my dad had a darkroom in the house in which we used to live, and i wasn't allowed inside. i convinced myself that was because dracula lived there - must've been the red light that leaked out when the door was ajar.

allison

Not so long ago I believed that when I drove my car along a long portion of highway that a mean gnome lived in the hillside. (this gnome is about 6 feet tall in my mind and wears a robe much like Father TIme or a wizard) Anyway, I traveled this road daily from my boyfriends house to my house at roughly the same time each day. I was sure that the gnome would see my car coming and watch me until I was out of his sight and then before the next day he would move to that location on the hillside. I believed that this would go on until he found where I lived and...well, I'm not sure what I thought he would do...he just creeped me out. So, I would change up the time a little bit, I would take a different route, etc. Well, then I got married (yes, I was that old and NOT in a mental institution.) and I felt that I fooled the gnome because I wouldn't be traveling in that direction any more and by then he was surely closer to my parents house and would not find me again. Many of my friends know this story and are waiting for the day that they will create little blockades by all my doors so that I am held hostage by little ceramic men holding gardening tools and smiling that creepy smile. I will forever hate gnomes!

JoAnn

I used to believe pencil shavings were the key to bringing clay creatures to life. My best friend and I made a point to volunteer for the positions in school which emptied the pencil shavings from the sharpener, then secretly stash them away and bring them home to animate a small clay monster we hid in the basement.

It never worked out as we planned.

Anon

My parents told me that if you sleep with your shoes at the end of the bed, with the toes pointing in opposite directions, the monsters who came into your room at night would get so confused by which direction to go that they'd turn right back around and leave again. I sill keep my shoes that way, actally. :)

Anon

When I was young, I used to believe that if I slept will ALL my stuffed animals on the bed with me (and I had a lot!) that no monster would be able to get me because they would just think I was another stuffed animal.

Also, a little later on, when I was old enough to stay home alone while mom and dad went out, I thought if I tured on every light in the house, that would keep anything from getting me!

Wildfire

I used to think that the only way to get rid of the monsters at night was to imagine them away. I would imagine them leaving my house and going down the road, and if I lost track of the route I had to start over. When I figured they were far enough away, I could stop.

Lila

My father was a good pianist and even had his own dance band in the 1930s. In the days before TV he used to entertain me by playing boogie woogie. I never could understand why some of my friends were terrified of the boogie man. I couldn't imagine how anybody could be dumb enough to be afraid of a jazz pianist.

Texas granny

I used to believe that the "boogyman" was short for "booger monster". I had nightmared of a giant booger monster for a year.

Anon

When I was about nine, my younger cousins and I believed that there were dragons living on our backyard. We made 'dragon food' (mud, rocks, sticks, leaves, and few ladybugs for color) and placed it around all the places we thought the dragons would be hiding. We came out the next morning to look for dragon footprints, and were sure that we saw some.

Colette

when I was about 4 or 5, I saw a cartoon which involved lots of zombies lurching around dressed in rags, + some vampires looking very smart. I assumed that the zombies lived in the graves that said 'RIP', (because their clothes were ripped) + the vampires lived in the others.

Nin

The house where I grew up was in a town near a military base. At times they had drills where they had planes drop shell, the sound of which sounded like loud steps by the time they reached my neighborhood. Until age 12 at least I was convinced when I heard it that it was dinosaurs coming... I grew up in the 90s and Jurassic Park was big, what can I say... The sound and vibrations were IDENTICAL as in the movie!

Gladys

I thought the Boogie Man was made of boogers-all green and slimy.

Boo

When I was about five or six my friend's older sister told me there was an evil spirit of a girl who had gotten hit by a car that lived on her car's roof. Only the girls spirit was SO evil that she eventually turned into a monster that ate people's heads when they got out of the car she was on.
--at this point she hit the top of the car when I wasn't looking and then told me the girl had just hopped on her car.

It took her mom and mine thirty minutes to get me out of the back of the van because I was so hysterical and simply would not get my head cut off.

Love'

My mum told me that the sock monster took odd socks away. I thought it was a real two legged monster made out of socks with a big sock for a head (shaped like a horse's head) and that it lived in the cupboard above the boiler. The scary part was that it had no eyes or mouth...

Stephen

My 3-yr-old brother's friend once told him that the "king alligator" lived in people's walls. There was a little hole in the bathroom wall made from the doorknob (it was near the toilet). So one day we hear him screaming and crying while on the toilet. I ended up spending the next 239482734 of his bathroom trips sitting outside the bathroom door while he cried, telling him there was no such thing as the "king alligator" and that he didn't live in our bathroom wall.

Rose

when i was younger, a friend of mine told a horror story of a doll that came alive and killed people with her huge abnormal purple finger. so for a while after that, i used to believe that my porcelian cabbage patch doll that my grandmother made me was that same doll in the horror story, so at night i would sleep with the covers over my head so she wouldn't see me and kill me.

Monica

you know after you look in a bright light, and you close your eyes or blink how you can still see the glare that remains in your vision? I used to think that those were monsters, and could only be seen if you blinked enough.
I feared them.

trevor

When I was little, like 5, I used to believe that a flat paper thin man lived between the back of the couch and the wall. I was terrified of this man and claimed he was wearing a tophat and carried a cane.

Jamie

I had to face the door when i went to sleep incase har hars walked past (and came in) they had pointy snout things (look like evil wombles except they thinner). And i had to sleep curled up in a ball incase the witches got my feet if i spread out. And there was a gap between my bed and bedside table i didn't like that either (trolls).

alice

At the mall in my hometown, there were occasionally doors along blank walls and someone told me that monsters lived behind them, and that if you stayed in the mall until after dark, the monsters would come out and accuse you of shoplifting so they could have an excuse to eat you.

misslicorice