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My childhood brush with the supernatural (er not)

Posted by ThriftShopRomantic • 8/08/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: childhood, confusion, fairy tales, fear, humor, monsters under the bed, nightmares

I posted today about being a kid and playing around with my best friend's Ouija board...

And how we asked it the one Great Question that had been on our minds for years...

(Hint: it involved, of all things, the Dukes of Hazzard...)

You can read that here if ya wish:

cabbages-n-kings.blogspot.com/2008/08/ouija-boards-roller-blinds-and.html

My discussion question to you all is this--

What thing did you firmly believe in as a kid, that you laugh at now?

What scared the bejeebers out of you...

Or what did you just totally misunderstand but believed to be true when you were a young'un?

I recall being confused most of the time, growing up, about just everything. Please tell me I'm not the only one.

User Comments

8/08/08

morgantj

As a kid I believed in ghosts, god, supernatural events, ect... all which today, I laugh at.

[reply]
1. 8/08/08
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  I recall being utterly convinced there was something under the bed.
  
  I wasn't specific about what it was. But I KNEW it was there.
8/08/08

Anniepooh

Ooooooooh the mighty (scary) Ouija! We still watch Ghost Hunters for fun every week.

[reply]
1. 8/08/08
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  I find that show pretty entertaining myself.
8/08/08

voodooKobra

comment removed by the community.

[reply]
1. 8/08/08
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  A fire alarm is good timing, but not much in the way of a grandiose statement, isn't it?
2. 8/08/08
  
  voodooKobra
  
  They were talking to "the spirit of a young boy," who was also the son of the previous "spirit" we were talking to. One of my friends was acting rude, so everyone thought she pissed the ghosts off.
  
  If a spirit exists and has the capability of harming people, it wouldn't waste its time on trying to scare us with the fire alarm.
  
  My friends have really weak minds.
3. 8/08/08
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  Well, I don't want to trash folks' beliefs with this thread. That wasn't really the purpose. I just know we all have some ideas as kids that are...
  
  um...
  
  creative. The thing we think lives in the closet, the stairs, the stories we get told by older siblings and believe...
4. 8/08/08
  
  voodooKobra
  
  It has nothing to do with trashing their beliefs. It has to do with not being scared of an unseen force. If they are ghosts, then they were once HUMAN. Humans are weak creatures.
5. 8/08/08
  
  Anniepooh
  
  @VK - wanna arm wrestle?
8/08/08

Anniepooh

I am honestly LOL here. Panda ... ah yes, we have words like that.

[reply]
1. 8/08/08
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  I recalled the event rather randomly one day and it got me laughing all over again.
  
  Yes, I'm sure you've seen some good examples of kid-thinking over the years.
8/08/08

kdawg68

My mother insisted when we were kids that she could tell when we were lying as a "blue cross" would appear on our foreheads. I think I was 6 or 7 when i figured out this was a hoax.

[reply]
1. 8/08/08
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  Heh, my mother used to tell me a similar thing, that she could tell by looking at me every time I was lying.
  
  It recall being fairly paranoid for a while, but all evidence seemed to suggest she was right.
8/08/08

clioandme

There was this shadow on the wall near my bed . . . . but my memories of it vague. I just remember running to my parents. It was probably the mid 1960s, when I was a wee one.

I don't remember any other beliefs that were false, unless you count Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy, but everyone knows they're real. The Great Pumpkin, on the other hand, existed only in poor old Linus' imagination.

[reply]
1. 8/08/08
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  Heh, you mean this was when you were just a red puppy, eh?
  
  I always felt for Linus. But you know, childhood has lots of disappointments like the Great Pumpkin.
  
  It's just most of them don't involve you sleeping in a pumpkin patch.
2. 8/08/08
  
  clioandme
  
  I wore out my paperback books of Charlie Brown comics. Read them over and over again.
3. 8/08/08
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  I was a big Snoopy fan myself.
4. 8/08/08
  
  clioandme
  
  Have you spotted the influence on me?
5. 8/08/08
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  Well, other than you always flying around on your doghouse pretending to be a World War II flying ace....
  
  no.
4/30/09

Mhaki

Been there!, done that! like howling dogs would mean that goblins are lurking behind our neighbors basketball court After five in the afternoon! Or is it just that my mom howling, TIME TO GO HOOOOOME!

[reply]
1. 4/30/09
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  Oh, as kids we know monsters lurked in all sorts of places. Even behind neighbors' basketball courts.
4/30/09

LGramlich

I thought that...
...if a car's gas tank got to "empty" the car would explode. (I was quite dilligent about telling whoever was driving when we were getting low.)
...if an elevator got "stuck," it meant the cable was in imminent danger of snapping (so you can imagine the "fun" I had at 5 yrs old at Disney World, when the elevator my bro & I were in got stuck, particularly when my bro started laughing & jumping up & down.)
...people were hollow inside & when you ate until you were "full," that meant you'd filled up your inside to the neck region.

I have no idea where any of these came from.

[reply]
1. 4/30/09
  
  ThriftShopRomantic
  
  I suspect I know the reason for at least your first one-- You're about my age, aren't you? If so, then it might be in reaction to shows at the time like CHiPS where EVERY chase scene led to a big car explosion.
  
  If you were leaking gas?
  
  That car would explode from 12 different camera angles. (Hey, why waste good footage? )
2. 4/30/09
  
  LGramlich
  
  TSR; Good guess, but no. I thought that as a small child, back when I was still watching Sesame Street & the Electric Company. By the time CHIPS & the like were on the air, I was long past the unreasonable belief.