in a way that you can not actually see in real life. The Cubism period stated in Paris in 1908, reached its peak in 1914, and continued into the 20's."

http://abstractart.20m.com/cubism.htm