Remember when you were just a young kid and you were scared of all kinds of things?

The basement, the dark, your closet, what might be lurking underneath your bed…the possibilities were endless!

And then you get a little older and your life moves on and you realize that those things that terrified you were totally harmless…or even made up.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane with these AskReddit users about the things that scared them when they were kids.

1. Something under there…

“That f*cking alligator under my bed that wanted to eat my feet.

You gotta turn the lights out and jump in bed quick to avoid its wrath.”

2. Hang on tight!

“Whenever the floorboards creaked, I imagined myself or my bed falling through the floor into the basement.”

3. Maybe you saw Jaws too many times.

“That little rope of buoys that separated the deep end from the shallow end in the pool.”

4. Yes!

“Escalators scared the sh*t out of me.

Trying desperately to fit within a rectangle before it becomes a step, jumping off of them at the end to avoid being sucked down into oblivion.

And there was one or two anecdotal stories from the news to convince me that they were, in fact, killers.”

5. Beware of monsters.

“Old televisions right after you turned them off, they would glow for a bit.

That’s when the monsters could come out of the TV and get you.”

6. Be careful…

“Ceiling fans.

I was afraid that it would come off the ceiling still spinning and chop me up like a helicopter blades.

That and millions of bugs crawling through the windows and covering my bed like the plastic casket things people used to lay in on Fear Factor.”

7. I’m uncomfortable.

“The THX sound effect that preceded most movies in the early-2000s.

It always scared me as a kid. I listened to it last night and it still makes me uncomfortable.

Not sure why.”

8. I remember this one.

“Swallowing seeds from fruits.

Was teased that they would grow and take over my insides and a tree would eventually burst out of me.”

9. This is good.

“So here are some weird things I was afraid of for literally no reason, and what I did about them:

That someone would stab me in the back in the night. I had a big stuffed bear I slept with on my back, his arms tucked under my armpits. He was Bagel and his job was to give his life for mine.

I was terrified we’d suddenly have to run in the middle of the night (I never knew from what). I kept a “go bag” under my bag with a change of clothes and underwear and shoes and some books and travel games and such (other than the clothes, everything in the bag was useless).

Honestly I don’t know why I did these things. No one in my family had ever had to run from anything. No one had ever been attacked. We lived in a safe neighborhood.

But they were my greatest fears as a child.”

10. Don’t look at them!

“Lawn flamingos.

My big sister told me that they could take your soul if you looked into their eyes so I’d run past them with my eyes covered.”

11. Anything and everything.

“Apparently everything.

My mom was always the worse case scenario. No matter what I did it was don’t do that, you’re going to poke your eye out, you’ll crack your head open, and the list goes on.”

12. The sky spiders.

“Helicopters.

I remember freaking out and crying if I saw one.

They were like sky spiders.”

13. Fearful.

“That the knot in my bellybutton would come undone and all my insides would leak out. I wish I was making this up. (I also realize now that your naval is not an actual knot)

Also, that if too much of my arm or leg was sticking out from under the blanket, the bad guy would be able to get me.”

14. This is very specific.

“Terry Fox.

So in Canada we have Terry Fox Day and the Terry Fox walk because this guy, Terry Fox, tried to run across the country on one leg to raise cancer awareness.

My child brain however didn’t quite understand why. I didn’t really understand what cancer was and nobody would tell me anything more than ‘it’s what took Terry’s leg’. I assumed it was a person or something.

So all I knew was that we were walking because a dead man with one leg said we should spread word about Cancer who stole his leg and giving him money. I was so scared that if I forgot to donate or if I missed the walk that Terry Fox’s ghost would come with whoever Cancer was and take my leg too.”

How about you?

What terrified you as a kid that you now realize was harmless?

Talk to us in the comments and share your thoughts!