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Childish Terrors

One morning when I was little I stayed in bed until my mom came to see if I was allright because there was a pile of clothes on my chair and I thought it was a person and was afraid to move. :roll:
 
I had some quite large fears when I was small.
But, unlike most everyone else, I adored my bathroom. It was nice, and had a pleasant feeling to it. Once, we changed the carpet and I thought it was so nice I actually fell asleep there, lying on the bathroom carpet, in the dark.

But now back to fears.
My grandmother caused one of my largest childhood fears - one that carries over to the present. The fear of fans on high. When I was about 4 or 5, it was my duty in the summer to go upstairs and turn on our window fan. It was before we had air conditioning, so it made the room comfortable. The fan itself was something from the 1940s or 50s - an absolute monster with a thin wire grate and razor-like blades. My grandmother would always tell me to make sure I put the fan on the "low" setting. Why? Probably because it was old, or used more electricity. But she told me "Because if it`s on high, the blades will spin faster and faster, until they fly off and kill you."
The beginning of a phobia. Every time I would turn the fan on, I would turn the switch as quickly as I could to "low" and then run from the room as quickly as I could. The fan took a bit of time to warm up, and it would sound as if it was getting faster and faster. I could just see the blades flying out and stabbing me.

I STILL can not stand to hear a fan speeding up, and I have to turn any fan that sounds too fast down or off.

I was also terrified of the bubbles in my bubble bath. I knew that you could die from putting your head in a plastic bag, and all the little bubbles looked like clear bags. They were safe as long as they were smaller than my head, but I think I nearly died the day my mother made a BIG bubble from the bubble solution. I wouldn`t go near the bath for days.

I was also terrified that anytime I closed my eyes to let the shower hit my face the water would turn into blood. But I wouldn`t know it because my eyes were closed, and it would cover me and go into my mouth and nose, killing me.

However, something I didn`t find scary - I was totally sure that there were dead people housed in our walls. I had seen some sort of documentary about how people were killed, and their corpses enclosed in walls at some point in history, and believed it was something that was still done in modern times! I used to walk around my house, assuming that any thicker parts of the walls were where they were! (In reality, it was pipe space.)
I thought it was a completely normal thing, and wasn`t at all frightened. I wondered how many there were, and tried to count.
 
I was also terrified of the bubbles in my bubble bath. I knew that you could die from putting your head in a plastic bag, and all the little bubbles looked like clear bags.
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I used to eat the bubbles. :D
 
Tamyu said:
I was also terrified that anytime I closed my eyes to let the shower hit my face the water would turn into blood.
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I had exactly the same fear! I wonder if it was a common theme in horror movies, or if there was one film in particular which featured shower water turning to blood that we both saw.
 
Maybe something to do with the book/movie "It" where the water in the sink turns to blood?
 
No, I`m fairly certain it was a movie!
I can just vaguely remember seeing a woman showering, when the water turns to blood. I`m pretty certain she turns it off, then back on, and it`s water again which washes the blood down the drain.
I don`t think the movie scared me all that much, but that image stuck with me so strongly that even NOW I sometimes get the urge to check!

It *is* possible that it came from a book though - my mother had a vast library of horror novels, and I was reading through them before I was even in school! That`s probably a big reason I`m a Fortean now, come to think about it.
 
Tamyu said:
No, I`m fairly certain it was a movie!
I can just vaguely remember seeing a woman showering, when the water turns to blood. I`m pretty certain she turns it off, then back on, and it`s water again which washes the blood down the drain.
I don`t think the movie scared me all that much, but that image stuck with me so strongly that even NOW I sometimes get the urge to check!

It *is* possible that it came from a book though - my mother had a vast library of horror novels, and I was reading through them before I was even in school! That`s probably a big reason I`m a Fortean now, come to think about it.
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This happens in two films I'm aware of. In the 1993 Drew Barrymore horror Doppelganger (which makes no sense anyway) she is showering and the water turns to blood.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106753/

Earlier, in the 1979 Australian vampire movie Thirst, the heroine gets covered in a blood shower in much the same way.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080016/
 
Creepy,

I hated the toilet flushing in my old house, i would be down the bloody stairs or in bed as ASAP. I used to feel something pressing down on my back as i left the toilet, but since moving its stopped.

As mentioned here, i also used to make sure everything was closed, i had an old walk in space in my room which used to hold the hot water heater, i hated it being open and used to close it each night and place my old drawing tray infront of the door (most scary thing was one morning, the door was ajar slighty, mother said she never came into my room that night :shock: )


Had an invisable pal myself (saying that nearly everybody does when their kids) my mother said she was sure i could really see him, as i would describe what he was doing, what he was wearing etc etc, oddly i cant remember anything about it myself. Although i do hear the odd voices as im going to sleep, which i know i have heard before but im not sure where.

But the most oddest thing that i had a fear of, was a medium sized figure of Mary holding the a baby. It was in my mothers room, where we had the computer, and every time i walked in their i felt like it was watching me, in the end i refused to go in, the figure in question is smashed to little bits now (happened in the move)



The house we lived in was my Grans old house before she passed away, and i was sure it was haunted.
 
i was terrified of some kind of octopus or something come into the bath or the toilet when i was really little, a tiny grey octopus. not good. no idea where that one came from. then i was terrified of a ecuadorian carving of 3 ecaudorian tribal types, it was kind of 3d, and i would have to run past it all the time. and then when i was a little older, maybe 7 or so, i was given a big book of mysterious facts, only things i remember about it were a yellow cover, with a picture of a blue werewolf's head on the front cover. but the story of kaspar hauser was inside, which scared the hell out of me for some reason, i still get a feeling of fear to a degree reading about it today. and dopplegangers were a story in that book, and i was then terrified of meeting my doppleganger. yeras later when i thought i did, i had no fear at all at the time. then i'm sure i had read somewhere that you could only see some ghosts in m irrors, and growing up in an old victorian house, with old victorian mirrors everywhere, that scared the hell out of me as well. still don't like mirrors facing doorways to this day. just in case. (the house i grew up in actually had to have an exorcism performed on it at one point, because everyone in the house was convoinced it was haunted)

no hell in me, was all scared out as a child.
 
Things I was afraid of when I was a kid:

"the weasel" - not a weasel as in a small animal, but the weasel. Not sure what it was, but it was outside at night time and I was terrified of it. Had a dream about it once as a kid and it appeared as a multi-coloured tornado type thing.

electric blankets - saw a programme where a woman was murdered in her bed, and the electric blanket was on. She turned black from decay pretty quickly due to the blanket. Absolutely CANNOT sleep with an electric blanket on, even now.

erm, there was another one, but I have forgotten it...
 
Back in 1982 I was staying with my uncle in Australia . He had just came back from holiday in Fiji , where he bought two grizzly wooden tribal masks . They were horrifying to look at , and he very kindly mounted them on the wall in my bedroom . Just outside in the street was a light which would shine through my window and would cause the eyes to glow. The first time I saw that happen I screamed the house down . This went on for about a week , then my uncle took the masks down and hid them somewhere . A few days passed , then one morning I was looking for my trainers , and looked under the bed only to see the two masks carfeully propped up under the bed and scowling at me in a truly evil manner . I'm sure he took pleasure in terrifying little children.

As a kid , my parents used to frighten me into going to sleep by saying that the humpty-backed leprechaun would come into my room , and if he found me awake , he would stick me in a sack and take me away to his home and do all sorts of evil things to me . Is it just me , or were adults really sadistic back then ?
 
I think parents use fear tactics with kids because they work. It's cruel and unfair, but it works. Our collective neuroses attest to this!

And I remembered the other thing I was afraid of - Yoda.
 
I always had a fear of walking down the stairs in my childhood home. I was convinced that somebody was going to shoot me in the back with a bow and arrow! I used to fly down the stairs and I even worked out how to get down by swinging on the bannister and only touching two of them. To this day I still feel uneasy walking down the stairs, leaving my back exposed to ghostly archers.
 
gerardwilkie said:
As a kid , my parents used to frighten me into going to sleep by saying that the humpty-backed leprechaun would come into my room , and if he found me awake , he would stick me in a sack and take me away to his home and do all sorts of evil things to me . Is it just me , or were adults really sadistic back then ?
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when i was a kiddie my granddad would take us kids for a walk on the village heath where there is a fairly shallow river. he used to tell us that if we got too near the river then Jenny Greenteeth would jump out and grab us and drag under the water never to be see again. this shat me right up, but it worked.
problem is know, altho im a Terry Pratchett fan i cant read Hat Full of Sky which features Jenny Greenteeth, it still freaks me out. did it's job tho!
 
problem is know, altho im a Terry Pratchett fan i cant read Hat Full of Sky which features Jenny Greenteeth, it still freaks me out. did it's job tho!
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In the prequel to Hat Full of Sky (The Wee Free Men) the main character lays the smackdown to a Jenny Green Teeth. Maybe reading it will help you overcome your childhood fear xD
 
If you like these kind of stories, you might want to take a boo at www.iusedtobelieve.com (My apologies if this has been mentioned already, but I didn't feel like reading all 134 of the previous postings ;))

And as for me... It would have to be the monster that lived in the basement, that couldn't come out as long as the lights were on. The thing was, as you were flipping off the lights as you were leaving the basement, the monster could conceivably rush through the darkness and grab you on your way up the stairs... Thus it was that I made a lot of desparate, scrambling trips up that staircase!
 
Uptil about 3 I believed that something like a vampire was under my bed and would stab me through the heart unless I was lying on my front (ah childish logic) - further, one also needed to be under the invulnerable douvet as well...where this specific knifing thru the heart scenario came from I can't tells ya :?
 
Awesome website, zothecula

I used to believe that if my mom used a household cleaner other than Mr. Clean, that Mr. Clean would come and kill us all.
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(best of Media)
LOL!
 
crouton said:
I used to be afraid of finding a severed head in the toilet. It would be still alive and try to bite me. Not something that scared me every time I needed to go, but still.... I hate to think what a Freudian would say about that......
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When I was a little kid, I saw an Egyptian mummy in a museum. I was simultaneously creeped-out and fascinated by its dessicated, unwrapped head. For a while afterwards, I don't remember if I thought this might actually happen or not, but I pictured that head floating up and bobbing against my butt while I was taking a dump.
 
When my brother and I were young kids in the late 70s we watched a show called Project UFO. One episode featured these horse headed aliens. For some reason we became completely freaked and convinced ourselves that they lived under our house. We couldn't go outside after dark and you certainly couldn't step on the 3rd step down because they could see you through the ventilation grill and would grab you when you got to the bottom of the steps! I found the picture earlier in the year and emailed it to my 33 year old brother and he still freaked when he saw it.

ciao,
Dougal
01ep4025.jpg
 
I am 27 and I still check under my bed! I used to put all the lights on just to use the toilet because of a story my aunt told me about my young cousin. Apparently my young cousin used to wet the bed because every time she went to the bathroom a goblin would sit on the toilet and hold the seat down.
I also used to put a chair up against the closet door because if I didn't it would open on its own, thus causing me to have sleep paralysis, in which case I was constantly choked by a cackling creature with long hair that got into my mouth.
And finally, my mother had an old african doll that she kept on the living room couch and everytime my sister, brother or I went to the bathroom, the damn doll was always in a different spot, so oneday we collaborated in an effort to hide the doll for all eternity so that my mother would never put it out again.
We hid it in the basement and of course, three days later, it was back.
All I have to say is CHILDHOOD FEARS keep us alive and in most cases, they aren't a case of overactive imaginations...sometimes kids see things NOONE else can.

WW
 
Funny thing happened to me today, was watching an advert for Living TV which said they would be showing the whole of Dr Who (the new version) turned to my mother who was in the room with me at the time and said "i would not mind watching that," she did not reply.

Well they flashed up some random shots of the Doctor and Billie Piper and the TARDIS then they flashed up an image of a Dalek, he was saying his famous words of EXTERMINATE!, over and over, my mother lept up from the seat she was sitting in and ran from the room.

I found her in her bedroom looking white as a sheet, i asked her what was wrong and she told me she was terrifired for the Daleks, not just there voice but everything about them.

She is 50 years old, but is still terrified of something she saw as a child to say the least i was shocked
 
Read this report in today's Daily Record :

PUPILS DIE IN GHOST PANIC

Seven children were killed in a stampede on a primary school stairs sparked by a pupil's shout of "ghost !"

Thirty-seven others were hurt , five of them seriously , as the pupils left their school by a darkened stairwell .

The cause of the tragedy in Tongjiang , southwest China , was still being investigated last night.

But locals claim the kids had panicked when one of them claimed to have seen a ghost.

The frightened childern started running , causing a deadly crush on the stairwell .
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I know it is a tragic waste of life , but still , you've got to laugh .
 
More than forty decades ago, when I was a pre-schooler I had a dream that my mother was made of snot! There were other creatures involved and a complex scenario much of which I've forgotten but the bottom line was that I learned she was made of a crusty mucus.
As an adult neither the absurdity nor comic value is lost on me but I awoke chest heaving, heart pounding and covered in sweat, which I still recall vividly and a knowledge that I'd discovered what true evil was. I don't think I've ever been as frightened since.
 
When I was about 7 or so my older sister told me that if I had to go to the loo in the night there would be a man with blood on his face waiting there for me, if I made it as far as the loo then there would be ghosts and witches waiting for me on the landing..still cannot walk to the loo in the night without this thought crossing my mind and I'm nearly 31... :shock:
 
I can remember being petrified by the tv show Sapphire & Steel, God knows why :shock: :lol: :lol:
 
When i was - i'm not sure how old but under ten - I Saw a TV programme talking about the headless horsemen. This terrified me for months - laying in the dark trying to sleep. Somehow, this figure seemed to morph over time into a manifestation of my early fears of eventual anihiliation and death. I somehow thought that my parents wouldn't be sympathetic to my fears about the latter so i'd always decribe them in terms of the former when seeking their comfort and sympathy late at night.
 
When I was 4 or 5 my father told me that the police would come and get me if I misbehaved. They would take me away , put me somewhere where there were "bad people" and force me to work until I had paid off the bad thing I had done. The sirens terrified me and I would run home and hide behind the couch (they couldn't get me there!) until the sirens were gone. If they actually came down our street, I was just histerical! If they went by , I thought they had gotten some other little girl, and could breathe again until the next siren. To this day, I am scared of the police amd I'm nearly 50.

Oddly enough, my parents didn't find my diving behind the couch at all unusual.
 
GhostWriter1 said:
I can remember being petrified by the tv show Sapphire & Steel, God knows why :shock: :lol: :lol:
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I still remember a scene from S&S where there's a guy with his head in his hands, who then looks up and at the camera. His face, from forehead to chin, is just mincemeat, no features at all. Shat me up for years.

Another scene that gave me nightmares had a guy with completely black eyes. Way before any mention of BECs...
 
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