Why past events reappear in dreams after a certain delay? I know that Freud in his &quot;Interpretation of dreams&quot; provides a number of examples of events influencing dreams several days to several months after the event has occurred. For example, a person sees a red bicycle in a shop and a week later may have a dream about riding/fixing/seeing the same type of red bicycle. Freud provides on example where an event took place months before the dream.
My question is: Has there been any research that explained why there can be a long (4-7 days) delay between a real life event and a dream with elements from the event?
Just to clarify, these are not recurring dreams, but single occurrence dreams about past experiences. Typically the delay between the event and the dream is several days.
Because memory is consolidated during sleep (and dreaming).
http://learnmem.cshlp.org/content/11/6/671.full
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/04/26/dreams-are-key-to-memory/13157.html
There are also some psychological benefits from easing painful memories.
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/11/23/dream-sleep/