Dr. Oliver Robinson is Principal Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich, President of the European Society for Research in Adult Development, and author of Development through Adulthood: An integrative sourcebook. His research covers topics such as crisis, transition, authenticity and spirituality in adult development, and methodological issues such as case studies, sampling and the idiographic-nomothetic debate. He also writes on the relationship between science and spirituality in human development, such as the recent book Paths between Head and Heart: Exploring the harmonies of science and spirituality.

Dreams of change: Connecting Research on Adult Development with Research on Dreaming

The work of Erik Erikson has been influential in shaping contemporary psychosocial developmental theory. My own research on crisis, curiosity and authenticity owes much to Erikson’s theoretical approach. What is less well known about Erikson is that as well as theorising about lifespan development he also theorised about dreaming, and on the relationship between dreams and the phases of the life cycle. It is my intention over the next couple of years to reinvigorate research on adult development and dreams. The theoretical proposition that the content and emotional tone of dreams relate to waking emotional and cognitive states is called the continuity hypothesis, and it has considerable support. There is also existing evidence for ‘Big Dreams’ that provide helpful insights during times of transition. Central to the new project will be a longitudinal study that uses dream diary data gathered via the app Dream Journal Ultimate. The study will follow emerging adults for a year over the course of the transition out of higher education into work. The dream diary app collects data, stores it, time-stamps all entries and exports into spreadsheets for analysis. Dream diary reports will be coded and cross-checked against simultaneous reports of affect, wellbeing and transitional outcomes such as successfully getting a full-time job, to check for meaningful links. If the outcome of this study is indicative that dreams provide a revealing additional source of data on the developmental processes associated with the transition out of education into work, the methodology will be replicated with other key adult life transitions such as (a) the transition to parenthood and (b) retirement. It will also be replicated across international contexts to explore cross-cultural commonalities and differences. The work has the potential to extend adult development in exciting new directions while making important connections with its past.