This is the name of a poem Fuller wrote, and of the book which contains it. There is no detailed treatment of this psychological phenomenon therein (see Sutherland for further consideration), but it is something he refers to occasionally in various writings.
In the Reader (p.46), the essay Influences On My Work mentions a non-academic part of his education:
"Athletics greatly heightened what I call the 'intuitive dynamic sense': a fundamental, I am convinced, of competent anticipatory design formulations."
Fuller mentions this in the context of the Dymaxion Car, which he designed with the technical assistance of Starling Burgess:
"Starling was one of the first in the engineering world... to go along with me on the terribly important part intuition plays in design. Everything in me, my subconscious experience, said that if you got a revelation of that sort you just grabbed it. The intuitive dynamic sense has to do with things like pole vaulting or the way a man throws a baseball. When you design something you co-ordinate instinctively as an athlete does. You get a personal feeling as to how, if it's a boat, it will behave in the water." (Hatch, p.125)
Generally, Fuller is more concerned to emphasize the non-intuitive aspects of design thinking, hence the significance of invisibles.
For a psychological discussion, see Myers.
© Paul Taylor 2004