I would say that the analogy with the images is actually pretty close.
For me though, I wouldn't call it being disconnected or unconcious about what was happening, but more along the lines of it just happening without me doing anything.
What the zone was for me was this: I would program myself to shoot alphas as quickly as possible, and if I was in the zone, it would just happen. Almost as if you could just hit a button labeled "auto-run."
I don't know if that makes any sense...this is something that doesn't get put into words very easily.