ABSTRACT
The human capacity to transform sound into mental images including feelings, thoughts, memories and sensations is discussed in relation to how sound becomes a location for psychological development. Sound branding and the principles of constructing sound-based icons called earcons is explored. These aspects are then investigated through various music-oriented clinical anecdotes in relation to improvisational and symbolic acoustic discourse. The psychic teleology of how sounds act upon the unconscious as a dreamlike phenomenon is explored and it is suggested that maintaining a symbolic attitude can be a way of receiving and actualizing necessary insight for the individuative path. Some explication of musical evolution dating back to Neanderthals’ use of instruments is included and how this relates to the most significant mutative moments of change within analysis through musical processes. Proto-experience and non-representational states are explored in relation to music as a location of emergence. The rare diagnosis of Aphantasia is discussed followed by an exploration of the impact of a one-sided scientific materialist stance upon musical perception. Deafness, blindness and object permanence are explored in relation to the perception of musical symbols.
