When I was three or four years old, we lived in a fourth-floor walk-up flat that had steam heat. The radiator would go "hsssssssss-PFT!" every few seconds when the head was on. I would hear this sound in my dream, and I remember quite distinctly a nightmare I used to have where I would wake up and the radiator would be coming after me, going "hsssssss-PFT!" It would chase me into the living room and burn me on the knee. Then I'd wake up screaming, convinced that the radiator had chased me into the living room and burned me on the knee, and somehow I'd managed to crawl back to bed. I soon became terrified of the radiator in my room, certain that it was just waiting for its chance to get me.

Finally one day my mum came in and handed me a cap gun, one with the little rolls of paper with a bit of black powder that made a snap when the trigger was pulled. She told me that if, in the night, the radiator began to threaten me, I was to shoot it.

That night, instead of being woken up by screaming, my folks were woken up by loud SNAP!s of the cap pistol. There I was, sitting up in bed, shooting my radiator.

It went "hsssssss-PFT!" for many years to follow but I never had that nightmare again.

Dangerous Child

I thought that there were little people that lived behind the curtains on the windowsill when the curtains were closed. When I used to walk to bed across the landing Id say good night to them, and sometimes have a little chat.

Lou

When I was much younger, I used to believe that there were cameras in my living room, and they would watch my every movement. They didn't know that I knew about them, so whenever my mom or dad left me alone in the living room, I would act normal, only moving my eyes to search for the cameras. I never did find where they were hidden...
This stems from watching a show on bad babysitters, and how worried parents would hide "Nanny-Cams" to keep an eye on the sitter. For some reason I believed my parents wanted to keep an eye on me, in case I was bad.

Melissa

Before I was tall enough to see into the washer, I used to think that the close went into a bottomless pit where the fairies magically made them clean and then the washer star-wars style beamed them back up. Now that I think about it, I was a very strange child...

Andromeda

When my older brother Neil was 4, he saw a glass table for the first time ever! It was at a friend of my mother's house and he was confused. He asked his older brother, my eldest brother, Martin what it was because he had never seen one before. Well, Martin explained that it was A PORTAL TO ANOTHER DIMENSION. Being only 4, Neil believed it. While no one else was in the room, He jumped through the table !!!!!!!! He wasn't badly injured for the rest of his life but he did receive LOTS of stiches. The table did lead him to another dimension, a dimension of PAIN.


Even funnier though...Martin at thanksgiving 4 years ago(14 years after the incident)finally told my parents about "the portal" and why Neil had really jumped through the table!!!

little girl big imagination

When I was little, i thought that there was a little man in the attic that turned a crank above your room to make the fan spin. I thought that when you flipped the switch, he knew how fast to turn it, so I turned my fan off alot to give him a rest!

Kelly

we have a laundary shoot. i was sooo fascinated by it when i was younger. i thought it was a mail box to a different dimension ... so one day, i took a note that said "to my message friend" on it and it said "wanna be friends?" and had a poem on it ... every day i would throw something down there. it wasnt in use,but after awhile it was clogged up with notes and gifts, so it never came out where it was supposed to. well, a few weeks ago, i remebered that i used to do that, and i wondered where all that stuff went? so i got a broom and loosened everything up and out fell: 7 funny notes and stupid poems, a beanie baby, some junk mail, a few computer game CDs, and and some reading glasses ...

whew

When I was little my older sister said she was tired and just needed a little extra strength to make it through the day so remembering the label on a medicine bottle I had seen in the cabinet I brought her a bottle of Extra Strength pain reliever. I had no idea it was for headaches I just thought it was a bottle of extra strength.

Eva

as young children,my dad told us human head was used in making louvre glasses.so whomever brakes one wil have he's or her head cutoff. it worked,none got broken after that

angeline

I always used to sneak out of naps to get books. It would have been more fun to sneak downstairs and get snacks sometimes, but many of our stairs squeaked. I decided to use a marker to mark each squeaky stair with a big "X" on the white wooden railing beside it. Thank God the marker wouldn't write over the lacquered wood - I would have been in SO MUCH trouble. At the time, I just thought I'd be the only one to notice the x's.

Barbara

My mum used to tell me that I had to keep my room tidy as the Queen checked all children's rooms at random and would be very disappointed to find it messy.

Cath

As I child I was terrified of holes. The slightest nail hole in the wall would keep me awake all night. Eventually my grandfather covered all the holes with duct tape, because NOTHING can get through duct tape.

Kim

When I was about five, my sister would tell me that the funky noises coming from behind the big chest freezer was a valasa-raptor from Jurassic Park. I would have to make the "Caoo-Caooing" noises it made in the movie to fool it every time i walked by.

Heather

when I was 5, after watching Beauty and the Beast, I was convince that when a teapot would produce smoke, it was simply because it was mad!
I believed this until I was 7.

abigail

One day I went to get my bottle and mom handed me a 'big girl' cup. I was very upset and curious as to what happened to all my bottles and she said that the garbage man took them. I got it in my head that he had kids that needed my bottles and that everything we threw away he actually took home to his family. I thought that for a couple years and really felt for the poor garbage family. Who knows just how many perfectly good things I threw away hoping to make their day a bit brighter.

brooke

Every time I would put my mouth directly on the faucet to get a drink of water, my Grandmother would warn me I was going to swallow a fish someday! I would dream for years a fish got stuck in my throat.

Anon

I used to believe that the dust on top of doors was poisonous.

draconid

When I was very young I used to wonder what the little tin door was on the back of the house. It was, of course, the entrance to the crawl space, but it bewildered me for years.
There was so much mystery contained in this strange little door . . . what could it possibly lead to? One day, my curiousity got the best of me and I opend it up to take a peek. The first thing I was in this dark area, was a couple of very old, glass soft drink bottles.
That was enough for me, I immediatly assumed that a man lived down there and I should probably not invade his property. I stay a safe distance from that little doorway until I was at least 9 years old.

Scab

I used to be very afriad of our front door. i thought it looked like a face i guess, because the windows looked like eyes and a nose or something. i would cry or be soooo scared when i walked by, usually when it was darker. but was ok after because my mom made this big red smiling mouth out of construction paper and put it beneath the windows on the door to make it a smiling face. she then called the door "Doris the Door" to make me feel better. i don't know how but it worked!!!

jessika

I used to think that bobbie pins were actually called "Barbie Pins" and that they were made from old Barbie dolls that no one wanted anymore.

Anon