Setting of a dream

Setting of dream = past. Problem of dream = present. Solution = future.

C. G. Jung has shown that most dreams have the same basic structure as the classical drama: (1) An exposition where time, place, and dramatis personae are shown; (2) a naming of the problem; (3) a peripety or several peripeties; and (4) a lysis-solution or catastrophe. 

Owing to a dream which he had, Dr. Paul Walder added to this the idea that the first two parts of dreams deal more with the past, the peripeties with the present, and the last part with the future. He was able to confirm this after studying over one hundred dreams, and I myself have also found it to be often true.
The ego is moving in time from the past to the future. The dream comes up toward it from the unconscious, like a wave containing a cluster of images. The three arrows show the field of perception when we become aware of the dream: first perceiving the past, being hit by the present, and then seeing ahead the solution.
(Not only the past is preserved and still fully alive in the unconscious but also the future.)
Marie-Louise Von Franz, Psyche and Matter