Are Dreams a Necessary Part of Forgetting? (Part one)

     “Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence.”

-Sholem Asch

    

     Lately, in order to delve deeper into the realm of dreaming, I began reading a thought provoking book by Morton F. Reiser called, Memory in Mind and Brain: What Dream Imagery Reveals. While reading, I learned of the intriguing idea that dreaming is an evolutionary state of mind, which helps humans forget information. So, the ability to dream assists our brain in filtering out nonessential information that would otherwise overwhelm it if we couldn't dream. After all, most people don't remember their dreams when they wake up, if a person does it's usually from their last REM sleep.
     After I absorbed this knowledge, I began to wonder: If dreaming is evolutionary to assist us in forgetting information, does it then stand that we are meant to forget our experiences? If that is the case, how does dreaming choose what we forget? I also want to know, What 

The Scream
Artist: Edvard Munch

experiences have I forgotten already? Could the lessons I've learned and forgotten from those experiences improve my daily life? I wonder also if my dreams portray the information that will be forgotten, and if I remember the dream does this indicate that knowledge will not in essence be deleted? On the other hand, does this hint that the information from dreams I don't remember are lost to me forever?
     There are instances I believe that it's necessary for an individual to forget just because its difficult to remember information in disuse; however, I wonder what would happen if we were allowed to choose what we forget. Now that I'm getting older, I would like to be able to remember all those moments where I learned hard, eye opening, self-aware, etc. lessons because I desire to become the best person I can; and if our dreams pick and chooses what an individual forgets, is this information permanently erased, or can it be revealed through our dreams if we scrutinize them closely? 

     Since, our memories are often intimately woven into our dreams; we have to investigate the psychological nature of our dreams to better our understanding of what insights our dreams reveal about ourselves. If our dreams are connected to our memories, does this imply that our dreams make just as many connections to what we know, like our mind when we learn new information? If our dreams assist our brain with forgetting, where does this information go? Does the dreaming part of our minds have access to this forgotten information? The idea of dreams being able to form connections like our minds can is interesting because  I wonder if an individual were to analyze their dreams closer would they discover more connections their dreams reveal about their life through strange or seemingly random dream events?
      This  is intriguing because  I desire to find out of the subtle thoughts and feelings my dreams are portraying. Also, I wondered: How would I be able to recognize the subtle psychological nature of my dreams if I'm trying to analyze them myself, wouldn't I be biased towards seeing the positive aspects, or such of my dreams? Do I have another individual analyze my dreams, but how would their biases influence the interpretation of the dream? I believe that the interpretations of dreams by multiple individuals are credible and helpful in understanding a dream; however, the individual should decide for themselves what information/advice to take to heart because after all it is their dream.