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30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community

People are weird. But really. We tend to get some bizarre and random ideas in our heads, believing they are legit. The more imaginative we are, the stranger our thoughts are. And it starts with childhood. Kids are masters at coming up with something out of this world. Literally.

Thinking about that, I asked our pandas to share the scariest thing they believed when they were younger and received a lot of funny answers! What are your memories from your early years on this planet?

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#1

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community When I was younger I thought the rhythmical thumping under the bedroom floor was the ghost of a long-dead slave beating a drum. I later found a dirty, broken chain in the yard and freaked out, convinced that it had belonged to the aforementioned dead slave. My mother had to sit me down and tell me that the thumping was actually the heating pipes, and that the chain had come from an attempt to secure our trampoline to the ground during a wind storm. I had a very active imagination as a child.

Final score:

133points

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#2

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community When I was a child, I was convinced that there were skeletons under my bed and was terrified that they'd come out at night and get me. I guess I must have seen something scary on TV involving skeletons or something. One night, I got so sick and tired of being scared of them that I decided to change the narrative. They didn't want to kill me at all. In fact, they were madly in love, and they just happened to live under my bed. They were so madly in love that they only had eyes for each other. To this day, they regularly go on cute dates, and they actually just got back from their 30th Honeymoon. I now have a deep fondness for skeletons. :)

Final score:

122points

Kitsune Nocturne

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#3

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community When I was a first-grader I was told that there was a secret bunker near my school where they did all kinds of stuff to people. I obviously thought it was true and was afraid to walk alone around that area.

Final score:

82points

Gabrielė Malukaitė

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#4

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community Also, I had a fear that mirrors might steal my soul. It was very unnerving to look at them at night.

Final score:

80points

Titas Burinskas

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#5

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I was misdiagnosed as bipolar and prescribed medication to treat it. The meds made me incredibly paranoid, to the point that I thought the people in magazines and movies were watching me.

Final score:

77points

Terilee Bruyere

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#6

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community When I was 8 (until I was 12ish), whenever there was lightning without rain at night or the local radio station would go offline unexpectedly, I assumed it was a nuclear blast or EMP and that I only had 1 to 2 minutes to live before the blast wave would hit. This was in the early 70s.

Final score:

68points

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#7

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I'm 64 and in 7th grade we read 1984 in our English class and I was petrified for 1984 to come.

Final score:

66points

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#8

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I was terrified I was going to fall into quicksand.

Final score:

66points

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#9

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community When I was a little kid, I somehow got this idea that the toilet was a monster. I was scared it would eat me, so I always went pee super fast and was scared to poo because it took too long... To combat this fear I started randomly flushing toilet paper throughout the day thinking if I "fed" it enough TP snacks then I would be safe because it wouldn't eat me if it wasn't hungry!!

Final score:

64points

Catherine Patterson

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#10

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I was scared that a watermelon tree would grow on top of my head because I swallowed watermelon seeds while eating it.

Final score:

59points

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#11

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I was paranoid that if not in bed, a monster would get me in the dark, unless there was a light on.

Final score:

56points

Percy the Band Rat

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#12

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I'm terrified of demon possession. I'm 51 years old and I should know better!

Final score:

55points

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#13

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community When I was young I had an abnormal fear of being abducted by aliens in the middle of the night. Also, after learning from a fireman in school that most house fires happen between 2-4 am, I became deathly afraid and paranoid that my house would catch on fire in the middle of the night while i was asleep.

Final score:

54points

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#14

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I had a crippling fear of the upstairs of my house as a child. It started slowly, I was normally a very brave child, but I had read a Goosebumps book about a dummy that just got to me for some reasons. I became afraid of attics first. I would avoid going into the bathroom where the attic was at night by myself. Slowly I became more and more terrified. Eventually I would refuse to go upstairs alone at all. For three years every time I went to my father's house I would sleep on the couch. I showered only in the mornings since the only shower was upstairs. Sometimes I would sleep in the clothes I'd worn all day because I was to scared to go upstairs and change. So yeah, I guess the scariest thing would be that I thought a murderous dummy and a couple ghost lived in my attic and upstairs of my house.

Final score:

50points

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#15

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I had a phase where I believed I had snakes under my bed.

Final score:

49points

Titas Burinskas

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#16

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community i used to think that i would get sucked up by a black hole

Final score:

49points

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#17

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community That hell was a real thing.

Final score:

49points

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#18

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community When I was about 3 my aunt tells me the story of how I had this belief that the vacuum cleaner was alive. (Probably because it made such a loud noise) One day I tripped over the vacuum and apologized profusely to it “Sorry Vacuum!” Still one of my family's favourite stories.

Final score:

44points

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#19

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I was told that if I were bad, a monkey would climb down from our back yard tree and attack me. Scared the heck out of me.

Final score:

44points

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#20

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community When I was like 5 I watched the Thriller music video and for a good 4 years I would have to sleep with my legs tucked towards me in fear that all the creepy things I believed in would put a wart on my foot and turn me into one of them. I'm 12 right now and to this day I'm scared of so many things, I think I'll be scared for life. So a great tip is to never watch creepy movies and absolutely stay off TikTok and YouTube, that stuff is messed up.

Final score:

44points

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#21

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I believed that if you are stuck in a lift, you would either die or get trapped in there forever. I heard the lift beeping and I thought it would break down and I would be stuck there, but it was actually because the doors were open for too long. Our sensor thing was broken and I stuck out my hand, and my hand was stuck. There is still a scar from that time. I am 12 now, and that incident happened when I was 3. Still brings tears of joy to my sisters and parents when they recall the memory

Final score:

42points

Kasey Lee Bao Ting

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#22

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community 1st grade, I learned that the sun was going to explode one day and on that day I swore I would never go outside again. Broke that promise in like 20 minutes.

Final score:

42points

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#23

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I saw a Tales From the Darkside movie (I think?) when I was a little kid and there was a part about this monster that lived under the bed and would reach out and grab your ankle. So for a few years I would get a running jump onto my bed to avoid getting nabbed.

Final score:

41points

Thorfin Wolfsbane

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#24

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community Santa. Think about it, he slides down your chimney, techically committing a crime, and leaves you a "present"

Final score:

41points

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#25

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community when I was young I thought the gateway to Hell was under my sidewalk...I was terrified of it

Final score:

40points

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#26

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I believed that Earth was going to be hit with an asteroid and I used to stay up wondering if I was going to die by space rock

Final score:

38points

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#27

When my brothers and I were little my father told us that the devil kissed our eyes when we slept. That’s why we have dry tears around our eyes when we woke up. Let’s just say we were always so scared to sleep and also rushed to wash our faces in the morning.

Final score:

38points

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#28

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I believed when I was 3 or 4 that if I got hungry and didn't eat right away, I'd start to disappear. (Thanks, Dad and Uncle John!)

Final score:

37points

Madre_Dr4gnZFly

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#29

30 Of The Scariest Things People Believed When They Were Younger, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community I was terrified of Yoda and if I faced the wall whilst in bed, he wouldn't attack me.

Final score:

36points

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#30

Two things. The first was that when I looked into the mirror there would be something behind me that I couldn't see, sometimes a monster, and sometimes the creepy mom from Coraline. The other is that something was in the toilet or bathtub when I was using them, like a hand coming out of the drain, or a dead floating head in the toilet that would come to life if I looked at it.

Final score:

35points

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Note: this post originally had 81 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.

Laci Fuller

This lazy panda forgot to write something about itself.

This lazy panda forgot to write something about itself.

Gabrielė Malukaitė

Hi there! I'm Gabrielė, but you can also catch me responding to Gab, Gabi, Gabert, or Gabe – take your pick. Professionally, I'm the senior community manager over at Bored Panda, helping people share their awesome work and connecting artists with a worldwide audience. Beyond work, you'll catch me traveling, listening to vinyl and diving into movies, art exhibitions, and concerts. I'm a culture buff at heart, always eager to explore and embrace the richness of the human experience.

Hi there! I'm Gabrielė, but you can also catch me responding to Gab, Gabi, Gabert, or Gabe – take your pick. Professionally, I'm the senior community manager over at Bored Panda, helping people share their awesome work and connecting artists with a worldwide audience. Beyond work, you'll catch me traveling, listening to vinyl and diving into movies, art exhibitions, and concerts. I'm a culture buff at heart, always eager to explore and embrace the richness of the human experience.

What do you think ?

Lovin' Life 2 years ago

I lived to stay with my aunt in the summer, until her girls told me there was a witch in the attic that ate little girls that they didnt like. They went as far as to make it look bloody on the attic door which was just above my head since I slept on the top bunk. At 43, I am still terrified of attics. I found my dream house and didn't buy it because it had an attic. Traumatized for life.

8points

Ritchat 2 years ago

That's so sad! You should just have bought it and remodeled the attic into your personal relaxing room, your own secret hideout!.... Was what I wanted to suggest but then I remembered my own fear of dark cellars and realized that this is much easier said than done. I'm very sorry it kept you from buying your dream house and I totally get it.

3points

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Fiona Hunter 2 years ago

The local children would play in a rosehip community garden which acted like a maze, with our routes creating passages ways between the thorns. When it was getting darker, we were told the wolf was coming, in my mind this was a hybrid man wolf in tweed and dead set in feeding on the children. I would run home as fast as my legs could carry me.

6points

Zeke White 2 years ago

i have this fear ( still do ) that if i go to the bathroom a snake would have crawled up the pipes and into the toilet and bite me

3points

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Lovin' Life 2 years ago

I lived to stay with my aunt in the summer, until her girls told me there was a witch in the attic that ate little girls that they didnt like. They went as far as to make it look bloody on the attic door which was just above my head since I slept on the top bunk. At 43, I am still terrified of attics. I found my dream house and didn't buy it because it had an attic. Traumatized for life.

8points

Ritchat 2 years ago

That's so sad! You should just have bought it and remodeled the attic into your personal relaxing room, your own secret hideout!.... Was what I wanted to suggest but then I remembered my own fear of dark cellars and realized that this is much easier said than done. I'm very sorry it kept you from buying your dream house and I totally get it.

3points

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Fiona Hunter 2 years ago

The local children would play in a rosehip community garden which acted like a maze, with our routes creating passages ways between the thorns. When it was getting darker, we were told the wolf was coming, in my mind this was a hybrid man wolf in tweed and dead set in feeding on the children. I would run home as fast as my legs could carry me.

6points

Zeke White 2 years ago

i have this fear ( still do ) that if i go to the bathroom a snake would have crawled up the pipes and into the toilet and bite me

3points

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