Bill,
Thanks for the warm welcome. Everyone here has been so gracious. And by all means, assert mathematics: I still have trouble with basic arithmetic.
I did not mean to say that we think in metaphor all the time. Most of my thinking is fairly dull. But every once in a while, I mistake one thing for another momentarily. I feel what I imagine is a similar reaction to that you recount through Dickinson - a pleasure at the mistake, and I try to bring it into a poem somehow.
By "mistake", I really mean "happy accident", like penicillin or velcro. They are only mistakes in the sense of strict realism.
In addition, for the Empson-oriented (in literary fashion, that is), metaphor trumps simile by creating intentional ambiguity. The simile means what is says. The metaphor is less clear. Did Breton really have a "wife with the centres of crucible of the ruby"? I guess not, but for a moment we might believe...
I certainly buy the dopamine link here. Unfortunately, that would mean biology does appear to differ with Dutton (and Keats), or at least add a caveat that makes beauty in some ways an addictive quality (this actually raises another point, that of links between addiction, creative personality and mental illness).
Certainly the MAKE IT NEW axiom suggests that repeated exposure to poetry may result in increased tolerance and dependence
Scott