When you're a kid, you're afraid of a lot of silly things. Revisiting Night of the Lepus got me thinking about making a list of various silly things I was terrified of as a child. I thought about making this one of my lists on my Listfauxgraphy page, but I knew this would get too long and I'd want to say too much. So enjoy this here as its own page and have a good laugh at all the things I was afraid of. I'll add on to this if I remember more. ✗Night of the Lepus: The entire mine investigation scene, but especially the part where the man gets attacked in the shed and the scientist's wife has to shoot at the rabbit with a shotgun. ✗Gremlins: My second biggest fear as a kid. These things terrified me. I was convinced for some reason that they would somehow appear one day and eat my feet off, especially in a car at night. When I was really little, we had a car that there was a lot of empty space underneath the back seats and I had this fear they would hide in there and if I put my feet down for even a little bit they would get me and eat my feet off. I have no idea why. This fear latest until I was like nearly ten I think, but I pretended I was no longer afraid of them by around age 7. I also had several books and toys from the movie and loved them. ✗Rocs, Thunderbirds, and Terror Birds: If it's a giant bird, real or folklore, I was probably terrified of it. I was terrified every random plane was a thunderbird, roc, Godzilla, or a T-rex. Terror birds made me afraid that even if I was hidden on the ground from the sky, something birdlike would get me anyway. I knew they were long extinct, but I remember seeing a movie as a kid where some kids go back in time and get chased by one or something and after that I became afraid one day I'd end up back in time or a terror bird would end up forward in time and we'd meet and I'd die. The thunderbird part was made worse as this was one of my dad's favorite things to tell stories about, then one day my mom sitting in for one of his story tellings and was like "oh like those birds at home" and proceeded to tell a story about a flock of giant black birds that would snatch calves from their farm and her adult family members would tell her to hide when they were coming. Then one day they shot one and wouldn't touch it because they were afraid touching it would curse them. Then by the 90s they were basically all gone from land developers from out of country shooting them all. Later, being nosy, I was eavesdropping and overheard my dad asking her about if she made that up or not and she's like what do you mean made up. Don't you have giant birds here too? Did you kill them all here already? And then he was also afraid. But my mom lies a lot, so that's pretty guaranteed to be totally made up. ✗Godzilla: I used to be afraid, even though I knew he was just a movie monster, that one day I'd look outside and Godzilla would be there and if he saw me, he'd eat me. Vengefully. For looking at him. I also loved Godzilla movies. I was most obsessed with Shisa and Mothra. I'd sing the Shisa song. A lot. ✗Rugaroo: I don't know how this fear started because I don't remember adults really talking about these, but I was afraid for a while as a kid that a rugaroo was going to snatch me out of our car if the car slowed down too much at night and I looked out the window. Because if it saw me, it'd get me and grab me. I refused to keep the windows rolled down at night in the car. Actually, I still don't really leave the windows down at night in a car. Haha, I really do still have this weird general fear something will grab at me through a window in a car, huh? ✗T-rex: If a plane wasn't a giant bird or Godzilla, clearly a plane was a T-rex that if I looked out the window, would eat me immediately. I would hide or duck down as a really little kid any time there was a loud plane flying over head. We lived relatively close to an airport then. LOL. ✗Goblins: Initially started by a combination of Labyrinth and Little Nemo, I was terrified goblins in the woods would get me. When we'd go out to visit my cousin in the boonies, we'd have to drive for nearly an hour in locations where you wouldn't see a house, store, gas station, or anything else but trees for at least 30 minutes at a time. I thought if I looked outside at the trees too long, I'd see a goblin crew and they'd see me, then steal me. Eventually, I mentioned this to my grandfather and he told me if I called for "good fairies of the forest" to come help me, they'd take me from the bad goblins and then I wasn't afraid of them anymore. That, however, got me worried about bad fairies being out there. ✗Little Nemo: Mostly the goblins, but really the whole movie in general. Everything about this movie terrified and fascinated me. That black goo from behind the door that got the king was so freaky to me. But yeah, the whole movie. Nothing about this movie didn't unsettle me. ✗Willow: Those demonic dog things the most, but the whole movie really. Even most of the "good" characters scared me. And definitely that stop motion two headed dragon. The baby and Willow himself were the only "safe" parts of the movie to me. Everything else, terrifying. My parents and grandparents watched this movie constantly. ✗Black dogs: I loved black dogs, but was also afraid that one day one of the black dogs I encountered around the neighborhood might be a spirit black dog or a hellhound. I have no idea why, but I was convinced one day a devil dog was gonna get me or the grim was gonna steal my soul. By extension, I was weary of any random dog, regardless of coat color, because it might secretly be the grim in disguise. ✗Random horses: Started from a story my dad claimed happened about a friendly horse he would regularly see in his suburban, near urban neighborhood and how it kept trying to convince him somehow to play with it. His grandmother/my great-grandmother told him one day that was a fairy horse that was trying to eat him by tricking him into riding it and then drowning him in a river or lake. I then became afraid of encountering a random horse anywhere as a kid. ✗Poltergeist: I was definitely going to get sucked into the TV if I got too close to it one day, somehow. I had nightmares about this for years. ✗Ghosts in general: They were definitely out there and out to get me. As a little kid, I was terrified to see orbs in polaroid photos. I saw a lot of orbs, mostly because I was terrible at taking photos and my camera sucked. I was especially afraid they would come into my room at night and get on my bed or get in bed with me. ✗Scorpions: They would surely be in my shoes. Actually, I really did find a couple of scorpions in my shoes as a kid. This only made things worse. I haven't seen a scorpion in years though. Where did they all go? ✗Banshee: I was afraid, deeply, of encountering one and hearing it and then dying immediately. I have no idea why. ✗Black widow: They could be anywhere. And they WILL kill me. I've encountered several in my life, and magically somehow did not die. Crazy. ✗Aliens: They could abduct me at any time, and take me who knows where and I'll never see earth again! ✗Floating off of the planet/flipping upside down permanently: If I stare too much at the sky and think about deep space, gravity will release its bonds on me and I will fly away into space and be lost forever. Yes, I really thought this. Similarly, I thought if you stared at the ceiling for too long and thought about how technically there's really no up and down because we're just floating in space and everything is kind of inverted when you think about it that I could somehow flip upside down permanently and would have to walk on the ceiling upside down for the rest of my life. I'd have nightmares about this for some reason. ✗Thinking about the concept of time too long will personally break your own time: Sometimes as a little kid I'd think about the concept of time and how some time had already passed since I last thought about time and how the me that was thinking about time then was essentially dead but the me that was thinking about time now was alive at the moment but would essentially be dead by the next time I was thinking about the concept of time passing, but all three of those versions of me would have been thinking that a future time would exist where a more future me that would in that moment be present me would be thinking back to times I thought about time passing and a future me looking back to time where other past me's thought about time. And that if I kept thinking about all of this for too long, all the past mes and future mes, and their deaths and soon to come into existence and the fleeting nature of life and that my sense of self itself was effectively always constant but never solid, perpetually changing and dying and being reborn all the time that one day I would break time personally for myself. I would just cease to be within time, banished to some other plane of existence where things were even stranger, but the me that was on earth would still exist, like I would separate from my physical self that would go on living until my natural death and I would be stuck somewhere else in some higher level of existence where dimensions I couldn't comprehend before would be easily accessible and far more frightening and strange than anything I could comprehend in my current mind. I don't know why I was thinking about that when I was like, four, but whatever. ✗Anacondas: I thought if I went near any river, there could be a 200ft anaconda snake just waiting in there to snatch me away. All I ever saw were water moccasins and watersnakes. And some gators and crocs sometimes, but they never bothered no one in those places. ✗Bloody Mary/Ghosts/Monsters in the Bathroom: If the lights went out, she would get me and cut me up. I'm still afraid of being in bathrooms in the dark, but for some vague "something bad will happen here" reason. I guess this goes up there with the something will snatch me out of the window in the car at night thing. I've been in bathrooms twice where the lights went out. And I ran out shortly after, LOL. If the lights were on, it of course wasn't Bloody Mary. My brain would decide it was a ghost, monster, or a home invader instead. Also coming to kill me. I still sometimes get uneasy in the bathroom alone and check behind the curtains that no one is there. I know no one is, but I check anyways. ✗Whales: My biggest childhood fear, period. They're too big for life. I still don't want to be anywhere near one. I was afraid they could teleport themselves somehow to water parks and drown children and would lurk in the waves at the beach, waiting for people to eat. Oddly enough, I loved sharks and was not afraid of them at all. Sharks were friends. Whales were too big, especially blue whales. I couldn't trust an animal that can get to a size bigger than the biggest known dinosaurs. This goes back to my fear of giant things as a kid, haha. ✗Bottom of the ocean: Who knows what could be down there! I was afraid of the deepest depths of the ocean as much as floating away into space. They were both too big, too vast, too empty. Anything could be lurking in there. I'd be afraid when I went to the beach, if not some whale out to get me, the ocean itself might drag me in and sink me down to the deepest part of the ocean. I was really afraid any time I stepped out into the water too far, suddenly and out of nowhere, all the sand would disappear beneath my feet and I'd slip down and keep falling, deeper and deeper until my body finally reached the deepest part of the ocean, never able to get back again, in total darkness. Didn't really stop me from playing in the ocean as a kid though. ✗Pool monsters at night: Something would get in any pool at night and drag you under and kill you. Something humanoid and coming to grab your feet. What's with all the feet attack stuff?! These monsters, of course, vanished at daybreak. ✗Monster following you when you're going upstairs: You know this one. I don't think any of us even know what this "thing" looks like, but you know, it's gonna start coming after you the minute you touch a step and then you have to run for your life all the way to the top. Then, once you reach the top, it is somehow unable to follow you farther. This seems to be a common one for a lot of people. I have no idea why. ✗The dead end down the hill: For some reason, I thought this one dead end near my house that was on a down hill road had so much evil shit happening on it. Like if you even so much as walked to the end of it, the gates of Hell would suck you in or something. There'd be demons, people would become possessed and monstrous, the sky would turn greener than a tornado sky can get, and the ground would crack open with red flames of evil. Oh, and the grim would show up and eat me, obviously.