people

When I was little I thought when you died your tongue would hang out of your mouth like a dog's tongue. So when my brother and I played cowboys and Indians and we got "shot" we'd fall to the ground with our tongues hanging out, except our tongues were pointed upwards and not downwards. I guess we didn't know about gravity at that time!

Nikki

When I was little I misheard something about battery acid, and I thought that if you got some on your skin, you would explode.

I was about 7 and my bro and I were handling some cheap Chinese batteries and I got some acid on my hands. I started shaking and ran upstairs for dear life to the bathroom to wash it off before I exploded. I was expecting death at any second. Until my brother intervened to explain!

G.S.

When I was little, I had always believed that heaven was underground because dead people were buried. Then I learned about the underworld, which thoroughly confused me.

Anon

When my sister and I were little, from our bedroom upstairs at night, we could see the reflection of our living room window in the window of the house nextdoor. The curtains created two seperate curvy reflections of light that would flicker as our mom walked past the window. We thought these were actually the ghosts of the elderly couple that had recently passed away, having sex.

Anon

When I was really young I used to think that dead bodies wouldn't start rotting until they were buried.

Katherine

When I was a kid, I used to believe that if I jumped in the gymnasium, my reflection would fall to the ceiling (reflection) below me. I thought that if I jumped, and lost my reflection I would die!

Kristen

I was about 6 years old, when I watched a film where two children are wandering around in the woods. At t one point the boy says to the girl 'each step that we take is one less step of our lives'- that phrase had a long lasting impact on me-- for a long time after that I took pains to ensure that my strides were as large as possible when walking.

Kaneta

Before I knew about death, I used to think people turned back into babies again after they got old.

Anon

When my brother was little, our grandparents died in a car crash, and he was maybe 3. We all explained that they were up in heaven with God and the angels. He started to wave at airplanes after that, and we finally found out he thought our grandparents were riding on airplanes, that's wat happened when you died.

KM

I used to believe whenever someone dies they have to stick out their tongue so everyday i practiced to stick out my tongue for the day i die.

Omar

I remember as a kid when I would go visit family in MO and I would always hang out with my cousin. Well, the area had a lot of grave sites, and we got it into our heads that if we held our breath as we passed by the cemitaries the gohsts wouldn't fallow us and haunt us. Needless to say I don't believe it anymore, but I still find myself holding my breath.

Crazy kid

i used to believe that people live forever until my brother told me the truth. i got nightmares for a week.

Anon

My mother got off the phone with the news that a distant family member had passed away. And I asked my mother what happens to people when they die. She replied that they stop moving and an image appeared in my head of an old man falling off a chair and turning to stone... dead. So, for quite a while, I believed that when people died, they turned to stone.

Somy