monsters

When I was young, my brother convinced me that if I didn't cover up my toes when I went to bed, the toe pirates would take them away from me. To this day, I cannot sleep with uncovered toes.

Zoe

Around age 5 or so, I used to be deathly afraid to walk to the bathroom at night, for fear of monsters. I lived in a large house, and most of my family, including my parents slept upstairs - while I had a bedroom on the 1st floor.

I thought that monsters came out at night, and would be prowling around the house, just waiting for some unsuspecting victim...

I would put on a scary monster mask and dark cape, left-over props from Halloween - thinking that if I looked like a monster too, they wouldn't attack me. I would just be another monster using the bathroom!

I remember being scared to death, peeing, hoping that my disguise was working... lol

MFish

When I was 4 or 5 I believed a big growling monster lived in my parents bedroom. Later on I found out that my Dad just always had explosive gas.

Jebulon

When I was five, my dad tried to convince me that not only did the boogie man live in the air vents in our ceiling, but that he had two servants named Frita [a Hispanic woman with a fruit bowl on her head, similar to the Chiquita banana woman] and Mr. Peebles [a very nondescript man wearing a trench coat and a bowler hat]. Frita, I guess, was sort of the boogie man's mistress and they both worked for him.

Aimee

I lived in Ireland when I was young and my older cousins used to visit from England. One of them told me that the lion statues on the gates to Buckingham Palace came to life during a full moon and ran around England eating people. Imagine my reaction when a few months later my Mum told me we were moving to England - I was so scared and begged her not to send me to my death!

Clare

When I got scared at night as a little kid I would pull the sheet over my head to hide from whatever it was that was frightening me. But one night it was so hot I consciously decided that to have protection from evil creatures I only needed to cover 10% of my body. I so completely convinced myself of this that to this day when I read a scary book or see a scary movie I cover myself up to the shins and have full peace of mind.

Derek

When I was a kid, if I was being mischevious or bad in some way, my mom would (rather theatrically) pick up the phone and pretend to call "The Woman". Now, "The Woman" was a bogeyman figure who worked for child services. By all accounts, she had curly teeth, greasy hair, and if called upon would take you away to live with her in a grotty house with itchy blankets and nothing to eat but moldy bread. I used to believe she was real. I remember being so traumatised i'd have nightmares about her, standing 100 feet tall somewhere in the distance, tearing roofs from houses searching for me. Frankly, I think its a wonder I'm not petrified of all women these days...

Cosmopanda

I used to think there was a monster that lived at the end of the hall during the night and was mortified to go anywhere near the hallway. I later found out that the noises I was hearing that caused me to believe that, was my dad snoring.

Amanda

Not so long ago I believed that when I drove my car along a long portion of highway that a mean gnome lived in the hillside. (this gnome is about 6 feet tall in my mind and wears a robe much like Father TIme or a wizard) Anyway, I traveled this road daily from my boyfriends house to my house at roughly the same time each day. I was sure that the gnome would see my car coming and watch me until I was out of his sight and then before the next day he would move to that location on the hillside. I believed that this would go on until he found where I lived and...well, I'm not sure what I thought he would do...he just creeped me out. So, I would change up the time a little bit, I would take a different route, etc. Well, then I got married (yes, I was that old and NOT in a mental institution.) and I felt that I fooled the gnome because I wouldn't be traveling in that direction any more and by then he was surely closer to my parents house and would not find me again. Many of my friends know this story and are waiting for the day that they will create little blockades by all my doors so that I am held hostage by little ceramic men holding gardening tools and smiling that creepy smile. I will forever hate gnomes!

JoAnn

my dad had a darkroom in the house in which we used to live, and i wasn't allowed inside. i convinced myself that was because dracula lived there - must've been the red light that leaked out when the door was ajar.

allison

A lot of people were scared of the monster under the bed. Myself, I was specifically scared of this monster I read about in a children's book called the Body, which for some reason sounded really plausible to me. The Body was a like a human being, but it had no bones. At night, it would slither along the floor, and if it saw your foot hanging out from under the blankets, it would grab and suck out all your bones through your toes - and you would become the next Body.

My solution was to make sure my blanket was always tucked under my feet when I slept so the Body couldn't get my foot. To this day, I have trouble falling asleep if I don't have a blanket tucked all around my feet.

Faith

i used to believe escalators would eat me.

Anon

In the nearest city to my hometown, there is an old radio tower. I always believed that it looked like a platform with red chairs, and since they were so high up in the sky, I thought they were chairs for giants.

Brittany

When I was younger, my older cousins told me that if you slept with your feet hanging off the bed the devil would pull your toes. I always slept as far up the bed as humanly possible or I would make sure my toes were covered.. I still do to this day and I am 22!

Steph

When I was about 7, my brother told me the Joker (from Batman) was going to get me. He said that if I shined a green light anywhere, the Joker would come out and "get me". I guess he meant "kill" instead of "get" me, but I still don't know. Anyways, one evening we had my dad's side of the family over for dinner, and my cousins, brother and I went into the basement and my brother got his colored flashlight, put it on green and started shining it everywhere with the lights off. I was so scared that I ran upstairs and refused to go in the basement for weeks on end.

Lili

The Halloween Hobgoblins are a race of small, green creatures who live under bridges and in the trunks of hollow trees, and they love Halloween. They like other holidays too, but Halloween is their all-time favorite. Every year they come out of hiding to Trick-Or-Treat and play harmless pranks on the humans of the world, who never realize they're goblins and not just kids in costumes.

But the Halloween Hobgoblins aren't just playful; when they're mad, they can get vicious. And they hate it when anyone dishonors Halloween. They're known to destroy Christmas decorations that get put out too early. And if you don't wear a costume on Halloween, then at midnight, they'll sneak into your bedroom and glue a scary mask to your face. You won't be able to take it off until the glue wears off.

Sure, their methods are a little extreme, but rest assured their intentions are good. They only seek to protect the day they love most.

Katrina

A friend of mine told his niece about "Sister". A girl who shows up in your bedroom at night. He told his niece that if she sees her to throw a blanket over her and run to her parent bedroom and tell them. Needless to say his sister and brother-in-law were awakened several times in the middle of the night.

Andrew

i thougt that mongols were green monsters that suck your eyes out.

danai

I used to believe that my Dad's snoring was a tiger in my parent's room. I was too afraid to get up and walk down the hall because I knew it would get me. I had some tough nights sitting on the edge of the bed having to pee but too afraid to go to the bathroom.

Joyce

My parents told me that if you sleep with your shoes at the end of the bed, with the toes pointing in opposite directions, the monsters who came into your room at night would get so confused by which direction to go that they'd turn right back around and leave again. I sill keep my shoes that way, actally. :)

Anon