Why do some children have dreams about former relatives they have never met? How come that in
our dreams we happen to stroll through places we have never visited before? In this book, the reader
will discover a new frame of interpretation for such questions.
Following the analysis of hundreds of interviews, which have been at the heart of my research
on families for decades, and a thorough review of international family research over the last fifty
years, which has changed our understanding of the family as a basic unit of parents and children, a
new theory has taken shape in my mind. I have called it the extended symbolic family. From the
multiple experiences of different social realities, from told or untold stories that swirl in the memory
of extended families, patterns emerge that seem to impact all key decisions made by family
members. The innumerable family patterns then help or hinder adaptation to changes in social space
and time and, conversely, change them as well. Based on the concepts of hybridity, time, and space,
the theory combines several approaches, ranging from transgenerational to transnational families,
into a single conceptual framework that may help social scientists and interested readers understand
how the extended symbolic family creates continuity, stability, and flexibility in an ever-changing
world. 
In addition plentiful extracts from interviews, the book ends with a complete story narrated by four
members of the same family: a grandfather, two of his daughters and his grandson.