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I thought the discussion of the meaning of dreams/why we dream was really interesting and I hope we discuss this more.  If dreams are a way of handling our anxiety it seems that this is just another type of story we tell ourselves. 

After our discussion on Monday I was reading “Love’s Executioner” by Irvin Yalom, which is the book I am reading for my book review and was really fascinated by his views on anxiety.  He says that anxiety arises when we try to cope with the four “givens” of existence which are the inevitability of death for each of us and those we love; the freedom to make our lives as we will; our ultimate aloneness; and the absence of any obvious meaning or sense to life.  

I haven’t finished the book yet and I don’t know if I agree with his theory about basic anxiety completely, but right now I think it makes a lot of sense.  It is really sad to think that much of our worldview and even in our sleep we spend so much time trying to control our overwhelming fear of just being alive.