Maybe. It was a nice scene which I really liked. "Get out of my head, I'm busy." 

A small article I found here:

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-01-06/sherlock-season-3-lara-pulvers-irene-adler-makes-brief-appearance-in-the-sign-of-three

I like it very much when some things or person from former epsiodes suddenly re-appear. Even if just briefly. It "keeps the episodes connected" and I get the feeling of: "Oh, hi! Nice to see you again!"
And like Tonnaree said: In Irene's case it shows us how important she still is to Sherlock - in a way.

shezza wrote:

Well, supposedly, Benedict said they did have dinner after he saved her in Karachi 

In any case, I found it all very telling - she's the only Woman in his mind, even after two years. It seems to me that in his mind palace the Woman has a different persona from the one we knew in ASiB, she looked quite tender, almost soft (!), not in the seductive dominatrix role we have come to known. In comparison to the other women in the mind courtroom, she was simply all class and mesmerising.

And naked, of course.

BTW I just loved how annoyed Sherlock was at Vicki's crassness, I did laugh out loud when he made that face after she said "Estee Lauder" 

 
Molly's in his Mind Palace too.  And we've only seen part of it, who knows who else might be lurking in the corners!

I think Irene's appearance was meant to illustrate how everything was going wrong in that scene. Sherlock couldn't find the solution to the Mayfly Man case. Mycroft was in his mind but only shouting at him and it wasn't helping. Then Irene shows up - she could have helped him like she did in SIB when they deduced the boomerang accident together in Sherlock's dream. But she says nothing and just makes advances that he really can't use in that moment. So he sends her away. The solution for him then is to go back to reality, to John who always keeps him right. Then he solves the case.

(And perhaps Irene was also there for the subtext just so that the possibility of Sherlock being interpreted as heterosexual didn't go completely overboard after all the other stuff they put in TSO3 ).

Hang on a minute.
They did NOT deduce the boomerang together.
Sherlock had already deduced it.
He set Irene the challenge and she correctly worked it out, too.
But he was not asking for her help.
She just showed him how clever she was.

I disagree.
He is not thinking of the case at that time.
It's already solved before he even leaves 221B.
His 'dream scene with Irene' is just a convenient way of explaining to the viewer what happened...
It's the S2 equivalent of the Anderson interview!(ooh, controversial!. Ha)

Yes.

As some of you already know - I LOVE Irene!
In my opinion she´s the only woman who could get along with Sherlock. She´s kind of equal.
She´s clever, she does everything to achieve what she wants. And behind her "mask" he saw her feelings. That might impressed him.
I would be very excited, glad and cryin´ loads of tearsof joy if they send us back Lara Pulver.
 

There was an implication that she's still capable of distracting him....plus, I'm seeing certain similarities between her and Janine.