at home

I used to think that snakes were under my blankets at the foot of my bed. For years I would fall asleep with my knees tucked into my chest. When I was about 6 years old I knew there were no snakes because I checked everynight, but I still couldn't bring myself to straighten my legs.
One night my father came in and knelt by my bed and lovingly told me that I had nothing to worry about. There were no snakes in my bed. I told him that I knew that but I still didn't straighten my legs. So he told me that he would prove it to me. He threw back my blankets and I let out a blood curdling scream. There at the base of my matress was a huge snake.
My "LOVING" father had slid a rubber snake under my blanket while he was kneeling next to my bed.
My mother came running into the room and saw what had happened and started ripping into my father. But he was laughing so hard that pretty soon we were all laughing and I never had that problem again.

As a child, i must have been around 6, i dreamt that i had gone through my wardrobe, (closset type thing for you yanks) and ended up at my grandad's house in his garden, and was meeting all my dead relatives ide never meet. For a few years after i used to constantly open and shut the wardrobe door to try and get get through, as i was sure it wasnt a dream. I only stopped after the window cleaner scared me to hell an back when i turned around to see him starring at me.

My daughter-in-law believed that you couldn't take a bath or shower if the electricity was out.
It turned out that she grew up in a house that had well water and an electric pump that got the water into the house. So if there was a power outage, of course there was no water.
But even after she married my son, she still believed this. He had to explain that not every home uses well water, so showering was still an option even during a power outage.

i had finally gotten my own bedroom, had wrested my independence from my horridly tormenting older sister only to have her ruin it for the next few years of my childhood. it went like this:

there were giant sycamore trees outside my bedroom window that, combined with the moonlight, made the exact same errie image on my bedroom wall every night. it shone next to my closet and, eventually, i decided it had the appearance of a man. my sister confirmed the fact. she told me that it was really the ghost of the man who had hung himself in my closet years before we moved into the house. to prove her story she showed me a picture of him from a book of ghost stories. its still errie to me today to think of how much this random picture looked like my "ghost"

I used to believe* that you shouldn't dangle your feet out of the bedclothes at night because witches live under the bed (all beds) and they sneak out and bite your toes if you ever get a bit forgetful and drop your loeg off over the side......

I'm 48 now, and I've never heard of any argument thats convincing enough to make me change my ways!

* I have to say that I still believe this...It might sound silly, but I've still got all ten toes, and I'm not going to start risking things now.....

When I was about seven, I believed that a ghost would come and steal me in the night. I spent a couples of years only being able to sleep if I was gripping the edge of the mattress.

At about 4 years old, an old sink was removed from my bedroom and a small hole (about 5cm in diameter) was left in the floor. My mum infomed me that if I put my finger down the hole, I'd dissapear without a trace. I didn't go near it until I was about 8 despite the fact that it had been carpeted over by this point!

My brothers and I always loved baths. One time my dad was trying to get him out of the bath water that was, by this time freezing cold. My dad started to drain the water and near the end the drain made a loud, sucking noise. Horrified my brother asked, "Dad what's that?!" My dad responded with outreached arms, "I DON'T KNOW!! HURRY UP GET OUT!!!!"

The tub moster was a chilhood fear of my brother for years.

i was (and still am; well, sort of :)) terribly scared of mummies, so guess who were hiding under my bed at night!

I used to believe that when the Dryer Buzzer went off (When your clothes are done drying) It was hungry. My brother often told me this, and had stuck me in there about 3 times. NEVER TURNED IT ON!! Therefore, because of him, I hate my Dryer!

When I was about five a started sleeping on the top of my old bunk bed. I used to pad out the bottom bed with pillows and curl up inside my quilt on the top, this way I thought if anyone broke in they would check the bottom bed cause it was closer to the floor then give up! To this day I still curl up completely inside my quilt.

I used to believe that green scaly goblins with long hairless arms lived under my bed, and would reach out to grab me if I got too close. I would run and jump into bed at night. One morning I was making my bed, and my cat reached out from under the bed and grabbed my ankle with both her paws, and I almost teleported I ran away so fast.

When I was growing up, there was a huge cedar wardrobe in my room that had a two large mirrors built into the doors. It faced my bed and I always avoided looking into those mirrors at night. I was convinced they were somehow two way - regular mirrors by day, and spyholes by night. I couldn't bring myself to look at those mirrors after the lights went out because I might see some odd person watching me!

i used to believe that when you turned light switches off and the lights went out, that the switches themselves would try to make the lights go back on again. they did this cause i believed they had minds of their own and they liked when the lights were on. so every once and a while,at least a few times a day, i would push them down. i used to tell my mother that we couldn't go on vacation without someone to come and push the light switches down a few times a day. i'm still in therapy for stuff like that

I used to believe wall-to-wall carpeting meant the walls were carpeted too. I was so disappointed when we first had our house wall-to-wall carpeted and the walls looked exactly the same.

My sister once wanted help cleaning under her bed. She told me to do it, but I refused. She told me the easter bunny came early and left my brother's things under the bed. So to find my present, i had to dig everything under the bed out. She did that to me every month.