monsters

In the 80s there was a game on the Commodore 64 called 'Shamus' - if you stayed in a room too long a character called 'The Shadow' would appear from nowhere and rush at you; if he touched you he'd kill you. For many years I would apply this theory to certain rooms and would hurry to get out of them as quick as I could... mostly those rooms where I was alone such as the bathroom or the stairs.

Of course I don't believe it anymore, but I believed it for long enough to develop habit that I still have now I'm 27; I nearly always run up stairs...

Jen

When I was very young I was watching a "Friday the 13th" movie on tv with my Dad. (It is the series of movies with Jason, in case you don't know.) There was a scene with a little girl saying her prayers at her bed with Jason hiding underneath watching her. My Dad said to me "see, if you're good Jason doesn't kill you." Scared me for years. Thanks a lot Dad.

Kim

When I was little we would watch Chiller Theater while my parents played cards with my aunt & uncle until the wee hours of the morning on Friday nights. One movie that really frightened me was "The Tingler". My older brother had me convinced that he could become "The Tingler" at will and would anytime I didn't do what ever he wanted.He would roll his eyes back in his head, stick his bottom teeth over his upper lip and groan"Ughhh, tingler,tingler". I did alot of his chores and I was in my early 20's before I would enter a room before turning on the light first. Thanks alot Steve for the emotional scars.

Ross

When i was little i saw a show about a farm. At night the scarecrow, very well lit in front of the garage, would come to life and kill one guest at the farm. Well, my neighbor across the street has a very well-lit garage, and I used to close my eyes when i walked to the curtain to close it for fear that the scarecrow would kill me even though I wasn't a guest anywhere, and i was nowhere near a farm. I once bruised my arm on my dressor when i walked to the curtain.

Tater salad

when i was little i thought monsters lived in my closet. And the only way to stop them from coming out while i slept was to line up my stuffed animals across the front of the door. I would check in the morning to see if they had been moved during the night.

jenny

I used to believe that my shoes had monsters in, and always used to check them before i put them on.

it wasnt until my grandad told me it would be stupid for monsters to live in peoples shoes, when they could live in a wardrobe or under the bed and have much more room.

now i think theres a something lurking under my bed and i dont like to dangle my feet over the edge just in case ...

Oh-Bee

I used to believe that the "booger man" would come bite off your fingers if you picked your nose. (my grandpa told us that) he lost his fingers in a work related injury and told us that is how he lost his fingers!

Anon

There is an amusment park near my hometown and around Halloween they have a haunted graveyard and you go at night and you go through the graveyard and it supposed to bge scary. When I was about four, I felt I was brave enough to go. My parent wouldn't let me, so my dad told that if I went, a monster hand would come out of the ground and pull me under and I would never come out.

I believed him for years. I was terrified.

Emmy

i think i was around 3 years old and still sleeping in my crib when i threw up in my sleep one night. when i woke up, i thought my vomit was actually a lava monster trying to eat me. so i screamed and cowered to the edge of the crib and watched in terror as the vomit seeped onto my favorite pillow. finally my dad came in and rescued me, but i never abandoned the belief that there was a lava monster living in our house.

Anon

I used to believe that if I didn't go to sleep by midnight a werewolf would come in my room and eat me and use my bones for toothpicks.

Dalton Anderson

When I was 3 or 4, my mother told me about Santa Claus and how he came down the chimney. But I always imagined a monster, known only as "Fireplace Man" coming down the chimney. He had the ability to be invisible, shape shift, and walk on ceilings. He looked like a gray troll and had a ragged brown shirt. I had a number of nightmares about him. Thankfully, though, in one of the nightmares, my sister helped me push a boulder onto his head. I don't believe this anymore (duh) but I still have the occasional nightmare about him...

Fireplace Man's Arch-enemy

When I was younger we used to have these super loud flushing toilets and I would always believe that if I flushed them at night it would tell all the monsters in my house where I was and that if I didn't run to my room and hide under my blankets that they would see me and drag me off to their world and eat me.

Amanda

I used to believe that Sante Clause lived in the bushes beside my house, waiting for me to come close enough so he could swallow me whole. I'd have a panic attack everytime my mother would try to walk me to school.

Nicole

I had a dragon named Sherlock who used to visit me every night before I went to sleep. He had the biggest yellow/green eyes that were the size of my bedroom window and he would chat to me and protect me. When my parents were trying to kill each other he would let me on his back and we'd fly to the moon. I miss him

flashbacks

I would turn the lights off and then leg it up the stairs thinking a monster would be chasing me.

Anon

My Grandad would say to us when we went to visit,"If you're not good, or if you do anything bad, then I'll get Charlie Gobilty Goup from the cupboard and he'll eat you all up". Sometimes he even used to reach in to the cupboard and bring something out and cover it up with his hands. He would speak to it as if it was his best friend, and up untill I was about 10 years old, I really thought there was something in there. Guess what, when we went to visit our grandparents, we were as good as gold, and even now I have a thing about cupboards!!!

good as gold

i used to believe that there were monsters and flesh eating ghosts hidden all around my room. i thought the only way to protect myself from these creatures was to 1. have the door closed, 2. have the fan on, 3. have the shades of my window down, 4. id have to be under the covers.

These factors combined created this invisible shield over my body. if one factor was missing, my shield would be weaker and id be vulnerable to the monster slaying

aquinn

I live in Norway. On a mountain that we could see from my granmothers window, there were two satelite dishes. My father told me that they stood there because the trolls who lived on that mountain had just eaten dinner, and now their dishes were clean, and set out to dry. I asked my father why they were always there, evenin the morning..? he replied that "the trolls eat a lot".
Of course, I did belive him..

-Hilde

I used to be afraid to go up into the attic at night. We lived in this really old house and the steps had a board missing from it. I was convinced that a hand would reach out and grab me. This may have materialized from my mischievous older brother.

Anon

When I was young (6? 7, maybe?), my friends and I were convinced that spirits (good and bad) could become trapped within the grain of wood in furniture and paneling. I truly believed that an evil spirit named Willy resided in the dimly lit back corner of the wood-paneled dining room in my house. I would have nightmares about Willy coming out of the woodwork (literally), grabbing me in my bed, and then trying to drag me into the dining room and into the wall with him. The dining room was safe in the daytime (thanks to the two large windows that brightened it up significantly) or even at night as long as an adult was there, but I was probably 12 before I could bring myself to go into the dining room by myself after dark, even if the overhead light was on in the room.

Beamrider