Alice Robb

“In non-REM sleep, memory reactivation is directly related to recent experience,” Wilson explained. “We find brief snippets of reactivated sequence. I describe it as ‘the MTV model of memory’: short, edited scenes.” In REM, however, “It’s not strictly retrieval. It’s reevaluation of everything you’ve learned, including recent and past experience.”
― Alice Robb, Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey

“Beethoven and Paul McCartney cited dreams as the spark behind some of their musical compositions (including McCartney’s famous “Yesterday”). Some of the most recognizable sequences in film—sections of Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, Fellini’s 8 ½, Richard Linklater’s Waking Life—are translations of the directors’ dreams. Mary Shelley credited dreams with inspiring Frankenstein; E. B. White with Stuart Little.”
― Alice Robb, Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey