The two experiments of anagram solving and semantic priming revealed how radically different the operating principles of the dreaming brain were, relative to those of NREM sleep and wakefulness. As we enter REM sleep and dreaming takes hold, an inspired form of memory mixology begins to occur. No longer are we constrained to see the most typical and plainly obvious connections between memory units. On the contrary, the brain becomes actively biased toward seeking out the most distant, nonobvious links between sets of information. This widening of our memory aperture
