I believe that the aim of today’s composers is to throw themselves into completely new areas where no one has ever been, […] where there is “unheard” music.
György Ligeti, oral presentation, 1963

Dreams and fantasies were the key to György Ligeti's thinking, to his self-expression and to many of his works. Dreams triggered in his art processes that are reminiscent of labyrinths and mysterious metamorphoses – as in Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams – but unsettling nocturnal visions are also present in his compositions. The free flight of the imagination enabled Ligeti to use diverse sources of inspiration, unfold limitless associations and transform synaesthetic experiences into music. In addition to music, the visual arts (from Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder to Joan Miró and Paul Klee) and literature (Jorge Luis Borges, Lewis Carroll, Sándor Weöres among others) offered him central stimuli. Like these artists, Ligeti believed that astonishment – including misappropriation, a different vision of phenomena – must remain present in art.