I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm paranoid, maybe I think I'm too lucky, maybe I'm in some way aware of a debt incurred in a previous life and I'm waiting for it to be called in. Whatever it is, I suffer from imposter syndrome. The feeling that I'm somehow living somebody else's life and that one day the Truth will out. "I'm terribly sorry, sir but we meant Mr James...can't think how it could possibly have happened...heads will roll sir, I assure you but in the meantime, if you would be so kind as to assume your rightful place in the queue for the soup kitchen."

What I do know however, is that it has even invaded my dreams. The fear of being somehow 'found out' is the theme of the only recurring dream I have. Interesting how those dreams you would really love to re-occur, those involving several nubiles and various and sundry comestibles, never seem to fall into this category, do they?

So, to the dream. It always, unerringly, without fail involves my having killed someone and struggling to come to terms with the imminent discovery of the body. I never get to find out the who or the why but no matter how diligently I have disposed of the body, something will always happen to make its coming to light inevitable and my guilt all too apparent. So far, not so bad, I hear you considering. But wait, there's more.

You know how you can sometimes, when dreaming, convince yourself that it's only a dream and thus can your character in the dream start to enjoy himself a little? Well, in this sleepscape of mine, my character in the dream also has a recurring nightmare that he has killed someone and that...etc...etc...etc. This has the effect, on waking, of making me for a few moments at least, decidedly apprehensive about my immediate future.

Now what livened up last night's dream was the fact that in my fugitive scenario, my flight from justice as it were, I was accompanied by Mary and Joseph. By reason of the purest logic, these roles were played as an archetypical Jewish couple by Maureen Lipman and John Bluthal. Mary was your typical stoic yiddisher mama, bearing the weight of the whole world and its errant sons on her shoulders and Joseph a lightweight, ineffectual yet eternally optimistic dreamer.

Anyway, inbetween spoon feeding me chicken soup and reminding me that I should have gone to Med School, Mary was schlepping me around town from pillar to post in an orgasm of anxiety, Joseph all the while playing down the problem in hand. "The boy has chutzpah, he'll get over it." being the full extent of his advice to us both. Chutzpah? Well, if you define balls as pissing through the letterbox of your least favourite neighbour, chutzpah is then ringing the doorbell and enquiring how far it went. Quite how this scenario would have played out, I never got to find out as I was awakened at this point by a straining in the groin area informing me that that there was a load on its way that may best be shed in the bathroom.

So, what does it all mean? Bugger all I hope but it would appear that this fear of being found out goes deep in me. Have I some deep, dark secret in my past which, if revealed, would destroy my life? Well, maybe I have and maybe I haven't. I'm much more inclined to think it's a subconscious ploy to dodge responsibility or at least to aid in taking whatever responsibilities I do have in as light a fashion as is possible. After all, if it really is someone else's life I'm living, then how could it possibly be my fault if I fuck it up?

Oh well, and a "Hey nonny no" to all.