Case material is offered in which the patient describes the immobilizing effect of noise during primal scene observations ('ground between millstones', 'encased in cement', 'pounded by a sledgehammer'). These sensations are reminiscent of ideas commonly expressed in the description of beating fantasies when the person beaten feels trapped, held tightly to the point of complete immobility, or otherwise made motionless. The author regards the threatening and uncanny quality of such experiences as the result of a fusion of auditory perceptions during the primal scene with earlier ones experienced at a stage in ego development when noise was something material, perhaps of an acutely threatening, or, in oral terms, engulfing or devouring corporeal nature. The present study suggests that