From The Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr, 'In Music and Communication Terence McLaughlin has begun to study how the patterns of music may correspond to patterns of activity in the brain itself. We are still a long way from understanding enough about the brain functions to see in detail how the two sets of patterns interact; but we must surely agree with Mr. McLaughlin's conclusion when he writes: "when collaboration occurs, when, for a while, the lines of conscious and unconscious thought run along the same track, we achieve the feeling of wholeness and satisfaction which is characteristic of our response to great art and other transcendent states of mind. The patterns of music, translated, analyzed, shorn of detail, are able to simulate the patterns of emotions on many levels simultaneously, thus bringing various hierarchical states of consciousness and unconsciousness into harmony with one another during the existence of the music for us, whether this is in a performance or purely in the memory. As this happens we experience the sense of unity which arises from the cessation of conflict between conscious and unconscious."
