people

When I was little I thought that everybody died when they were twenty because that was what I could count up to.

Vicky

when i was a kid we whre told that hoping around a chair on one foot with only one sock on meant that someone was going to die .

Daniel copeland calif,u.s.

I was 5 years old when my 96 year old great grandmother died. As my mom was trying to explain this to me, I remember asking her "If they scooped her bones off the floor." For some reason I thought that when you die, you are always in bed, and you instantly turn into a skeleton, and your bones fall to the floor! My mom had a tough time with that one!

JILL

I used to believe that in movies, when people died...they really died. i thought that they would get paid a large amount of money, and then say, 5 years later they would do the movie and die.

melani

When i was about 3 or 4 i knew nothing about death except what i saw on tv. And most deaths on tv meant blood and gore. So my great grandma died and my dad was a pallbearer and when i saw my dad come out carrying the casket i started screaming and crying, because i thought he was gonna get covered in blood. and he had to get someone else to take his place and come sit with me because i didnt want my daddy to get blood on him.

kk

I thought dead people were buried in laundry baskets. My mom's Daddy Ted died of cancer when I was four. My mother was trying to explain what we did with the dead. In her explanation of putting people in the ground she mentioned the casket, I thought she said basket. So for many years I thought her Daddy Ted was curled up in the ground in a laundry basket.

Alyssa

I thought that whatever your Zodiac sign was that it was the way you were going to die. Being a Scorpio and living in Arizona where there were plenty of scorpions I spent many a sleepless night afraid they were going to get me!

Anon

When I was quite young, I believed that one's coffin was really a spaceship to take them to heaven.

Sunshine

When I was very little my grandparents took to me along with them to the hospital to visit one of my greats or great-greats (something like that.) Children weren't allowed in the hospital so I stayed in the car with one grandparent while the other visited. My only recollection of this was that this relative couldn't talk. She later died, and for years I was convinced she died because she couldn't talk. I never told anyone this, I just took it be a "truth". Anyway, when I was around 18, I was visiting with my mom, grandmom and a friend and somehow this subject came up. As soon as I verbalized my belief out loud, I knew it couldn't be true. Needless to say, my friend and family had a big laugh.

Susan

I used to think that, when you died, you would go on top of the clouds and have a giant slumber party with all the other dead people (using clouds as pillows, etc.). So, the first time I went in an airplane, I was surprised to not see anyone on the tops of the clouds. Then, I thought, "Oh, they must have heard the plane coming, and decided to play hide-and-seek!"

Meghan

As my deceased aunt's coffin was being sent into the furnace at the crematorium, my cousin's four year-old son said loudly to his two year-old sister "you do know they all come back as zombies...". He was rapidly silenced by his mum.

Hannah

i use to believe that you died on your birthday, because they never say on the news that so and so died at age 64 3/4 they just say 64. So i was scared of my birthdays and just wanted the day over so that I knew I would live another year.

Patrick

My grandpa died when I was four so my mom told me that he was sleeping at his wake since it was an open coffin but I had feeling he wasn't sleeping because my grandma was in tears. However my brother believed our mom and whispered in my ear "let's steal his watch" at the time he was six, I told him I wasn't sure and he said "Then he'll wake up and chase us" which was true when he was alive. So we did and my brother ran around the funeral home with my grandpa's watch while my mom chased after him. My grandparents lived next to two cemetries so I wasn't frightened of them (only at night) but I used to believe that if you stepped on where they buried someone then they would get mad and grab your leg and drag you down with them, I'm seventeen now and know it is far from true but if I can I will go around where the coffin is buried.

Haley

I used to believe that every time you pointed, you created an invisible hole in the air, and that fairies would fall into these holes :-(

Anon

Both my mum and I used to believe that people couldn't live beyond 100: obviously you could die of old age before then, but 100 years was the automatic cut-off point.
I just believed that when you fell asleep after your 100th birthday, you'd automatically die.
Mum used to believe that the entire old lady, rocking-chair included, ascended to heaven in a column of light.

Slug

I used to let go all my balloons so my great grandma would get it in heaven

lissa

I used to worry about Russia dropping bombs on us. I begged my parents for a canopy bed because I thought that the canopy would catch a bomb (that I thought were like cannonballs) and keep it from falling on me during the night.

Michelle

when i was little, i was so scared of death, as most kids are, i was so scared to go to sleep because i was afraid that i would die. I always heard people say, "Ohh... they died in their sleep." To comfort me, my mom, told me that it was impossible to die in your sleep. I guess I wanted to believe it so bad, I did for years. It wasn't until I was an adult with children of my own that my great-aunt passed away and to comfort me my mom hugged me and said, "It's OK honey, she died peacefully in her sleep." I was horrified! I turned and said, "That impossible." Then she explained the truth. Thank you mom for trying to comfort me, I wish I still believed.

Jennifer Holland

I used to think you couldn't die if you didn't have shoes on. Coincidentally, so did one of my friends.

Casey

I thought that dead people were stuffed INSIDE their gravestone instead of buried in a coffin.

Sam Shiels