I don't think I was afraid of the dark when I was a child. Of course, I can't be sure. I just know that I can remember telling myself: "there is nothing here in the dark, that would not be here if there was light." It is a mantra that I still recall today. Maybe that means I was more fearful than I can admit?But I do have some childhood monsters that I recall with vivid clarity. Probably the greatest "monster" in my childhood was the fear I had of heaven. I'm sure this is an unusual fear and says something about me (but I don't know what). I don't know why I had this particular fear. I just remember thinking about heaven, how it would go on and on and on forever without end, and getting sick to my stomach with fear. I even remember that the priest in our small Catholic parish would talk to the kids about how good heaven was and why hell was not the place we wanted to go. My fear of heaven was so great that I remember hoping that I would not go to heaven (hell didn't seem like a good alternative either but the choices seemed rather limited). Perhaps the fear of heaven had something to do with my religious upbringing or some early ideas that I heard and didn't fully understand. Maybe it is a common fear...but I've never heard of anyone else with such a fear. My religious training is another story for another day.
I did have (what I think are) traditional childhood monster-fears. At least they seem more 'normal' to me. My monsters were all mechanical and humanoid. The fear I felt when I saw the images of these mechanical monsters was so great that I can, to this day, vividly recall the images, the room, and the sounds when I experienced these monsters, along with the associated fear.
When I was fairly young, the movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was shown on TV (this was probably the early 1960's). Not only did the image of the robot scare me, but the music in the movie was terrifying. I remember going downstairs to my bedroom, covering my head with blankets and talking to myself as I caught bits and pieces of the sound coming from the black and white TV set upstairs. I talked to myself and I cried. My parents obviously did not understand what I was afraid of...or maybe they just did not understand how fearful I was. For years the fear was very real. And even in my teenage years, as I began to be interested in science and flying saucers, I stayed away from any images of this particular movie. Now, as an adult, I have rented the DVD and actually watched the movie; it does not seem so bad, although the music (old and melodramatic) still has a chilling effect on me.
I had two other mechanical monsters that I feared as a child.
One was a suit of armor from a TV show that was about two men who traveled by helicopter. I remember liking the show, I thought a helicopter was an incredible way to travel (and someday, I told myself, I would fly in one!). In the particular show I remember, someone had connected electricity to this metal suit of armor, and someone was murdered when they came close and touched the armor. As I tell this story now, it doesn't seem that bad. But I remember as a child being fearful of seeing a metal man (a suit of armor) hiding under the stairs or in a dark closet. In the TV show, the suit of armor didn't move...it just killed someone and then it just stood silently and hauntingly waiting. That's what scared me I think.
The third monster came from another TV show (I even remember the room I was in...with light shining through the window, reflecting off our hardwood living room floor). All three of my childhood monsters were 'introduced' to me while we lived in one particular house in the early 1960's. But I know why this monster scared me. It was a large mechanical "stomping robot" that came out of the sea and terrorized the land dwellers. At first I wasn't too afraid, so I told my mom how silly it was. And she said, "Oh, I read in the news that one of those was seen coming out of the ocean near France." ---Oh, now that scared me! Obviously the TV show wasn't very realistic, but being told that there was such a thing sighted in a real country!! Today, as an adult, I can't figure out why my mother made this statement. But she seemed very serious at the time and it caused me great fear.
As I reflect on my childhood fears, I think they were all created in a fairly short period of time. It was a time when I was trying to make sense of the world when I was still too small to understand most things. But I unavoidably (I guess) heard and saw things that were very threatening to me. Now, as an adult, my childhood fears – at least the mechanical monsters – are intriguing; and I believe they probably contributed to my interests in mechanics, electronics, science fiction, and robotics.
