“Retirement dreams”? Dream-making activity of people in the second half of life

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the dream-making activity of people in the second half of life based on the analysis of the results obtained from 10 people aged 60+ included in the research (five women and five men). The research material was obtained with the help of a full narrative autobiographical interview, selected cards included in the narrative (auto)biographical game In eighty stories around life by Urszula Tokarska and the original Unfinished Sentences Test. The collected data was subjected to multifaceted quantitative and qualitative analyses, which allowed to distinguish five main categories of the comparative classification of dreams.

This article focuses on characterizing current dreams of seniors and describing their attitude to their own dreams. The results obtained allowed to formulate a stadial model of dream development and to distinguish a new category of dream called a generational dream. The conclusions of the research project reveal potential application possibilities in the field of both psychology and narrative gerontology, supporting the development of an adult and optimizing intergenerational communication, as well as creating the instruments of learning the people and inventing the psychological health impact programs.