Are we sitting comfortably?
A recent episode of the radio programme This American Life featured an item about a guy who had the misfortune to watch the movie The Shining at age 6. The film, also about a young boy he could all too readily identify with, terrified him so much that he internalised the drama and spent the next two years fearing everybody and everything, particularly unshaven Jack Nicholson types I imagine.
While I didn’t quite suffer from two long years of Shining related nightmares, I did endure my own minor fiction-related trauma as a child thanks to the school librarian.
I still remember the very moment, at aged 5 or 6, sitting crosslegged on the itchy green carpet of our primary school library, anxiously waiting for our weekly storytelling session to begin. Usually, the tales were nice stories about happy children, mischevious koalas and helpful elves so I was full of anticipation and excitment – perhaps we might hear more about the exciting adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie this week! Sadly, I was to be disappointed.
Instead the teacher decided to tell, perhaps she would say, a more ‘mature’ story – the Greek myth of Medusa, the beautiful, but nasty woman who had writhing vicious snakes for hair, turned innocent people into stone if they even dared glance in her direction and had winged horses and giants leaping from her bloody neck after she was decapitated.
Our school librarian didn’t bother to illustrate this tale with glossy large-format pictures of Greek beauties cursed by bad hair, and she didn’t need to – my imagination was more than adequate. For months after my nights were overrun by women who, from a distance looked like they had ordinary curly hair, but upon closer inspection turned out to have heads more reminiscent of reptile houses. And of course, just at the moment I’d discover this, I could feel my body slowly turning into stone. First my toes, then my feet, legs, knees… arghhhhh…
I’d like to think that the whole class was effected in this way, but sadly not. It was me and me alone. I found this out 20 years later when talking with my mother. She informed me that after I had failed to sleep easily for too many nights running and had been found drenched in sweat one too many times, she had finally prised the trauma that was Medusa out of me. After my parents’ reassurances that ‘it was just a story’ (yeah, right) failed to soothe, my mother actually went to see my teacher about the problem. Apparently no one else had been in the least bit fazed by Medusa. Clearly I was a freak (the teacher didn’t say that, but I bet she was thinking it).
I eventually got over the Medusa-inspired nightmares, but the fear still lingers. In university I had a text book which a clearly insane cover designer had decided to decorate with Rubens’ depiction of Medusa* – I always had to keep the book face down. And I still would.
*you can google that one yourselves. I’m not.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I don’t recall ever suffering from Greeks, but around 8 or 9 years old I picked up a book on “mysteries of archaeology” or such like and spent the next few weeks terrified of the shroud of Turin. I well remember being convinced it was hanging in my wardrobe mixed up with my shirts. The fact that even then it was being outed as a fake did nothing to stop the fear.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Mrs PM has held a terrible dread of Medusa since childhood too – not sure why though. For me it’s large ships, dark oceans and sinking ships – brought on by a combo of two things:seeing a poster somewhere (aged 4/5) with a photo of liner going down used as an advert.A nightmare of working on ships from around the same age.
I’d always blamed the dream on the poster, until going through some bits in my parents loft a couple of years back found a Disney Time (72?) annual which featured a story of a shipwrecked Donald Duck picked up by a large liner, only to be given a hard time by the crew..and that it was I’d discovered the long forgotten trigger..
Having said that I have faced my fears and read A Night to Remember – Walter Lord’s Titanic biography, the scene after the ships finally creaked and groaned it’s way to the bottom and the sreams and crys for help slowly begin to still is unbelievably haunting
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:13 pm
so you didn’t have jason and the argonauts on the box every good friday in oz! the skeletons and the harpies who nick the blind mans food! Must admit the medusa was pretty scary as a kid see also the minatour in my case.
Although the tale of the cannibal viking that lived in a cave they told us about on a school trip to the Dales was my worst nightmare. It kept me awake for weeks and still gave me a burst of the creeps when we drove down past the place last year!!
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Writing this blog sometimes feels like an AA meeting or in this case, Silly Childhood Fears Anonymous! I am very glad to read your comments.
Simon, the idea that the shroud of Turin was lurking in your cupboard amongst your shirts is hilarious! Just imagine if it had been – you might never have known the wonderful word of work (assuming you could convince everyone it was real and live off the profits forever).
Mrs Mondo has my deepest sympathies PM. Not only does she share my fear of Medusa, but clearly she will never be able to go on a cruise with you – I’m assuming that this is not your ideal holiday?! Was the Bermuda Triangle also a source of fear and mystery for you? I used to think about that a fair bit myself, but it was never as scary as Medusa.
BLTP, Cave-dwelling cannibal vikings in Yorkshire? Is this true? That would definitely give me the chills as a child. Not Jason and the Argonauts though – that’s a fine song by XTC in my mind!
Actually, have just bought myself a book on Greek myths so I can eduate myself about such things as old Jason. I might write about it at some point if it doesn’t give me nightmares…
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:53 am
Hmmm, I didn’t know this, or maybe I have forgotten?
It sounds like a very scary nightmare, the turning to stone part….
I had nightmares about the giant dentures from the Goodies, Dr Who regenerating, and the detached hand. I also had hallucinations of snakes crawling all over my bedroom….not sure where that came from….
I am slightly amused that you have managed to initiate a very polite version of the good old Sydney/Melbourne rivalry in your previous post.
I did know that Melbourne rated as a highly livable city, vaguely.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
I’m not sure what in particular scared me and gave me nightmares growing up. I do remember that I had this dummy that my parents bought me when I was a kid. Sometimes that would spook me if I woke up in the middle of the night and saw it sitting in the chair I always left it in. I always thought it was staring at me.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Ah, there are so many things I don’t know about you Crafty – nightmares about the Goodies?! I understand Doctor Who but the Goodies – how can that possibly be? They were as sweet as pie, particularly the lovely Tim Brooke Taylor…
Keith – a spooky dummy? It’s truly weird the things that you think are scary as a kid isn’t it (although dummies can be a bit creepy I admit)? I don’t think I ever had a fear of inanimate objects – books were enough for me!