Ghost in the closet, monster under the bed, whatever? I don't mean occasional fearful nights, but, rather, most nights. Maybe even a scary presence you talked to, who talked to you, who you bargained with, pleaded with? (I'm not talking about actual child molesting monsters.)

I don't know why, but I didn't. There were a few windy nights when I thought there might be a bad guy sneaking around outside. And there was a time at a sleepover when my buddy had me half convinced there was a panther in his closet. "See the eyes! See it staring out between the clothes!" But generally, no.

I think that's related to why I started out thinking the things they told me in church were just stories, like fairytales. But they kept insisting they were real, so I eventually saw the panther eyes in the closet.

I used to have this irrational fear that my dead ancestors were walking around me, and that they could see me when I masturbated, and it made poor great-Grandma sad when she saw me do this thing. Don't have a clue where that one came from.

I think my little brother was like that, because I was always the one that had to go downstairs at night to turn the lights off.

Once I felt a terrifying presence, but that would have been a seizure. At the time I thought someone was trying to break in, because my dad often had expensive merchandise in the house for his business, and there were a few attempts. Later, of course, in sheeple brainwash mode I wondered if it was beelzebub.

I kept a lot of those things separate, although our family did tell a few family ghost stories.

The PTSD I have now is similar. The similarity is that when events trigger reactions, and I have to relive the horrifying past, it is not really happening. The difference is it's not imaginary, but very real thanks to my brain being such a good recorder.

My non-belief in those things may have helped me on my way out, but for me it was mostly observing what I read compared to what people did, seeing how authoritarian TSCC was, and using my logical thinking to realize there was no gawd.

edit: Actually if one considers the positive as well as the negative side of the supernatural, then, yes, that did help me a lot on the way out. I noticed no supernatural acts of divine intervention, but only how everyone ignored or rationalized away prayers that were not answered. People were biased, and gave extra weight to positive events. I felt no divine presence, and saw no evidence in life events that there was one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2011 10:52AM by atheist&happy:-).

because when I closed my eyes I imagined those patterns everyone sees was the face of Satan forming.

I used to overhear my TBM parents and their TBM mates talking about demons, identifying demons, weird demon experiences, seeing dark shapes out of the corner of their eyes (probably "floaters" but hey, if you're looking for demons....), then really freaking me out by telling me there are demons all around me trying to "get" me and that if we talk about demons too much they will come! Demons demons demons.

After I realised the CULT was all lies and magical nonsense, I stopped being afraid of Satan and demons.

Mormonism empowers demonology and demonic thinking.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2011 10:13AM by ozpoof.

I used to have the same fears. Even as an adult, I hated going into dark dreary places. Now it is one of my favorite things to do, when exploring.

I don't know, that homeless guy with the knife was pretty scary too.

A Bigfoot used to come and have a beer with me once in awhile...

My TBM ex-wife. Unfortunately she wasn't imaginary.

Santa sees you when you're sleeping.
God sees you when you're sleeping.

Add in the angels and ancestors who had access to roam around.Then stir in the constant threat of Satan and his helpers waiting for you to "lose the spirit" long enough to make you do stuff.

I'd say I had quite a few monsters in my room!

Don't forget the Sandman who pours sand in your eyes after you go to sleep. I can't figure out why my parents wanted me to sleep so he could come and do that...sand in your eyes hurts like crazy!

especially children. And people insist religion is based on love, not fear.

I grew up believing my childhood home and town are very haunted. There is a castle (I'm not even kidding) right by that house that has the reputation of many ghosts, so yeah, I was a little creeped out at night as a child.
Also a lot of the Mormon lore of "Satan and his minions are always trying to get you" BS didn't help. I always felt like there were dark spirits trying to hurt or scare me.

Also, my mom let me watch "Poltergiest" with her when I was a little girl and I wasn't too happy with the tree outside my window after that.

I'm sorry to hear that.

I felt that way everytime I watched a Dracula movie

It took a war to help me get over my fear of the dark. Demons hiding under the bed, grave robbers, [some kind of animal], devils wanting to steal us and all kinds of B/S creatures that could do harm to us. This was my early childhood teachings by my parents and grandparents. My parents were afraid of all these things and taught us to be afraid also. The worst thing that happened to me was that I had to sleep by myself when we went to the childrens home. I had never slept by myself and I lived in fear every night until I finally went to sleep. Sometimes my house mother would come and get me out of some one elses bed and sit with me until I went back to sleep. At night there were imaginary creatures in my life from the earliest that I can remember. That is one fear that I do not ever want again.
Pulling guard duty in the infantry in Germany and Viet Nam helped me over come most of my fears and the passage of time and understanding helped with the rest. Jim

I resent that you think I just imagined them.

yes.

i thought that something was going to grab my feet from underneath my bed.

so..@ night i'd go into my room, scan the area for pointy/sharp toys, when all clear, i'd take 1-2 steps back, start running towards my bed. 2-3 feet away from it i'd jump and land on it.


imagine the ordeal i went through i had when i had to go pee in the middle of the night.

:)

I had nightmares involving a tall headless woman dressed in white who came from my closet and chased me. Later, as a child, I saw a talk show (I think it was Mike Douglas) where the host interviewed people who claimed paranormal experiences. One of the guests claimed that the wood grain of her hardwood floor transformed at night into images of suffering people and that she later found out that her home had been the site of a hospital where many people had died in some pandemic. Of course there was a hardwood floor in my bedroom and the headboard of my bed had some rather suggestive wood grain that suggested eyes and after watching that show I was certain that tortured souls of the dead were trying to reach me at night through my hardwood floor and headboard.

I am sure I would have been scared of the boogey woogies had I not been brought up religious, but I am also sure that my fear of them would not have lasted as long, nor have been as intense.

The sad thing is when I would try to imagine things, and convince myself that I had seen things. I didn't actually see them the way a person with mental illness would, but I often tried to convince myself that I was aware of heavenly or demonic beings, just on the other side of the veil, that I could only see with my "spiritual eyes." That will really mess with your perception of reality.

It's good for the church though. Your convinced that there might be this wave of demonic beings that want your soul, and the minute you mess up and are not worthy of your priesthood they are going to swoop down on you. How much better that we were told they attack if you read "anti-Mormon" material. There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask in my teens and early twenties, but that I did not explore, because I was afraid they would leave me vulnerable to demonic attack.

I would frequently (once a month during teenage years) wake up and sense a presence in my room. I would be paralyzed by my fear and KNEW it was an evil spirit in my room. I would sing hymns and pray until the feeling left. As an adult I even rebuked whatever evil spirits were in the room using the priesthood.

It terrified me, but it actually tied me closer to the church because of all the evil spirits that were out to get me because I was a Mormon.

Flash forward 10-15 years. I have a daughter who sleep walks and has night terrors. She *wakes up* and is inconsolable and incoherent. It is pretty distressing as a parent and I began to do some research on this phenomenon. I stumbled across something called sleep paralysis and I immediately related to almost all of the symptoms. Per Wikipedia:

"Physiologically, sleep paralysis is closely related to REM atonia, the paralysis that occurs as a natural part of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Sleep paralysis occurs either when falling asleep, or when awakening.... When it occurs upon awakening, the person becomes aware before the REM cycle is complete.... The paralysis can last from several seconds to several minutes, with some rare cases being hours, "by which the individual may experience panic symptoms".... In addition, the paralysis may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic) and an acute sense of danger. Sleep paralysis is particularly frightening to the individual because of the vividness of such hallucinations.... Some scientists have proposed this condition as an explanation for reports of alien abductions and ghostly encounters."

When I discovered this I was already apostate and didn't believe in the boogie man anymore, but it did provide a scientific explanation to what I ignorantly believed to be spirits.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2011 11:27PM by Apostate Nate.

A couple of them were about ten years ago. During one, I thought it was the middle of the night and I was on my left side, with this "thing" hovering over me. But a voice in my head kept saying, "Open your eyes... just open your eyes..." I thought they were already open. But that other part of my brain finally took control and I actually opened my eyes to discover the sun was up and I was on my right side. I learned about sleep paralysis shortly after. When it happened again a few years later, that other part of my brain sort of sat back and observed. "Hmmm, this is interesting."

One of my mission companions had several instances of what I now know was sleep paralysis. He was convinced it was Satan there to get him -- because he couldn't stop masturbating.

I always felt that my dead ancestors were watching me--and they always thought I was unworthy of them. Well, I was just a child, so of course I wasn't perfect, yet. I kept trying to do better, and thought that I would someday arrive at perfection. NOT. I never felt I had any privacy--even now, I get twinges of "What would Mother think...."

I used to read LL Milne's "When I was Six" poems, about goblins. I was afraid to leave the closet door open. I was afraid to step on a crack. I got that from school and the neighbor kids--not from church.

I was always more afraid inside my house, than outside. Maybe it was because my brother was abusing me, or maybe because there were earthquakes where we lived. When anything scary happened--a loud noise, or something scary in the closet--I would run outside in my pajamas. If my brother tried to get into my room, I would jump out the window. Running away was my only defense.

Yeah, it was called the angel "Moroni". Haha!

Eventually I struck on the idea of creating another scary creature to chase them away. That idea worked.

Yes I did, but don't laugh. I grew up in Florida near the water.

As a small child I believed there was an alligator under my bed. I worried that he would chomp my ankles when I jumped out of bed.

;o)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2011 08:25AM by shannon.

That's not so irrational. Alligators find their way into peoples houses all the time. Sleep tight, and have good dreams.

I always thought they lurked in the walls and attic crawl space and I slept with a pillow against my back as a slight buffer in case they decided to attack in the night. Sometimes they did attack in dreams and in my imagination.

So, from birth to age 10, I did have the standard litany of scary creatures trying to get me. I was convinced there was something under my bed and that if I didn't sleep with a blanket on my neck, a vampire would bite me.

Even then, I loved horror movies. The more B-Movie it was, the better, so all the classics.

When we moved to Utah when I was ten,though, the monster fears more or less left. Unfortunately, it was replaced with a series of recurring nightmares, the gist of which was something invisible was chasing me and I was nearly paralyzed, so trying to get away in slow motion. And no one else in the dream seemed to notice this terrifying entity that was chasing me.

The recurring nightmares stopped when I quit the church at age 18. Funny, that.

When I was 14 my dad told me that he could hear evil whispers upstairs in my room when I was gone, which convinced him I was doing bad things, or that they were conspiring to get me to do bad things. I did have friends that drank, and I'm sure they had sex but really, looking back, parents would kill for a daughter like myself with the near perfect behavior that I had.

Anyway, the voice thing freaked me out! I was scared to death they would be able to get me, or would whisper to my dad about me liking a certain boy. Crazy. Walking outside at night was the worse (small town in Wyoming so no one was around, just evil spirits apparently.).

Not scared anymore....the dark is just fine, and I'm confident there are no daemons whispering in my room.

Mormonism is whacko!