“Why are monsters in so many old stories? Do we need them?” - What It Is, Lynda Barry
Recently, a question hijacked my brain: “What is the monster that scared you the most as a child?”
For Lynda Barry, it was the Gorgon - a creature that could turn her to stone with just one glance.
In her memoir/creative prompter What It Is, Lynda traced her childhood fear of the Gorgon to her life situation at the time. Her mother often didn’t notice her at home. Sometimes, she even misbehaved within her mother’s eyeline just to see if it would make her look at her. She recalls a general feeling of ‘unseen-ness’, so a Gorgon with magical, scary sight powers makes a certain sense. What if her wish to be noticed came true? It was an unknown. Maybe she was scared she’d ‘turn to stone’ - freeze up - if she was finally given the attention she craved.
By her accounts in the book, it can be deduced that Linda suffered from some neglect as a child - classic 80s latchkey-kid parenting. Though as she describes it, it wasn’t that drastic:
“There are happy childhoods and unhappy childhoods. But most fall somewhere in between, swinging sometimes up, or dragging sometimes low.”
Reading this made me think back to my own memories of early horror - what was the monster lurking in my subconscious?
There is a recurring nightmare I remember having around 4 years old. A knock rapped at the front door, and I had to answer it alone. At that time in my life, my mother and I had moved into my aunt's home. The sound that rang through the house in my dream was my aunt’s signature playful knock, but when I opened the door, it wasn’t her there. It was my mother - who then metamorphized into a terrifying witch. I remember feeling duped - betrayal! - and paralysing fear.
That witch haunted my waking days afterwards, and the fear of a tricksy monster lurking followed me.
Dream interpretations are fuzzy business, but it can’t be denied that many of us dream, and that our dreams can remind us of our daily lives. At least, mine always have. Some cognitive researchers believe dreams function to help us process difficult emotions. If I’m feeling trapped in my life, for example, I might dream of being stuck in a locked car. If I’m feeling unheard, I might dream of being unable to dial a number I need, or unable to speak when I need help.
Alas, my dreams don’t seem to portend the future or have any magical power, but reflecting on the memorable ones has often helped me figure out hidden emotions and get to the root of certain fears. They’ve always felt ‘magic’ to me in their usefulness. (The book Dream Alchemy has a great guide to interpreting your dreams and subconscious feelings. It doesn’t aim to predict the future or suggest that certain symbols have fixed meanings.)
I remember my witch dream some thirty years later, which makes me wonder what it’s doing still rattling around my psyche.
Amongst the children I knew, there was a palpable terror of storybook witches at that time - the movie of Roald Dahl’s The Witches had come out recently.
Still, I don’t think my dream was about witches in and of themselves. My dream was specific; the terror of opening a door expecting one thing, but getting a horror-filled surprise. Instead of a loving family member, I got someone intent on doing me harm. I don’t remember much else happening afterwards, besides the shock of the bait-and-switch.
Applying the same sort of logic as Lynda did to her Gorgon fear, I guess that what I was most terrified of at the time was…having someone I loved replaced with a monster.
What was going on in my life around that time? I lived with both my mother and my aunt - who fought a lot.
I don’t recall any specific fights, but whenever a vicious one brewed, they didn’t particularly tone it down for my sake. I think I was even mentioned in some of them. Now and then I heard yelling, scary yelling, and it was tough seeing two people I loved go at each other like that. I suppose it might be similar to what a child with two fighting parents might feel like. Two people who are usually kind to you, ‘replaced’ with angry doppelgängers.
I am my mother’s daughter, and often felt it was morally right to be ‘on her side’, but I dearly loved my aunt too. I am sure I had questions after the fights, and that my mother and aunt soothed me. And I bet that they each told different stories, from their own perspectives. Confusing, maybe, for a kid. Who was the one telling me the truth, and who was ‘tricking’ me?
I also wonder if my specific monster - the witch - was about a fear of being controlled, manipulated. Witches are known for their invisible magic power to do whatever they want to you. Play with your mind. Send monkeys flying at you. They flit and fly around, brew potions, and they’re tricky, untrustworthy. To a child, the contents of each argument may not have been understandable. But the emotional energy would have been: two people’s wills intermingling, each attempting to ‘win’, to dominate or control the other.
These memories are not, I feel, major traumas in my life. But it must have been jarring, as a small child, to see two people who were often jokey and supportive with each other snap into battle like that. Was the witch at the door my aunt, or my mother? Whose side was the ‘right’ one?
That, my friends, is a question I continue to grapple with today. Maybe that’s why this dream has stayed with me so long. I am often a fence sitter. I look at each person’s side in conflicts, knowing we all carry unique baggage and live in different realities, which can look incomprehensible from one viewpoint or another. To reach across divides, all we can do is break from our subjectivity as often as we can, and seek to understand others’ points of view - just not at the expense of our own happiness or safety.
What was the monster you remember being most afraid of as a kid?
Maybe you needed it. Did it help you process what was going on in your life at the time?
Another excellent article! My 1st, not quite monster, was a giant blonde teddy bear standing at the foot of my bed. I not quite cause it wasn't really scared, but at 5 yrs old, I didn't understand it. My mother asked if I'd said my prayers before bed and I said no, so she told me to do so and it disappeared. Later, there were many scary moments due to films like "Rosemary's Baby" when so many people were afraid of the devil.