A childhood belief about under my bed

When I was 12 or 13, I began imagining that huge spiders were coming to get me as soon as I closed my eyes to go to sleep at night. I was old enough to know that this was silly, but the image was disturbing enough to keep me awake. So I developed an equally silly defense mechanism: As soon as I closed my eyes, I would pretend to enclose myself in a box, building the box wall by wall. I would think, “side, side, side, side, top, bottom,” and presto!

But soon, this wasn’t enough. After all, the big spiders were right there just on the other side of the wall! So I would repeat the process over and over, building up layer after layer of boxes.

This became such a long, drawn out process that I soon figured out a more efficient way. I would build just one box, but each wall would magically expand outwards infinitely (in the process making a little “pshooo” sound, like if you pretended to fire a missile). So I would think, “side (pshooo), side (pshooo), side (pshooo), side (pshooo), top (pshooo), bottom (pshooo).” If you don’t think “pshooo,” it’s just a regular wall after all.

But it quickly occurred to me that there were chinks in the armor at all the edges, and don’t forget the corners! So, the nightly ritual became “side, side, side, side, top, bottom, edge, edge, edge, edge, edge, edge, edge, edge, edge, edge, edge, edge, corner, corner, corner, corner, corner, corner, corner, corner,” each step accompanied by a little “pshooo,” and with my closed eyes scanning around to indicate which edges and corners I was covering. With that, I was finally able to fall asleep in perfect peace.

I think the spiders vanished from my thoughts within a few months, but I performed the 26-“pshooo” ritual every night almost until college.