I spent my early to mid childhood being absolutely terrified of ghosts! Absolutely! Ghosts and devils and demon dolls! You name it! My mom was a great help in alleviating my fears. She told me, "Don't be afraid of them and they can't hurt you." Thanks Mom. A simple, "There's no such thing as ghosts." Might have helped me not to sleep with my entire body under the covers (except for the one foot for temperature regulation. And no, I don't know why I thought that foot was somehow immune to monster attack.).
I also was cursed with two closets in my room. Unbelievable! I was afraid on one much more than the other though. I had serious problems with sleep walking and something like hypnogogic hallucinations when I was very little. Instead of having the classic sleep paralysis induced panic, I would sleep walk and hallucinate while I interacted with the waking world. I used to freak my mom out. I guess the nightmares were like night terrors that just went on and on while I walked around the house and played them out. I was seriously traumatized for a very long time by some of those experiences because I always remembered them very clearly, and still do with several of the dreams. I don't know how I ended up talking about that. Oh yeah, you said "ghosts." I'm going to bed. I don't sleep walk anymore. I don't sleep eat or anything else very interesting either. I'm seriously glad. Going to bed at night used to be torture. Imagine a small child's fear of bed time when she knew, positively KNEW, that the bad things, whatever the hell they might be that night, were waiting in the darkness under the bed, or the antique doll in the rocking chair, or behind the slightly cracked closet door, or outside the tree shadowed window, or under the floor boards, or just in my head... Liz -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of ornamentalmind Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 9:29 PM To: Memphis Freethought Alliance Subject: Re: How old were you when you stopped believing in the supernatural? "MFA members, Just out interest, how old were you when you stopped believing in gods, magic, Jesus, ghosts, an afterlife, etc.?" Even though I may not be an official member, without quibbling about your list above, I’d say I never held such beliefs. I was puzzled by the god thing, and for a while was amazed by magic. The JC thing never made sense to me. Oh, as a kid, I did look under the bed now and then afraid of …whatever. So, in that sense, an undifferentiated fear could be called one of ghosts I guess. Afterlife? Naaaa. At least not in the more common ways that and the other beliefs manifest… On Dec 11, 2:22 am, thevulgarone <[email protected]> wrote: > MFA members, > > Just out interest, how old were you when you stopped believing in > gods, magic, Jesus, ghosts, an afterlife, etc.? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Memphis Freethought Alliance" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/memphisfreethoughtalliance?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
