make-believe

I used to have an imaginary friend named Henry the Ghost. Whenever I heard a noise or something and was scared at night, I would sing
'Mud, mud, glorious mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the blood'
Henry would appear and would protect me and talk to me. what mud had to do with anything i'll never know!!!

I used to believe…

When I was a little girl, my older brother used to love to scare me..
He used to tell me that "The Preakness"
was going to get me..It wasn't until years later I found out that the preakness is a Horse Race!

I used to believe…

My imaginary friends were a family named Ampsnee. The mom was She Ampsnee and the father was He Ampsnee. They had two kids, Him and Her. I didn't hang with the kids too much, usually just the parents.They would help me dig between the floor boards with a bobby pin to find gold dust. But they would get sick and go to the hospital alot. When asked I would say they were gone for a long long long long long long long(you get the idea) time and sort of put myself into a trance by the chant. I would sit in the triangular sliver of space behind the front door when it was open and carve totem poles out of raw carrots with my teeth and eat the cardboard rolls that toilet paper comes on. I would chant a word over and over until I lost the meaning. I remember doing that with the word 'carrot' so that it was like 'carrot carrot car rotcar rotcar rotcar rotcar rot'. One day the Ampsnee's moved away, far far far far far farf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf ar away........

I used to believe…

up until I was about 8, I had an imaginary friend named Sprogget. (originally stemmed from a fairytale book I had as a child) He would go everywhere with me and ride in my pocket. I believed in him so much that it drove my family crazy. On one occasion, my father sat down to dinner,on poor Sprogget, and I started screaming and crying hysterically "YOU'RE KILLING HIM! YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" The same night my sister decided she had had enough. She got out the Fairytale book and called me to her room. Well, whenever she read his story, Sprogget had to get in the book to make the story work. When he got in the book, she slammed it shut and said he was trapped forever. I cried a whole lot as a child. Carrie (my sister) hid the book and I never saw Sprogget again. I really believed that he was trapped in the book

I used to believe…

When we were kids living in the realms of an isolation hospital on the Pilgrims Way on the North Downs of Kent (England) we were led to believe that there was a machine in a wood, known as ‘the glade’, that could or would cut your arm off.

We had bigger and friendlier woods nearby so we never ventured there very often anyway. The very mention of the name ‘the glade’ made me nervous, the fact it rhymes with blade probably contributed to my fear too. I would try and visualise this terrible machine and usually I imagined it was something like a giant mincer (the culinary variety) or other times as a mangle with blades rather than rollers. Generally it was a static device that just needed avoiding, but sometimes I thought it had the ability to chase you. The wood was carpeted with Bluebells in late spring and that was the only thing that would induce me to enter it. Even then we would run some way home before we felt safe. I lived in dread of this malicious thing and sometimes had nightmares about it. It never occurred to me that it was possibly some kind of farm implement, and not something with the sole purpose of mutilating people. To make matters worse, there was a permanent sign on the gate of the field below stating ‘Danger Unexploded Bomb.’ Why no one ever thought to dig up and disarm (no pun intended) it never crossed our minds. It too was probably a ruse by the farmer to keep people off his land.

Unfortunately, my parents are now dead and it is too late to ask what this thing actually was or whether it even existed.

I used to believe…

My parents thought it would be cute to make my brother and me think that there was an Easter PIG instead of an Easter Bunny (no kidding). We always new that the Easter Pig would come to our house (kind of like Santa Clause) and leave gifts in the night instead of the bunny. I caught a lot of grief from fellow students and teachers over this, but I stood my ground. We thought we were very special in that we were the ONLY house that the Easter Pig visited. To this day (I'm 33 and my brother is 35) my parents still call us to say that the Easter Pig came by and left us presents at their house! Too funny. (I'm sure my kids, when I have them, will grow up with the Easter Pig also)

I used to believe…

across the street from my house there was a church.when it got dark something in the church made a shadow on the window that looked like E.T.
I used to think Et was watching me

i used to believe in Wee WIlly Winkie who used to come round and see if I was in bed yet. I even heard him talking to my dad downstairs (it was my dad using two voices but it convinced me at 5). There was also the threat of Willy's brother Big Winkie (who i think had horns) if i continued not to go to bed.

I was CONVINCED that under my bed were those creepy aliens from Sesame Street, the Yip Yips. They would come thrugh the walls at night (they COULD go through walls, you know)and had a base set up under my bed whre they would spy on me and take notes about humans. Of course, having a parent check under the bed was useless because they could vanish.

Thank you for traumatizing my childhood, Mr. Henson! ;-)

I used to believe…

As a small boy, I had watched a childrens programme about dinosaurs, they had used a block of flats as reference to show their enormous size.
As a result I used to be scarred witless as we walked home past a nearby block of flats - expecting a tyranasaurous to jump out from behind and to eat me and my mum.

I used to believe…

When i was little my dad told me goblins lived in our house, i thought they had a control centre behind the couch so that they could see all round the house and when i went upstairs they would be playing with myn things and the control centre would warn them tht i was coming, one day me and my friend got wise and getting some toy guns we stormed the couch thinking we had got rid of the control centre we went upstairs in the dark checking every room and cupboard tht was scary to us and we thought we were really brave

I used to believe magic was real. Every time I had a birthday and would be ready to blow out the candles, or had a wishbone to break, I would wish for the same thing: "I wish I was magic." If I was magic, I could do anything, and have anything I wanted, so it seemed like the perfect wish. After about 10 years of waiting, I gave up and started wishing for more realistic things.
Thanks to the Harry Potter phenom, I worry that thousands of similar wishes will be wasted! (I don't really worry about it - just thought I'd share).

I used to believe…

Whilst on holiday, a little boy approached my father-in-law and offered him a sweet in the belief that he was father christmas (my father in law really is the spitting image of Santa). The boys' mother and my mother-in-law played up to this and explained that Santa needed a holiday as well after all his exertions at Christmas and that he had cut his beard because it was too hot. I just hope the little boy received what he wanted that Christmas after going to the trouble of bribing Santa!!

I used to believe…

There was a stained glass pattern in our front door that I thought looked like a man's face. I could also make out some spindly arms. I believed that, at night, he would step out of the door and come up to my room, suck me out of my skin and possess me. He also had minions, which were smaller, and could fly. I am twelve now, and I believed this until quite recently.

I used to believe…

When I was a kid I used to read horror books. Mom said that I shouldn't read those, so I did. One book scared the crap out of me. I believed that the monster would come and get me. I shared a room with my sister. I rearranged the beds so that if the monster came in it would see her first and I had time to get away.

I used to believe…

My parents told me and my sister that in the month before Christmas fairies were sent to live in the house to make sure we were being good, ensuring our good behaviour for a whole month. It was a different fairy each year, like fairy snowflake, fairy holly etc. We put out Ribena and biscuit crumbs in our dolls house tea set and the fairy in residence would always eat it! My parents were finally rumbled when the fire fairy was in residence. My mum said she had long red hair as one might expect but upon independantly interviewing my Dad he said she had short red hair (which lets face it would be more practical if you're dealing with fire all day). My sister and I smelt a rat and I'm afraid after that it was curtains for Father Christmas as well.