It is a common feature of process-oriented philosophies to underline the formative role of nonconscious perceptions in emergent experience. This talk will propose a set of concepts for understanding this subthreshold incipience of experience, drawing from the work of such authors as A.N. Whitehead, Henri Bergson, C.S. Peirce, Raymond Ruyer and Suzanne Langer, as well as recent empirical research on perceptual “priming.” Special attention will be given to the interrelatedness of the senses at this level, with the emphasis on the often neglected sense of proprioception. Notions of “schema” and “body image,” which tend to overlay onto the emergent level of experience cognitive and perceptual models derived from conscious perception, will be avoided in favor of a vocabulary privileging the categories directly concerned with incipient activity (activation, animation, potentiation), orientation (tendency), and affect (directly lived quality of activity). The concepts proposed will revolve in particular around models for emergent experience modeled loosely on musical notions, as in the case of Bergson, Ruyer, Langer.