They should call January the month of the anxiety dream. Most people have taken a break, short or long, then find themselves about to recommence work. That’s when their subconscious gets to work, whispering in their ear: “Frankly, you don’t know what you are doing. Frankly, this will be the year in which you are revealed as a fraud.”

None of this is expressed during daylight hours. It’s saved for when you are asleep, usually in the week before you are due back at work.

Having asked around, these anxiety dreams are tailored to each person’s profession. The pilot, for example, dreams of overseeing the plane during an emergency, but the manual containing the necessary codes has disappeared. Sometimes, it’s locked in a drawer, the key inexplicably missing.

They should call January the month of the anxiety dream.Credit: iStock

A school principal, meanwhile, tells me about driving a bus full of students, despite not being licensed to drive a bus. Oh, and now the bus is starting to career out of control.

The church minister is at his lectern, he tells me, the congregation hushed and attentive as he opens the folder containing his sermon, only to find nothing there. At this point, he awakes, sweating. The school teacher, meanwhile, is lost in the woods, a wild storm preventing her from even approaching the school where her students await her arrival. She tries to get there, but wind or fire forces her back.

Some obvious questions arise. Why are we all so anxious? Was such self-doubt always part of our working lives? Or have we created a performance-reviewed, KPI-measured, short-term contract world in which half the population believes they are about to be sacked and shamed in the year ahead?

Certainly, I’ve been busy with my own nightmares. For those of us who work in radio, the dream is always the same. It’s your turn on air, but you are not in the studio at the designated time but in some room far away. There’s equipment there, but it doesn’t work, however many buttons you press. The door is locked and you cannot reach your destination. The panic rises in your body. You believe you’ve let everyone down. Then you wake up.

No wonder we all look a bit tired. We’re working harder during the night than we need to work during the day.

Actually, many people talk about this moment of waking up and the rush of relief it brings. It’s almost worth the nightmare. “Oh, phew, it was all a dream.”