I don’t think I am quite getting it across, yes we can probably assume that if a blind man strikes a match that makes a light but the IMAGE of that lit match only exists in the mind of a viewer, it is the seer’s interpretation of the light energy.
Similiarly we may call vibrations sound but the PERCEIVED sound exists only in the mind of a listener. That is why the totally deaf person is unaware of the tree falling unless he feels the vibration through the soles of his feet or, in the case of a really huge tree, in his body, this is perceiving the vibration as vibration, hearing it is perceiving it as what we call sound. Perceived sound is not the same as vibration. I once saw Bob Guccione being interviewed on television and his voice was so low pitched that I could both hear the deep bass and at the same time feel the vibrations in my own chest. We may refer to both as sound but they are not one and the same. If I had been stone deaf I would not have heard his speech but I WOULD have felt the vibrations in my own chest.
All this may sound to some like semantics but there is more to it, it just isn’t easy to say clearly, at least not for me.
Suppose someone is dreaming, and in the dream a tree falls with a loud crash. Did the dreamer hear a sound?
1) No. The brain of the dreamer had the experience of hearing a sound, but it was generated by the brain itself; there was no actual pressure wave through the medium of the atmosphere, hence no actual sound, just a perceived sound.
2) Yes. A sound is the experience itself, thus an imagined sound is just as "real" as one which is generated by a pressure wave.
As I've been using the word, only definition 1 applies.