Many thanks for your post! I read it with joy.

Let me go shortly into 2 passages:

allowing me to transcend into another realm (more like get lost in its sound)

This seems to me to be a very good 'description' of what happens while hearing such music that 'belongs to you' and that therefore you hear concentrated and not as an ambient noise.

Mozart's ‘Queen of the Night's Aria’ from ‘The Magic Flute’.

This peace of music belongs to my musical experiences from childhood / youth, although be it not sung by Florence Foster Jenkins. Usually, I'm not a big friend of operas or of sopranos (and more interested in instrumental music), but the Queen of the Night rules!

The following statement by your cousin is interesting:

a lady who can't maintain any rhythm?

This makes me curious about the singing by Florence. I can imagine that she sings not without any rhythm but rather in her own, and maybe she rather should have been engaged in Jazz-style singing, but also within classical music, there is more about rhythm than mere accurateness.

So, this point underlines your argument of leaving comfort zones - be it while I sing, be it while I listen to a singer.