"Gestalt-linkage" is about right. Recordings have never captured what the Dead are like live; hypnotic, dreamy, intense. I saw them in '78 in Santa Barbara (amazing) and again in Oakland in the 80s (where my Deadhead cousin spotted me in a crowd of 60k 💀 -- cool) https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/may/12/lsd-grateful-deads-bobby-weir-jerry-garcia-swifties