Last night I had my usual anxiety dream. They are nearly always the same general thing: I’m at university or my A’levels and have taken on courses, usually maths, that I can’t cope with and I simply haven’t been attending class. The deadline for dropping a class without penalty has passed and the final exams are imminent. I feel trapped, unhappy, paralysed, unable to do anything. The dreams feel banal and very vivid in their ordinariness. Last night’s was a bit unusual in that I started to do something about it. I went to the head of the programme, my old English teacher. She was sitting on the floor of her office, reading a lurid-covered fantasy series. I opened my mouth to confess, she looked up, and I woke up.
Read this next