When I was little, my parents had a neon sculpture that lit our dining room. They told me that if I touched it, I would get electrocuted.

Fast forward 20 years...
I'm on a first date with my future husband, and we're seated next to a neon beer sign. He reaches out to touch it, and I say, "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? IF YOU TOUCH THAT, YOU'RE GOING TO GET ELECTROCUTED!"

He just laughed and told me it was fine as long as he didn't touch one of the joints between the neon tubes. I felt pretty dumb.

Schmoopy

As black is the opposite of white, I used to believe that blue was the opposite of red. Also, bannanas were the opposite of apples, and giraffes the opposite of elephants. It's not such a bad analogy, when you think about it.

Landis

I was told once (by whom, I can't remember, but it was someone important: teacher, parent, etc.) that the reason we stay on the earth's surface and do not float away into space was because of the earth's spin. I found out much later in life that mass has gravity.

I would rack my brain trying to solve that puzzle. If I spun a plate, everything flew off of it. Only when it sat still did everything stay. It made no sense, but I believed it because I had no other explaination.

Anon

i used to think that vacuum cleaners had little piece of space inside them because space is a vacuum

anon

I used to believe that if I spun around really fast in the living room and then fell to the ground I'd feel the world spinning as I held onto the floor. At times I experienced a similar sensation in college after drinking too much.

queeneve

One day when I was at a park with my parents, I looked straight up into the sky and got real dizzy and felt like I was about to lift off. There was a railing next to me that I immediately grabbed. At that very moment my dizziness went away. From that moment on (at least for a couple of years) I harbored the belief that the only reason people do not fly off the face of the earth was because there was always an object nearby they could grab a hold of.

DM

I used to believe that after you made ice in the freezer, you could put it in the fridge and it would stay frozen. I thought the fridge was cold enough to keep the ice frozen, but not cold enough to actually freeze it.

papakapp

my brother once told me that if you spun yourself around and got dizzy, you would get un-dizzy by going the other way.

Anon

i thought if i tied enough balloons to my bedpost the bed would fly away with me in it. unfortunately, i never had more than two balloons at a time, so i never got to test the theory.

santeria

I used to believe that I would be the first person to see air.

Andrea W.

My dad told me that once a Gravitron ride at a carnival had come loose, flown into the air, crashed down and killed everybody on it. I could never ride it again even though most people thought it was the best ride.

Kimberly

That if you attached two magnets together (so that they want to repel), they would just levitate, and that you could make spaceships using this logic.

GE

I always believed one day they would build a lift(elevator) into space. According to science news they can now do it. Firsties.

Paul Middleton

I used to believe that thunder was made by the clouds bumping together - lightning was the sparks as they hit. I used to watch the clouds when it was just raining, and wonder why only some clouds made a noise when they collided...

Matt Phillips, UK

When I was 4 I believed that if you jumped in the aisle of a bus when it was moving the bus would keep going but you would stop which would make you fly out the back window. I believed it until I tried it.

Mr.McMelon

I used to think that if I was in an elevator that suddenly came crashing down from ten stories up you could survive by jumping just before it hit bottom.

Far Too Many Rude Awakenings

I used to believe that the gum on the sidewalk that was the color black was gravity, and if it all of the pieces were peeled off around the world, everyone would float into outerspace

michael

I just found out that when I told my son (years ago) that windmills made the wind (they only work when it's windy!), he believed me up until now.

Colin

I used to believe that it might be possible sometimes to land on your own shadow when jumping. I'd try this occassionally for a few years.

Peter

our father would tell us that the wind shield wipers on his early '80s vw rabbit were in fact turbo wipers, serving the purpose of wiping air out of the way so the car could travel faster. that explanation paired with well timed hits on the accelerator made the notion quite believable to my brother and i.

cj2