Garwood Authors Publish Book
Longtime Garwood residents Karen Cerulo and Janet Ruane have just published a book entitled Dreams of a Lifetime: How Who We Are Shapes How We Imagine Our Future (Princeton University Press–trade division). Their research revealed some interesting and surprising results.
The authors spoke to more than 270 people of all different ages and social backgrounds. Their study participants spoke of the importance of envisioning the future and overwhelmingly agreed that dreaming is an essential aspect of living. They voiced several positive cultural lessons on dreaming: opportunity is boundless, dream big, never give up on your dreams, and optimism makes anything possible. Some also voiced cautious concerns: i.e. the deck is stacked or the system is rigged.
Most of those interviewed said they would never give up on their dreams and most were convinced that their dreams would come true. That goes for the elementary school boy who dreamed of buying the Eiffel tower, the high-school senior who hoped to become a poet laureate, the early midlife man who still saw a chance to become a star pitcher for the Yankees, the late midlife woman who dreamed of brokering peace in the Middle East; and the senior citizen who planned to motorbike her way across the country.
The authors also found that the picture is not all rosy. While most of us understand that a person’s place in society can close doors to opportunity, we nonetheless tend to believe that anything is possible when we dream about our futures. Cerulo and Ruane show that what and how we dream is tied to our social class, gender, race, age, and life events. Indeed, our social position quietly influences the content of our dreams, whether we embrace dreaming, and whether we believe that our dreams—be them realistic or fantastical—can be achieved. In their book, they explore how inequalities stemming from social disadvantages pattern our dreams of the future, and how sociocultural disparities in how we dream exacerbate social inequalities and limit the life paths we believe are open to us.
The book has received extensive press coverage in such places as The Chicago Tribune, The Conversation, Psychology Today, Good Morning Tulsa, as well as Think on KERA (Texas NPR), Conversations on KCUR (Kansas NPR), The Academic Minute on WAMC and many podcasts.
Those wanting more information can visit the following website:https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691229096/dreams-of-a-lifetime.
