As a kid I can't say I was freaked out by dark things. I loved horror movies and wasn't scared by them. I thought about death a lot by the time I was 9 or so. My proclivities for weird and dark things were always there.

The only things I really feared as a kid was starvation (which was not so unlikely) and serial killers. Oh, and other kids. The little i knew of dark culture then I embraced.

I was a real scaredy-cat as a kid. I was afraid of skulls - if a shop had just one item that had a skull in it, I would be scared to go in the store. And I have always disliked spiders.
There were certain aspects of scary TV shows that freaked me out - even certain sounds and certain fonts of words on the TV screen would scare me. Like when they showed hospitals in movies set in the early 20th century - those creeped me out. Those hospitals seemed more like places where people went to die rather than have their lives saved.

I was such a wimpy kid!

Kids are pretty fucking scary! I heard these boys bragging about beating cats to death with sticks in grade school. If kids can kill a defenseless animal with no remorse it's not that hard to work their way up to humans(which is what serial killers do). *shiver*

I was quite odd as a child (in many ways lol), but mainly in the fact that I did have a phase where I went from being quite content with "scary stuff" and then overnight being terrified of all of it....and back again. I do remember that as a kid, my parents let me watch movies I probably ought not to be watching at that age (at age 5, my favourite movie was The Monster Squad, rated 15 in the UK XD). I loved the Nightmare Before Christmas, I loved dark fantasy, I particularly loved scary things aimed for children- Gruesome Tales for Grizzly Kids, Goosebumps, Tales of the Crypt/Crypt Keeper (watched the cartoon more, as it was more child-friendly), the "Creepies" book series (they were frickin' scary! And there were quite a few of those...The Flat Man, The Ankle-Grabber, Jumble Joan, Scare Yourself To Sleep). At one point, Scare Yourself To Sleep had me sleeping badly, but not for long, and I was always intrigued by the Ten O'Clock Horses, so much so that I often use horse imagery in my work now.

Also, I remember when my auntie's hamster died when I was staying with her, she allowed me to arrange a "funeral" for him. I was very young at the time, but I understoof the concept of death and made him a cross and planned out a service for him ^^;;

At one point when I was about 10 though, I became scared of everything. I just seem to remember being freaked the clear out by the way everyone metled into skeletons when shot by the Martians in Mars Attacks, and after that, everything scared me. Buffy started on TV around that time, and I refused to even watch that for a while. I was scared to go into the cool shop that sold lava lamps because it had alien and monster things in there. And then overnight again, I was fine. Started watching Buffy and everything went back to normal ^^;;

I was always into monsters and Halloween as a child, and I felt very comfortable in that surrounding. But holy crap Chucky scared me!!!

It's interesting reading all of this, because I think as children we always have this affinity with darkness, but our innocence and not being able to understand leads us to fear it, so we become confused. I certainly was, especially as I got older and coming from a religious family! But I never felt a stronger voice come from me than when I embraced it and said this is who I am.

I wasn't allowed to even look into the cool shop that sold lava lamps because there were "scary" things in there. I wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween or watch movies that had scared my mother. I was sixteen or so and she made me turn off The Brothers Grimm because the scene with the witch at the beginning frightened her. When I had the opportunity to watch things such as Nightmare Before Christmas or The Addams Family I loved them, though. And I was always into the darker side of classical music. My favorite songs were the sort of things that get included on Halloween soundtracks.

My college classmates have suggested I turned out the way I did because it was rebellion against my mother, who tried so hard to keep me from all things scary. That may be true, but since a young age it has not been my style to think the same way as everyone else, or to be afraid of anything without good reason.

Horror movies never scared me as a kid, spiders never scared me, etc. Now spider webs, those freaked me out. We had a very dreary looking back hallway at our old house, and it was rather lofty and we couldn't reach way up high (even with a broom). And so, there were these spider webs, sometimes loaded with dead bugs. THOSE freaked the crap outta me. I hated going in the back hallway, especially when the light was not working. I was always afraid those weighed-down webs would fall on me

Man...I was a weird kid.
While I was scared of most horror like a lot of kids, I had these really off-beat evil streaks.
I remember distinctly typing this really fucking disturbing poem in MS Paint in early elementary school with a black background and inverted colors. I don't remember how it went at all but there was a part with dark tribal members intoning with torches of blood. Freaked the shit out of my mother. I mean, it really messed with her head. Got in major trouble. Now I look back on it and say, "Hell yeah, young-me. You kick ass."
Of course now all of the horror movies that sent shock waves of fear down my spine I appreciate for camp value, such as Child's Play. In fact, I love those movies.

And in lieu of the occasional dark prose I remember drawing pictures and thinking up stories of the more serious matter. I made a Reader Rabbit fan-character named Dicenio the Dog, and he was a deranged serial killer that stalked Reader and Sam. Plus I was contemplating killing off another fan-character with a random-ass bout of Asian Flu.

I do have to agree that in some ways (well, a lot of ways) death in many "modern" cultures is now a taboo subject. It is correct that many would just prefer to ignore the fact that it exists, and will come about sooner or later. Personally, I don't see the point in running from something that can not be outrun.

I guess I was fortunate as a child to have an immediate family who have always managed to embrace such things, and took time to introduce me many such "taboo" subjects, if only to further my understanding of them (hence, less fear). My mother and grandmother in particular were major culprits in my growing up as fascinated with the macabre as I was, and continue to be. I was also raised with compassion regarding some of the more typical "monsters".
For instance, I'd watch my mother deftly catch black widows (we tend to call the larger ones "Queens") who had come inside seeking shelter, and she would let me peer into the glass before releasing them in the garden. She'd carefully explain their danger, and yet encouraged me to see the intense beauty of these really quite magnificent glistening obsidian orbs, and took the time to explain their function in the world.
Now, that is not to say she encouraged me to go picking up random spiders...no, but I was taught how to recognise the baddies, and to call for her when I did. In this, I developed a healthy respect for arachnids and many other creepy crawlies, and was never a kid whose first instinct was to obliterate every bug or spider I happened across. Their mysteries explained in my mind, I could actively appreciate their use and beauty.

Much of fear stems from a simple lack of knowledge. I wish there were more parents like her...because too often have I witnessed fearful violence inflicted upon another creature out of simple ignorance.
Ignorance, which is responsible for so much of the true darkness in this world.

Also wanted to add that for the longest time, the only thing I was truly afraid of, as a youngster, was whatever it was that lingered beneath my bed! I must have been a teenager before I could actually sleep with a limb dangling over the edge))

I was a fraid of a lot, when I was a kid. I still am I suppose. No real way around it. The thing that scares me most of all is death. And spiders, but I think I know why for the death, the spiders? Your guess is as good as mine.

I think it's not so much the idea of Death (which is scary in itself for being a large and irreversible change) as much as the idea of what comes after it. Not everyone has a strong beleif system and sometimes they start to wonder and worry about what's on the other side of death. As DiabolusMusik said, it's a simple lack of knowledge the cases fear, much of the time. A man hates what he fears and a man fears what he does not understand. Because they hate and fear death, it and it's cohorts and company, (skulls, blood, and the like) are generaly seen as an unwanted part of life. Sometimes a person goes out to get scared, to feel that rush of adrenaline, but they equally find it vile and useless. Sometimes the scitzotypial way of looking at death has odd effects on children, who have not learned that this is the norm for their area and how to deal with it.

Or, it's just a phobia, with no explanation. Your call.

As a child I think had a few restless nights after a few episodes of the old Dr. Who (giant maggots under the bed etc.) but you would have to drag me away with wild horses to stop me watching it. Not much on scares, but loads on doing stupid things and that shivery feeling you get afterword that you could have been seriously injured or killed.

I was also a weird kid... and I have no idea just what kind of thing scared me from the age of seven and under as I have no memories of anything from then. My Mum was involved in a road traffic accident (non-fatal) and it was that trauma that sort of wiped my mind of all memories. Being so exposed to the thought of death from such an early age is probably what made me the kooky person that I am today. My pagan faith also has helped me get over the whole "I'm gonna die" thing, but that's just me... other people get as much comfort from the lack of an afterlife as I get from there being one for me (and all those that think along the same kind of lines).

I've always been scared of the dark, even now I get spooked, especially if I hear noises that fire my imagination and then all the horror films I've ever seen come crashing back into my cranium and I get even more terrified I always have tons of stuff under my bed, just in case something might think about getting under there to grab me when I get out of bed... if a mouse couldn't get under there then neither can anything else! The Cybermen from Dr. Who, still scare the shit our of me, after all of these years!

I'd be worried about that kid that reacted so violently, though... such an extreme reaction could be a sign of something much more serious. Of course it could just be that he's a sensitive soul, but I've never heard of a kid that would have been that scared over something so minor If they've been told for years that death = God's Judgment, Satan or hell or something like that, it could explain why things that reminded him of death and the possible consequences garnered such terror... poor kid

Adrenaline junkie?

Well the song "Ring Around the Rosie" is about the Black Plague. During this time period a lot of deathly things were children oriented in order to make them unafraid of death. For example, a doll would come in a box that looks like a coffin.

That's a popular misconception that has been spread via the Internet, teevee shows, and other "betcha didn't know!" nonsense media starting in the 1960s. Quoted from Snopes.com:

"Although folklorists have been collecting and setting down in print bits of oral tradition such as nursery rhymes and fairy tales for hundreds of years, the earliest print appearance of "Ring Around the Rosie" did not occur until the publication of Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose or The Old Nursery Rhymes in 1881. For the "plague" explanation of "Ring Around the Rosie" to be true, we have to believe that children were reciting this nursery rhyme continuously for over five centuries, yet not one person in that five hundred year span found it popular enough to merit writing it down. (How anyone could credibly assert that a rhyme which didn't appear in print until 1881 actually "began about 1347" is a mystery. If the rhyme were really this old, then "Ring Around the Rosie" antedates even Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and therefore we would have examples of this rhyme in Middle English as well as Modern English forms.)"

Full article here (with a list of authoritative bibliographic sources at the end of the article).



A bit more skepticism is called for here. Unless you can produce a reference citation for that "fact," I'm afraid I'm finding that very difficult to believe.

-- Nephele