i'm different

My younger sister went through a very long phase of pretending she was a dog. She would wear a dog collar and wanted to be led around by a leash. My grandparents were terribly concerned about this but no one would tell me why as I knew she was just pretending. It finally dawned on me when I was old enough to understand masochism. Luckily my sister is now a veterinarian!

-ik

I live in the South of England, but when I was quite young I saw a sign for a bank, The Bank Of Scotland. For a long time I was convinced that I actually lived in Scotland, and the whole of the world was conspiring against me to make me think I lived in England, although I could never figure out why they would choose me, and why a big important bank would not bother to change their sign!

Gemma

Up until I was about 11 years old I believed that Queen Elizabeth was my real mother and that I had been adopted as a baby. No, I didn't just believe it - I was certain of it. When I saw my baby book I thought it was a lie. I have no idea where this came from.

dannie

When I was really little I used to think I was stronger than everyone except my dad and everyone should be greatful that I was such a nice guy and didn't want to hurt anyone.

Sam

when i was a kid i use to think i was the only human and everyone else around me was a robot for some reason i just had a gut feeling it was true

jeremy

In cartoons, the superhero characters always have a cool pose while flying or whatever. I used to believe when i went to sleep in these poses, i'd wake up wakeup a superhero.

Allison

i used to believe that when i looked at someone, if i breathed in while doing so i would inhale some of their personality or looks. I always made sure to exhale when I was looking at someone I didn't like or though to be ugly. And when I liked someone I would take in a huge breath.

Anon

When I was little I was terrified of fire. Fire drills. Candles. Fireplaces. You name it. I was terrified. To alleviate my fears my parents told me that the only way our house could catch on fire was if someone poured gasoline on our house and lit it. Well my little ears heard "vaseline," so for years I had nightmares of people smearing vaseline on our house and lighting it on fire.

Cami

I used to believe that we all lived in a yellow submarine

Jacob

When I was a kid my sister had convinced me that I was a alien, that grew up on mars. I had noodles for arms, and antennas. I believed that for a long time

Josh

I used to think that I was the only person to have a penis!

Anon

When I was 7 my older brother and sister told me my parents found me in a garbage can and adopted me because they felt bad. I asked my mom, and unfortuntely she agreed. It wasn't until I was about 11 that my mom told me it was just a joke.

Jessica

When I was little, I believe that whenever I wore a dress I was a girl, and whenever I wore pants I was a boy. So whenever I wore a dress at school, I would go in the girl's bathroom and when I wore pants I would go in the boy's bathroom. Everyone tried to tell me I was wrong, but I wouldn't believe them. Thankfully I don't do that any more, or I'd be best friends with the principal!

Girl who wears pants

When I was...oh, I don't know, maybe seven or eight, I looked in a mirror and saw that my back curved forward at the base, so my upper body was a bit farther forward than my lower body. I was convinced that I was turning into a centaur, and was very excited until I told my mother and she explained that I just didn't stand straight. I also thought that shoulderblades were actually wings starting to grow (I think I read this in a book and thought it made sense) and wondered if the reason they never became wings was because it was happening slowly, through evolution.

Kate

in third grade I had a friend/crush (you could even consider him a boyfriend, since we did have play dates :) and I heard a rumor that he liked another girl named Lauren. he was really smart so I figured that he and his friend spied on me and Lauren at night with an X-Ray Telescope that he invented, so he could figure out which of us he liked better, based on whether we slept with a stuffed animal, et cetera! The X-Ray Telescope could see through my roof and my covers, so I was really self conscious about, say, taking my pajamas off at night. Even when we weren't friends anymore, I still thought he was watching me, up until fifth grade when he moved away!

NotRlyAretia

Until I was 8 or 9, I thought the brain was a control center where a little person operated a computer, taking input from you and giving back information when asked. I always wondered if he got breaks.

Anon

I used to pretend I was a beautiful black stallion. I used to gallop and whinney, and run up on a hill and shake my head.

Sue

When I was about 6, my older brother and 2 older sisters told me they were special because they were from Venus and my parents took them in. I believed that for about a year, it took that long for my Mom to convince me they had lied. But for a year I was most upset because I wasn't from Venus too.

Lisa

When me and my three cousins and my sister were small, we made believe that we were actually half birds and half people, like a mix between faries and angels, about 15 cm high. We were stuck in human form temporarily, and after a few years (or when we became old), we would revert back to our original form. We had wings on our backs, and we would fly from tree to tree, across states and countries, learning more and eating food from peoples windows.

Since we had favorite colors, like mine was pink, and for the other cousins, red, green etc, we made believe that our feathers were those colors.

Similarly, we had a parallel belief that we were super-people who ruled over a galaxy of our own, and that although we could not get there for a while (being exiled or kept out by some evil force, we could still create worlds and stars in it by throwing paper pieces out of the balcony or window and saying a few special words. And that would have capes to wear in our favorite colors.

We'd have a hierarchy based on age. And our thrones would be proportionately large. We'd ride through our states and even planets on magical beasts (also depending on our age). The oldest would ride a tiger, the youngest a cat.

It got pretty real, and sometimes I still wish it were true.

Rylan

I used to believe that whenever I was home, ghosts and invisible people watched everything I did and critiqued me. John Candy and Bill Pullman's characters from Spaceballs, as well as Jonathan Brandis from Seaquest, and Tom Hanks' character from Splash were all invisible and for some reason interested in my life, so I always tried to be on my best behavior when I was alone so they'd like me.

Nikki