The thing about fear is that it's often irrational and fear can often be summed up as the fear of the unknown. That pretty much sums up what it's like to be scared as a child, too.
What lurks in the dark corners of our bedrooms? (We don't know, but it's probably terrifying.)
What's that noise we keep hearing at night? (It's likely just the wind, but don't tell us that.)
Why did society decide that it needed Jerry Seinfeld? (This one is unanswerable.)
"What ridiculous thing scared you as a child?" –– This was today's burning question from Redditor awerli121 and it brings some much needed levity (and humor) to the notion of childish fear!
"I used to have..."
I used to have this repeating dream that scared me to death. I was always in a skyscraper made of windows, and a giant toddler would walk through the street. If the toddler saw you, you died. Weird dream, but I dreamt it repeatedly for years.
"I still think of that..."
GiphyEscalators. My mother told me that they will catch my shoestring or pants hem and pull me down and cut me into shreds. I still think of that every time I step on one.
"I lived in Mumbai."
I thought an alligator would climb up the wall of our house like a lizard and come through my window and eat me in my sleep.
I lived in Mumbai. We don't have alligators anywhere. Also, they can't do that.
"This one is weird..."
Rats, snakes, roaches, etc climbing up the pipe to the toilet and biting my butt.
My grandma's cocker spaniel jumping on me and knocking me over. He just wanted to lick me and was excited, it turns out.
Other people driving. This one is weird because I trusted absolutely nobody but my mom—if it was anyone else, ie her friends, babysitters, or even my dad, I was absolutely convinced I was going to die.
"Consequently..."
If I clapped my hands above my head, the nightmares would start. If I clapped them up there again, they would stop. (This didn't actually happen; it was what I was afraid of.)
Consequently, I had to make sure I only ever clapped my hands above my head an even number of times. If I accidentally clapped them, I had to clap them again.
"Haven't seen it since."
There's an episode of the Six Million Dollar Man where he fights this robot dude. At some point the robot gets his face punched off and the shot cuts back to his head all showing circuit boards and wires in place of the face. Freaked me the eff out. Haven't seen it since, and that was what.. 1974? Jesus.
"According to my mom..."
Balls. Literally any round object was terrifying to me apparently. According to my mom, if she wanted me in a room but didn't want me to go anywhere, she'd put a ~hand sized red ball in the exit. I was apparently too scared to even go to that side of the room.
"Return the slab..."
GiphyKing Ramses from courage the cowardly dog.
"Return the slab or suffer the curse~"
"On a trip to London..."
On a trip to London as a ten-year-old, I woke in the small hours of the morning due to jet lag and was horrified to see an orange glow outside the windows.
I convinced myself that a nuclear explosion had occurred and somehow I had managed to sleep through it.
Nothing happened for an eternity of terror.
So I mustered the courage; I slid out of bed and crawled across the floor, to peep over the window sill and look out on the devastation, the city burning
The street lights were orange, for fog. They don't have them where I'm from.