at home

When I was about 5, I was convinced that a household of lived under my bed- a vampire, a werewolf, a wizard, a mummy, ect. I thought I had to lay completely motionless, because the vampire's fangs would grow and curve around the bed and through my stomach, and if I moved he'd feel me and I'd die.

When my parents told me "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite", i use to believe if I kicked my feet really really hard in bed, they would all crawl/fall down to the end of the bed, and since the end of the bed was so cold, they would freeze, so i would be safe.

i used to believe that if i slept with my arms out from under my covers a monster would come and bite them. and i used to believe that there was a witch under my bed so i made my mom call the cops to come take it away.

As a child, I was told, to open the garage door you have to yell, "HOCUS, POCUS, OPEN THE GARAGE DOOR!" and it would usually open. When it didn't, my mom told me i was standing on the wrong oil spot in the driveway. (Later on she told me that she heard me yelling, and had to run to the garage door opener!)

When I was 4 or 5, we had a cat. This cat would eat anything on the planet, so long as it crossed her path. My parents used to call her the Walking, Talking Vaccuum cleaner, and I was CONVINCED that the vaccuum cleaner was going to get me in my sleep. (I made no connection whatsoever to the cat) I would lie in bed, waiting for this vaccuum cleaner to come and eat me. I'd scoot as close as I possibly could to the wall and fall asleep there, hoping the vaccuum wouldn't come and suck me up!

I used to believe that spiders would crawl into my ears if I didn't cover them at night. This fear (which lasted a couple of years) occured after I saw "Star Trek: Wrath of Kahn" which has a scene in it where crawlie things enter their ears.

I used to believe the Devil himself lived in the heater in our basement. We had this huge Victorian rowhouse with a strange heater that was much, much larger than modern ones, and it had a little metal door on the side. When on, the door was occasionally shudder open and closed, and my mother reassured me it was only Satan trying to get out. Parents! I lived in fear until I realized the heater was completely empty of demons, but until the day we moved, that damn thing always kind of freaked me out.

i used to think that whatever you lost down the drain magically appeared in an ocean halfway around the world. my aunt lost her contact down the drain when i was about six, and i pictured some seagull finding it a few weeks later and trying to eat it.

I belived that when I was not in my bedroom,...5 evil wart-hogs would gather in a circle to play poker at the foot of my bed. If I ever interupted their game,..they would eat me. When my mother would punish me to go to my room,...I would scream and plead. If that didnt work i would"hide" myself in my doorway until i was reasonably sure that they were done playing,..then enter my room

When I was very young I thought there was a skeleton lying under my bed and if I put my hand over the side, it would grab me. So I used to force myself to put my hand out, to prove to myself that I was being stupid.

Later this was mostly replaced by the fear that a black monk-like figure with a glowing green skull face would look back at me if I looked out of an uncurtained window at night.

It's sad to admit, but if I'm alone in the house, even now, these irrational fears come back to plague me - I still can't stand to have the curtains open at night, as my own reflection in the windows looks so creepy..!

When I was about 10, my best friend at the time told me about her older brother's biggest fear. He was terrified of his door handle(!) He called it 'Skin' and thought it was going to kill him.
I found this incredibly funny, which was pretty insensitive of me, looking back!

When I was little, I was over at my friend's house. He did something bad and his mom said she was going to beat him with "Flice Water". Years later I realized she was going to use the FLYSWATTER!!!

My father used to have an old fashioned typewriter in his study. He told me when I was about 6 years old that I should not try to pick up the typewriter as it would be very dangerous. I understand now that this was because the typewriter was heavy. One day soon after I saw some sets of unused staples stuck together beside the typewriter and i did not know what they were. My little mind assumed they had fallen out of the typewriter as they were sharp at the edges. Later I had recurring dreams about picking up the typewriter and all the staples falling out onto the floor. Of course in the dreams I wore no shoes and would try to get out of the room without standing on the upturned sets of staples.

When I was about 4 or 5 yrs old, I had crawled into my parents bed ( I was scared of the dark). Well, I KNOW I was awake, because I was fixing my pillow to block my dad's snoring. When I looked over my mom's shoulder I saw suspended in mid air, a pair of white gloves, a top hat, a can swinging, as if someone was standing there, with no body!!!!! an invisible man!! I hid under the sheets until morning. I'm still afraid to fall asleep in the dark!

A train used to whistle off in the distance in the middle of the night. I used to believe the train would eventually come right through my bedroom, so I'd hide under the covers until I couldn't hear it anymore. I obviously didn't understand what train tracks were.

When I was young, I woke up in the middle of the night with an itching in my ear. I reached to touch it and out sprang what, to me, was the BIGGEST spider I had ever seen, which scurried across the bedclothes. For at least 10 years afterwards I always covered my ear with the sheets.
I still worry about it

I used to believe that when you moved house you swapped with the owners of the house you were moving to. When we moved when I was 5 I spent the car journey looking for the other family going in the other direction.