They say we wake up at that point of a nightmare at which our mind simply cannot tolerate what's coming next. The latest nightmare I've read about is intolerable all right - but if we don't watch out, we might not get to wake up from it.
It's called Treadmill Syndrome. I am indebted for the name to a psychologist, Dr Glyn Hudson-Allez. Judging by her photograph in the recent issue of The Psychologist, in which she gives the Treadmill Syndrome an outing, she's a cheerful soul. But there's nothing cheerful about the story she tells, which, it seems to me, is an all-too-common modern nightmare.
Dr Hudson-Allez is writing in a British context (The Psychologist is published by the British Psychological Society) so I have Irish-ised the story. Our heroes are John and Maura. They have two children called Conor and Chloe which, I read somewhere, are the most popular children's names in the new Ireland.
John and Maura both work outside the home (applause). They have a mortgage and two cars to support, as well as Conor and Chloe and Conor's and Chloe's minder. They don't have time for cooking so they eat convenience foods which cost more but, then, they have the two incomes so that's all right.
They're getting a bit snappy with each other. They are both working long hours - John is in banking and Maura is in the computer industry - which leaves them tired and tense.
They are not, by the way, very high up or exceptionally well paid where they work - they just work long hours, that's all.
They make up to Conor and Chloe for their absence by buying them only the best: "in" toys, designer clothes, all that. Conor and Chloe are into early adolescence now and their demands are escalating.
For instance, they don't yet have videos in their bedrooms and they would like that rectified. Obviously, they have to have their own mobile phones. In a few years they'll be looking for driving lessons and their own cars. They'll have weekend jobs by then but the money will go on CDs and nights out.
When they go to college they will need help to pay their credit card bills and car insurance. John and Maura will continue to fight. They are in a trap and they see no way out. The only outlet they get is attacking each other.
Eventually, the kids will graduate and get good jobs. They won't return home to live after university so a time will never come when they contribute to John and Maura's household expenses.
John and Maura will be free at last - but how will they stand each other with nobody else in the house to be a buffer between them?
WHAT is to be done to stop this nightmare repeating itself? And how can John and Maura stop it from happening at all? Dr Hudson-Allez suggests, first of all, that parents become more assertive at work about the demands placed on them.
She sees the cowing of the unions by Margaret Thatcher as a major contributor to stress in the families of employees in the UK.
The stressed-out employee cannot say no, and there are plenty of other people queuing up for the job.
It is not that bad here. The unions are strong - relative to Britain anyhow - the law protects employee rights, and we have that nice Mr Geraghty running the State now.
But how much freedom do employees have to say no to long hours in, say, that union-free zone, the computer hardware and software industry? And if you're a thrusting young thing - or even a thrusting middle-aged thing - in financial services, are you not a likely victim of presenteeism? ("Presenteeism" describes a company culture in which employees are expected to be at their desks early and late, whether it's necessary or not.)
And isn't the Treadmill Syndrome the ghostly - not to say ghastly - shadow lurking behind the current IBEC-led mania for putting all the mothers out to work?
Two images occur here: first, the image of a young executive type, pin-striped, brief-cased, pushing the child in its buggy into the nursery at 8 a.m. That image was relayed to me by a feminist wondering if this was really the society she wanted to create. Think of the hour at which power-suit Mum and pinstripe Dad had to get up to have that child up, fed, dressed and at the nursery at that time of the morning. They are well and truly on the treadmill.
THE other image, told to me by a nursery worker, is of toddlers who arrive at the childcare centre in their pyjamas early every morning. When their parents collect them in the evening, they are in their pyjamas again and ready for bed. More treadmill people.
Who can doubt that the fight against the corporate attitude which sees family concerns as none of its business is worth taking up and supporting?
Dr Hudson-Allez also urges parents to create boundaries in the home. Specifically she wants adolescent and adult children to be told to contribute to the running of the household or to get out - ouch! (We can all declare that John and Maura should send their brats on their way - but it isn't so easy when they're our brats.)
And she wants people in general to realise that they can choose to slow down the treadmill and adjust to a gentler pace of life. Unfortunately, she doesn't spell out how to do this - but it might mean Conor and Chloe not getting the best of everything straight away.
And how do you slow down if you've got one of those horrendous mortgages, the mere thought of which keeps householders awake at night? Sometime, perhaps, we'll see some decent landlord-tenant legislation brought in so that families can live in apartments with a fair degree of security. That's one way to slow down today's mortgage madness. In the short term, though, it's clear that a lot of people are already on the treadmill.
How to get off that treadmill, or slow it down, will be a key - and worthy - issue of the early years of the new century.
email: pomorain@irish-times.ie
Fintan O'Toole is indisposed