The Totally Real (and Totally Not) Fears of Our Youth

Now we worry about adult stuff... which totally sucks!

Designed by John Toma - Nostalgia Nation

We faced some “serious” threats as kids. Forget nuclear war (though, that was an actual real scary thing), our biggest worries involved creatures from the deep, shadowy government conspiracies, and substances that could swallow you whole.  And Soviets… we can’t forget about Soviet invading forces!

I think it’s important we revisit these existential crises that kept us up at night and haunted our dreams... and day dreams.

Quicksand

Quicksand. Just the word conjures images of slow, agonizing suffocation, a fate sealed by slowly sinking into a viscous, inescapable trap. Thanks to countless cartoons, adventure movies, and maybe even a particularly dramatic scene from The Princess Bride— and even a more dramatic (and traumatic) one from The Neverending Story (although that was a swamp), we believed that quicksand was a legitimate threat, lurking in every seemingly innocent sandy patch.  We pictured ourselves, à la Indiana Jones, struggling hopelessly against its relentless pull, our cries for help muffled by the sucking sands.  The reality?  While unpleasant and potentially dangerous, true quicksand is relatively rare, and escaping it is far easier than Hollywood would have you believe (though, still, probably best to avoid it).