I ticked off four: flying, wide open spaces, heights, and public speaking. And that's about the order they come for me,with the first being the worst and the last being the least dreaded. I have flown before, but not in over twenty years, and I simply can't imagine ever doing it again--it would feel like dying.
Wide open spaces has been a phobia of mine since December 1985; I wrote at some length on this in Andrew's 'BaroqueBach and beyond' thread. Suffice it to say that I
know I'm gonna have some problems on that drive up to Colorado (I've
seen online photos of Baca County
).
Heights has been right up there with flying for me. I'm astonished by folks who are afraid of heights but are A-okay with flying. I mean, you can't
get any higher than on a jet flight, barring leaving the earth's atmosphere. And there's
nothing but air between that airplane floor and the thousands of feet to the earth's surface.
I'm also not fond of going at great speeds, but I seldom ever go much faster than 65 to 70 m.p.h. on a highway, so that rarely gets into phobia territory for me (but does play into my dislike of air travel).
I do fear public speaking, but know I can pull it off with adequate preparation. I certainly would avoid doing it if I could (and one of my most painful adolescent memories involves a horribly flubbed class speech), but know I could survive it.
I'm not fond of the idea of encountering germs or bacteria, and have been accused of being obsessive-compulsive in the past in terms of washing my hands, but I don't think my concerns along these lines veer into the phobia end of the spectrum.