during a discussion with a 19 year old friend, it emerged that she (still) thought that mermaids were real and sea horses were myths...
...this same friend also accidentally revealed that she thought the moon and the sun were the same "planet". she was a very quiet person and i think i know why now!

angelina

I disliked crossing this bridge, not amounting to a hump in the road, over a little streamtwo or three feet below but only about three inches deep called locally 'The Brook', for (surely) In the Brook Beneath There Dwelt a Terrifying Troll. Trolls could drag you into the water and drown you. I knew it was always watching when anyone crossed - for I'd heard that to cross certain bridges you had to pay a troll.

eppenguin

I used to belive that I shouldn't go around in the woods in foggy wheather. The evil creatures (the "vetter") in the forest could take me. An old scandinavian belief I suppose.

Hroar

I used to think Dracula was from Pennsylvania.

Anon

I used to believe that the thermostat was actually a giant evil monster. I'd seen them, but I called them temperature adjusters. Not thermostats. Oh, no. The thermostat was very different, ever since I heard, in a hotel, my dad saying what should we turn the thermostat to? I didn't know what a thermostat was, so I went to sleep. But that night, I had "The dream"...

So I was walking into someone's house, when all of a sudden, the door shut behind us, and the house's owner said "*gasp*! The thermostat!" The lighting turned brown, and I could see little shadows on the ground made by the blinds. I looked and saw a shadow before I woke up.

Anon

As a child in the early seventies after watching the 20s film king kong with fay wray, i was too scared to sit on the toilet in case i couldnt see behind me that that HUGe gorilla eye was looking through our little toilet window, i was so temted to look but so scared it would be there, i used to make myself cry with fear every time i needed the toilet but i kinda liked it too! then it changed to giant spiders, i had to leave the toilet door open but was terrified that i would see a giant 5 foot high spider walking down the hall past the open loo door. i used to try to finish up so quickly that still to this day i cannot "sit" on the loo for any lenght of time, if i cant do it quickly i dont even try!! i you get my drift!

chrissy

My mother is Korean and we have a lot of Korean decorations in our house. When I was little we had this really big wooden spoon and fork that hung on the wall in our kitchen (they are still on the wall to this day). They had angry faces carved in them and they looked kind of scary. Somehow I had convinced myself that if you didn't eat all the food on your plate the spoon and fork would come and eat you in your sleep. I had also convinced my cousin the same thing because his mother had a set in their kitchen also. I would get so scared during dinner that I would keep glancing at them to make sure they were still on the wall. It wasn't until later that I asked my mom what they were for. She told me that they were similar to totems that people would put at the entrance of the village to keep evil spirits out. Wow...I was wrong!

Anon

From when I was maybe six, I slept facing the door because I was scared someone ( or something) might come in and take me away.

Anon

When I was about 2 or 3 years old, i CLEARLY remember seeing monsters at the doorway as i tried going to sleep because my parents would leave my door open. I was convinced that they were gonna eat me so I'd hide under my covers all night. I was so scared that I needed to pee and ended up peeing in my bed on a few occasions because i didnt want the monsters to get me.

DeVille

When I was little (mid 1980's), I used to beleive that the boogie man was green, and wore a "Saturday Night Fever" type outfit and a hat with a feather in it so he could Boogie! I wasn't scared of him cause I thought, "What harm can he do? He just wants to Boogie!" And I liked to Boogie too!
-Susy in NM

Susy

When i was about 7 my freind told me this story about this monster who would go under chairs,fridgerators,and anything else you could go under so i was scared to sit on chairs and get near anything that had under neaith areas so one day i sat on a chair with my feet up and then i said to my self "Nothing i think ill put my feet down now" when i put my feet down my cat runs underneath the chair runbing my leg i scream and fthrow the chair back and say "Oh no my legs are gonna get eaten" My mom ran in and yelled at me and then i toled her the sotry she laughed and said "That was a story" But i wasnt convinced till i was 9 i though when i threw the cahir back it had to move with it... hehe

Justin

When I was 5 i used to believe that a monster lived in the staircase in our home. I called the Skeleton, because he was shaped like a skeleton. For a long time, i was afraid to climb the staircase at night. I used to run quick so the skeleton wouldn't get me, because then he caught me he would take me and emprison me in the attic.

Zoozoo

During W W II we kids played out in the street until 8.30pm. Even on the dark winter nights.
When it was time to come in, mother would walk to the front gate and shout. If we were reluctant to go into the house, mum would shout "hurry up, the nine o'clock horses will get you". The mental image of a herd of giant horses gnashing and crashing down the street was enough to get every kid running for their lives into the safety of their beds!

terence

When I was about 4, my brother told me that each time you went to bed, monsters like werewolves, and vampires, would come into your bedroom, and if you had been a bad boy during the day, they would feast on you and make you one of them. What made this worse was that we had a shandalere in the hall way and my parents used to leave it on before i went to bed, so it made all these weird shadows that looked slightly like monsters shadows. So it would take me ages to start feeling sleepy because i was so frightened. I used to put all these things on my bedside table that i thought would protect me. Like a tourch, a wotch, a small cross, a back up tourch, a wotch that i thought was silver (but later i found out was just stain less steel) to defend myself from the werewolves, and some wooden tooth pics to protcet myself from the vampires (i couldnt get wooden stakes, but i tried askin my parents). I would stay up really late, and then my parents would go to bed and swithc the hall light off. At this point I was on the verge of falling asleep, but I could always just about manage to stay awake. I then would turn on the tourch and wait for amonster to come in. Hoping thta I would survive until the next night. I got threw so many batteries, and this made my Dad angry. And i could never understand why my family never looked scared when they went to bed....

Weasel Dealer

i used to think there was some kind of monster under my bed so at night i would check before going to sleep and also check in the morning and jump away.

im not sure how old i was.

simon

I don't know why but i thought that the evil things lived on the stairs.I would always open the door and reach my hand around to turn the light on without looking because that made them go away.I still reach round the door first from habit.

~DARK~

MY MOTHER, TO GET US KIDS TO COME IN WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN INSTRUCTED US ON THE COACHWHIP SHAKE. IF YOU WERE OUT AFTER DARK THE COACHWHIP SNAKE WOULD GRAB ITS OWN TAIL, ROLL ITSELF INTO A ROUND HOOP, CHASE YOU DOWN. THEN UNCOIL AND WHIP YOU TO DEATH.

JOE PHILLIPS

When I was young my father told me that giants live in fir trees. It scared the living daylights out of me and I would drag my mum back and forth across roads to avoid them. To this day I still look at them sideways.

Scaredy Cat

I used to think that when all the kids in the world had gone to bed, nasty versions of the BFG would walk around checking that everyone was asleep otherwise they would get eaten. So I used to lie as still as possible at night with my head under the covers making tiny little snoring noises to fool them... it always worked!!

scared of the dark-still!