general

I used to belive that when your foot "falls asleep" it was salt running over your foot. When my mom told me my foot fell asleep i started shaking it to wake it up. When my brother was around i would say "shhhhhhhh my foot is sleeping".

Ali

When I was younger, I thought the veins on my wrists were from marker and that some random person came up to me and drew my veins on with purple and turquoise marker. I figured the reason the marker never came off when I bathed was the marker was permanent.

wobie

My mom would always ask me if dinner 'hit the spot' so I always imagined my stomach as a big ball, similar to the bottom of a thermometer, empty or full of red liquid. I knew what my stomach really was, and how it looked, I was just a weird kid.

Kristina

When I first heard someone make reference to the stereotypically feminine complaint of "oh, I can't do that, I'd break a nail", I imagined that the person saying that was concerned about the nail completely breaking off down the middle. Having at one point trimmed off my own nail a bit too close to the flesh, this sounded like an excruciatingly painful thing to happen and I couldn't understand why the complaint was treated with such derision.

Jim, UK

When I was small, because I knew that if you're dead, your heart doesn't beat, I would regularly check my heart beat to make sure I was still alive.

Cathal

When I was very small, I absolutely believed that my brain was run by a bunch of very small men who lived inside (probably Oompa-Loompa-inspired). Each little man was in charge of a different thing; some of them ran my arms and legs, and others aimed my eyes, and so on. My memory was actually a very large set of little drawers (I had been very impressed by the card catalog at the library), and one special little man knew where everything was. So when I wanted to remember something, he went and got it out of the drawer for me.

Abby

When I was elementary school age, I used to believe women had a horizontal, loaf-of-bread-shaped portrusion across their chests. Imagine my surprise. Obviously, I was bottle-fed as a baby.

Chris

I used to believe that broken limbs were contageous - like if I were to touch someone with a broken leg, my leg would break. I avoided people with casts on until I was about 7 or 8 and realized how silly that was. I've still never broken a bone, however...

Mel

When, in classroom, teachers told us the diference between right and left, I though their right/left was the opposite of us kids. They were standing in front of us, so their right would be our left, lol, and that confused me. It made sense, because I also had heard adults had more teeth, so I thought that when we became adults, our right and left switched magically.

Iñaki

I used to believe that if your arm got cut off it would heal/grow back.

Anon

I used to believe that young boys belly buttons would soon change into there willys...

Anon

I hardly ever used to clean my teeth as a young child (a habit I've not exactly grown out of) so when one of my milk teeth fell out, my Mum would tell me to put it under my pillow and the tooth fairy would come and exchange it for something.

Now, my Mum obviously knew I didn't clean my teeth very much, because every time I did this, instead of there being a nice shiny 50p underneath my pillow in the morning, there was usually a really old, rusty, old penny that could never have been used anywhere.

I'm surprised it didn't make me clean my teeth more!

GazChap

As a child, I asked my older sister about the little bumps (saliva glands) on the inside of my cheeks, about half way back.

She said that they were growths that had to be cut out, and grabbed some scissors to perform the operation.

I sincerely believed she would carry through with it, but wouldn't tell my parents because I thought they would make me go to the doctor.

Anon

I used to believe that if cutting your arm through or any other part of the body, the limps would be made out of different kind of saussages, like salami,etc. I then thought, hey would it not be practical, you never needed to be hungry, for you would have your food always next to you.

Caroline

I use to think that everyone in the world could pull their teeth out and then put them back but me, my grandma could, my great grandma could and so could my uncle. I tried and tried to get mine out too, but (thank God) neveer succeeded. I was so relieved when I finally learned about dentures.

Lisa M.

My father convinced me that there was an actual tooth that was your "sweet tooth". So, I grew up thinking that because he was literally missing a tooth, his "sweet tooth", he didn't like desserts.

Andrea

i used to believe that Body parts were controlled by aliens.and when we died they recycled us and Re-born us with new brains and new hearts , with a different face and body.

Haris

For some reason I didn't know what the word excitement meant, I thought there was a deflated balloon somewhere in the region of our diaphragm, and when we got excited it would inflate, but not knowing the word I always called it "the deflated balloon feeling"

Magz

When I was little, I was sure digits were called "thinger" and "fum". (As opposed to finger and thumb.) No matter what my mom said, I was sure I was right as fingers are THinner and thumbs are Fatter.

Shan

My mother used to call my behind "a paw paw" and for many years I refused to eat paw paws (papayas)

Garth