Mannequins...
Daleks. My mum took me to a Dr Who exhibition in the Science Museum London in the early 1970s. Seeing them wasn't too scary but it convinced my brain that Daleks were real. There then followed nightmares where the Daleks followed me home from London by travelling along the train lines to our flat.
Also I was convinced that your eyes had a finite amount of looking before they wore out, same for breathing, so I used to close my eyes a lot and try to breathe slowly to preserve my finite allotment of seeing and breathing.
Odd child tbh
1970s TV had a lot to answer for tbh. See also The Changes where everyone goes mental, society breaks down, elements of modernity such as electricity generation are shunned, we revert to travelling nomads.... A bit like a future under the net zero cult.
Also see the Owl Service and Look & Read: Cloudburst
Quicksand, slurry pits, pylons.
Owls looking at me through the window.
Witches flying between the big trees at the back of the garden.
Oh and anything my mates older brother told me:
The creepy old man raising a gun into the air whilst we collected a football.
The UFO landing site in the field behind our house.
I remember wondering how I'd ever manage to navigate airports on my own.
Dreams & nightmares - yeah, just remembered I hated my dreams because they were always surreal and scary. Like the one about our house being attacked by a drill. I even made up a prayer to say at night to hope I wouldn't dream! 😆 My dreams still are very surreal and scary, but I quite enjoy them now.
Willow the Wisp. That creepy voice in the dark woods. How on earth was that even a TV programme?
That, and our attic obviously.
I remember wondering how I’d ever manage to navigate airports on my own.
I had a similar one about wondering how I would ever know how to drive anywhere in a car (and also worried about being able to drive in a straight line - it all looked so hard with the constant adjustments).
Sharks , saw Jaws way too young
Dogs. Just too many loud barking everywhere
Fun Fairs . I used to go with mum , never enjoyed it they alone as a teen to try to fit in and didn't really enjoy it then either.
The Incredible Hulk - a kid in my class (infants) had a t-shirt with it on and I hid under the desk til lunch then refused to go back to school. We had a video shop (yes VHS, for those of you who are old enough) so Mum drew a 'tache like my Dad's, on the Hulk on the cover to make him more friendly!
Oh and The Wheelers from Return to Oz
Vat da fack?!
Needing a poo in a foreign country and not being able to ask where the toilet was.
Being trapped in a cave with rising water*.
This nearly came true when I went potholing and there was a water chute where you had to lie on your belly and slide down into the pool below. All of the rest of the group slid down, splashed into the pool and popped up laughing. I slid down but my battery pack for the headtorch had slid round from the side to the back and I got jammed with my head just in the pool but unable to move forward or backwards because of the battery. It took 15 hours with one person holding my head up out of the water (actually about 2 minutes) for them to free me. I now suffer from claustrophobia which I didn't before.
Edges.
When I was five or six I almost fell down a large pit, probably part of a drainage system on a building site ( my parents’ friend took us to see his new school being built when he probably shouldn’t have). I stepped on a concrete paving stone which cracked and I ended up with one foot trapped and the rest of me in the hole. I remember it being bottomless but probably ten or fifteen feet deep.
Ever since I have hated edges-quay sides, cliffs, bridge parapets etc. etc. As a kid I would walk as far away from any edge as possible but if forced to stand near an edge I would feel strangely drawn to lean out and fall- scared the pants off me for years
Strangely enough I don’t have a fear of heights if I have started from the bottom, such as climbing ladders or masts of boats.
Mountain biking has greatly helped me come to terms with this, but I still am very uncomfortable on some rides with drops to one side
I get that 'edges' feeling of wanting to lean out until fall over them too
Baboon spiders. Boomslangs. Mambas. Drop toilets. Quicksand.
WorldClassAccident
Free Member
I get that ‘edges’ feeling of wanting to lean out until fall over them too
Of all people, you bloody would
Tigers, they were everywhere. Under the bed, inside cupboards, waiting for me going to the coal bunker - terrifying, even more so having seen them in the flesh at Kincraig. Still give me bloody nightmares at 68
My mother was a nurse and had a medical book with a picture of the back of someone's head that had a hole about 10cm diameter and you could see their brain
Hmm, quicksand - I reckon we must have all watched the same screening of 'Ice Cold in Alex.'
Also: stonefish.
And choking on peanuts.
Attempting to swallow apple skin though swallowing 2p coins didn't scare me until I realised what goes in must be excreted.
And tropical spiders, usually lurking in bunches of bananas waiting to get you.
The Incredible Shrinking Man has a lot to answer for.
Nuclear war
Quicksand
Aquatic predators coming through the pipes to attack me when I was on the loo
Noseybonk, obviously
And one my mum likes to remind me of periodically - being worried that the Man from Atlantis was going to drown.
