That’s certainly plausible! I don’t think it can be tied strictly to sleep because walking away from the problem for a few hours is often good enough. Similarly, suddenly remembering someone’s name at a party can happen just a few minutes after giving up, while you’re still at the party. (Or at least I’ve personally experienced this! And I think I recall others having experienced this too.)
But there might be something near here too. For instance, I’ve been told that the REM rhythms of 90 minutes actually continue throughout the day as well as at night while you’re sleeping. I’ve never tracked down this claim to evaluate it, but if it’s true it might suggest that there are particular times of day when this processing happens automatically in the background and other times when the processing needs to happen more consciously, roughly on 90-minute cycles. I’m speculating pretty wildly here though.
That’s certainly plausible! I don’t think it can be tied strictly to sleep because walking away from the problem for a few hours is often good enough. Similarly, suddenly remembering someone’s name at a party can happen just a few minutes after giving up, while you’re still at the party. (Or at least I’ve personally experienced this! And I think I recall others having experienced this too.)
But there might be something near here too. For instance, I’ve been told that the REM rhythms of 90 minutes actually continue throughout the day as well as at night while you’re sleeping. I’ve never tracked down this claim to evaluate it, but if it’s true it might suggest that there are particular times of day when this processing happens automatically in the background and other times when the processing needs to happen more consciously, roughly on 90-minute cycles. I’m speculating pretty wildly here though.