For most people music brings to mind a range of deep emotions. In this account of the way in which we understand music, Laird Addis explains how sounds can have such profound effects on those listening to them.

Building on the idea, first articulated by Susanne Langer, that passages of music symbolize emotions and other conscious states, Addis advances an entirely new account of the nature of this representation. He maintains that the unique bond joining music and feelings is based on a previously unnoticed affinity between consciousness and sound. He also provides an extended discussion of Freud's theory of dream symbolism to show how unconscious awareness plays a critical role in our experience of music.