Dreams of a Lifetime

"We are told that, in dreaming, anything is possible. Dreams are imaginings that are not supposedly linked to concrete experience or action or inhibited by the social and political disadvantages that may come from one's class position, race, ethnicity, or gender. They do not articulate a roadmap for achievement or a path to a specific end in the way that aspirations or projects do. They are mental exercises that provide a vision of a person's inner self and desired identity. In this book, Karen Cerulo and Janet Ruane interrogate what it means to dream, what our dreams look like, and whether our social location impacts what, when, how, and if we dream. Drawing on data from interviews and focus groups with 272 people from different social backgrounds, the authors argue that while dreams are generally treated as personal and unique, they are quite clearly patterned in very predictable ways. People's dreams differ from age to age, group to group, and context to context, and the chapters focus on different subsets of the study participants. After examining how race, class, and gender impact dreaming, the authors examine different life stages and finally those who have faced "ruptures" in their life stories. In Dreams of a Lifetime, the authors conclude that dreams represent the starting point of our perception of "fit"; they tell the story of where we think we belong, what life paths we consider taking, and what we think we deserve before that story is lived. And that story is built from the cultural lessons to which we are exposed in our daily social interactions and the cultural contexts in which we live"--