Tell the world your fears - unless you're too scared

It's not as scary as standing at the top of a very tall building and looking down so your stomach turns to water – known as acrophobia – and neither is it as fear-inducing as horrible, hissing, wriggly snakes – ophidiophobia – but it is officially scarier than spiders and small spaces.

However, no matter how terrifying it undoubtedly is, the fear of public speaking – glossophobia, to give its official name – would make a rubbish horror film. Even Peter Cushing would have struggled there.

Further down the list – compiled by those nice people with far too much time on their hands at polling organisation YouGov – we have musophobia, the fear of mice, trypanophobia, the fear of needles, and pteromerhanophobia, the fear of flying. Apparently seven per cent of us say we are very afraid of the latter, despite it being, statistically, the safest way to travel. (But only if you're aboard an airplane or a helicopter.)

Crowds is another common fear, while three per cent say they have nyctophobia, or the fear of the dark.

Or perhaps you have coulrophobia, a fear of clowns? Four per cent of us say we are very afraid of them. (Although I cannot see it myself. If the clown was coming after me with, say, a chainsaw, then I might be slightly afraid, but even then I'd probably notice that he couldn't really run towards me because of those hilarious long shoes they always wear. That means the homicidal mirth-maker would have to chase me in his car – and as we all know, a clown's car can only move about three feet before the engine explodes in a cloud of white smoke and tinsel. Clowns? Nah, you're having a laugh. Well, you are if you're around six years old. Mind you, what if the clown was sitting next to you on a dark plane and he'd smuggled a snake into his hand luggage and kept trying to make you deliver a speech to the other passengers? Actually, you might be in trouble there...)

Dogs. There's something you can worry about. Fear of dogs is known as cynophobia. Perfectly understandable if you live near Darren or Wayne who only feels like a real man if he's walking around with with one of those monster child-eating black dogs you saw in The Omen.

Fears, then, are something that unite us. We've all got a fear of something or other in common, and I suppose there's some reassurance in that.

For example, we've all had that moment where we're driving along a lonely country road late at night and hear a rattling sound coming from the engine. We've all experienced that.

And we all know that feeling when we stop by the side of the road and walk to the front of the car, with only the light of a full moon to guide us. You've been there, haven't you?

After checking there's nothing wrong we get back in and drive away.

And we've all looked in the mirror to see, rising up from behind the driver's seat, a face, flesh as cold and pallid as the moon above, eyes burning like black coals.

And we've all watched in terror as its mouth opens in a leering, terrible grin, exposing teeth like tiny daggers.

And we've all seen it reaching towards us, the dirt from the grave still under its long fingernails. And we've all just had time to scream...

Oh, so that one's just just me then, is it? Lovely.