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Through addressing the tree falling in the woods, we have established the distinction between actual and potential.  Aristotle lays this logic out in De Anima.  I will briefly put forth some of Aristotle’s thoughts.

Actual sound occurs in the presence of two bodies and a space between them (filled with air, water) -- a body producing the sound, a space through which the waves can travel, and a sense organ.  In other words, a single body cannot produce sound, as there must be a second body for the first to affect, a body for the produced waves to strike.  When a tree falls without a sense organ to act upon there is only potential sound, the waves produced by the tree.  Likewise, a red painted wall is only potentially red in the absence of light.  Further, the tree, without acting, possesses the ability to create sound (e.g. through falling), thus also constituting potential sound.  A man in the woods may be capable of hearing, but if nothing is acting upon his ears, he only has the potentiality to hear.  Actual sound, then, is the concurrent actuality of both sounding and hearing; there can be no actuality of sounding without the actuality of hearing, and vice versa. 

Keep in mind; sensing is not just affection by the sensible quality of an object.  For example, the bagel I’m eating smells like onions…it’s a plain bagel, no onions here.  One of the sensible qualities of the onion bagels near by, their smell, has affected my bagel, making it smell of onions, but the bagel itself cannot be said to have smelt the onions.  Sensing implies not only affection, but also an awareness of the affection – a level of consciousness.  While my bagel is not aware of its onion stench, and therefore does not smell its onionness, I do smell the onion because I have an awareness of being affected by the sensible qualities of this bagel.  So form here should we say that the actual or the real can only exist within the Mind?  (Since there can be no actuality of an object without a congruent actuality of sensing the object, which necessitates some level of awareness.)

Note: Here “consciousness,” “awareness,” and “Mind” do not necessarily imply a higher consciousness such as self-consciousness, but merely the ability to recognize the sense and respond to it.