A survey from the Arcadia medical university's Arcadia Journal of Medicine and Xenobiology.

Humans have the reputation of being the most intimidating, sinister, and aggressive sentient being in the galaxy . Followed closely by Dre they are the most warlike, and are known to be one of only two sentient predator species in the galaxy. However, at this point it is known that human hegemony in these areas only exists off the surface of their own planet.

For the vast majority of human history humans have been the weakest predator species, generally the slowest, least athletic, and easiest target for extra predatorial behavior from other species, It was their pack mentality, and their heightened sense of intelligence that allowed them to survive and develop as a species at all, one again proving the supremacy of intelligence over strength.

Human children are extremely susceptible to predators. They have no natural defense mechanisms, they are slow, clumsy, underdeveloped and have not developed the requisite intelligence to outmatch a pursuer. Human children in general have a horrible understanding of their own safety when it comes to situational awareness. A child will jump out of a tree or into water with no regard for their safety, but they are hyper aware of chase related scenarios involving a predator.

Human children seem to be inherently afraid of the dark, and the creatures that might be hiding in it as a natural mechanism born from years of evolution. This vestigial fear is maintained even today, while children are safe inside their own impregnable homes. This leads to some very interesting patterns of childhood fears which are surprisingly common across groups . Adult humans report having similar fears and experiences when surveyed.

Furthermore, childhood experience is an important factor in human development and if these fears were present while the human was a child, it is also possible that the fear may linger into adulthood.

This information was gathered by way of word of mouth study and contains a few hundred participants. This survey was meant to be a prerequisite to a more in depth analysis later on, but the findings will be published on a preliminary basis due to the interesting nature of the findings.

It must be noted that all participants in the survey where residents of Arcadia, generally ex or acting Arcadian military, most of them have an middle class to upper middle class background, are highly educated, and have experienced some level of trauma as it relates to war.

But now we begin on common childhood fears which seem to be oddly specific among adult humans, some of which have carried over since childhood. Answers were recorded but have been transcribed here for ease of reading.

Answer set 1

"I used to do this as a kid, well honestly I still do it even now, but I have to jump from a few feet away onto my bed when it's dark because I'm scared that the monster under the bed would grab my ankles if I let my feet be too close to the bed. It also means I have to jump off my bed as far as I can to avoid getting too close to the under-the-bed- monster."

- This fear is very common and includes some level of variation including one or both jumping onto or off of the bed. Some include this fear during daytime hours while others only report it at night.

"You know that feeling when you were I the basement and you had to turn the lights off and come up the stairs . Well I used to turn the light off in the basement and run as fast as I could up the stairs because I was sure that the basement monster was chasing me up the stairs and if I didn't run fast enough it would get me."

- This is an extremely common fear likely to exist in adults and generally appears in this form The basement monster apparently only appears when the light is off, and can generally be outrun if you go up the stairs fast enough.

- It most commonly appears when the child is alone and can exist during the day as many basements are dark even during daytime.

- It does not exist as commonly ingroups of children, but may still persist in large groups if the children discuss the existence of the basement monster beforehand .

- A small percentage of the children and adults we surveyed indicated that the basement monster can be combated if one is to walk backwards up the stairs as the creature can only chase you if you can't see it.

"You can't dangle your limbs off the edge of the bed because if you do the under the bed monster is going to grab your hand or feet and drag you under."

"Not just that but I'm afraid if I stick my feet out from under the covers than the monster is going to grab my foot. I can have part of my knee out from under the covers, but my feet must be covered at all times."

- This s also another very common report. The under the bed monster seems to have the ability to grab hands and feet.

- Some say that you have to be all the way on the bed and then it doesn't matter, while others say your feet need to be covered.

- Those who reported that their feet needed to be covered did not tend to have the same rule for hands. Hands were allowed to be out from under the covers in almost all circumstances.

- As a side note, many humans reported the need to wear a blanket at all times, even in extreme heat as a form of comfort.

This fear shows itself in extreme levels with.

"I had to turn off the light and then run and jump on my bed and crawl under the covers completely or the monster would get me."

"If I heard something creak in the house when I was a kid, I would hold the covers over my head because if I didn't move the monster couldn't see me."

"I would lay there and not move and keep my eyes closed because that was the rule. If I couldn't see the monster, than it wasn't allowed to grab me."

- You see the extreme variation on the blanket rule. It seems children seem to think that the covers act as an acceptable barrier between hem and whatever it is they perceive as a threat.

- The response of holding still, and hiding seems to be an innate response in children that might have been adaptive.

- The you can't see me if I can't see you mentality is an interesting behavior common across groups .

"I refuse to look at mirrors when its dark. It used to be worse when I was a kid, but I still sort of do this, but when I was a kid, I would crouch outside of the bathroom and reach in to turn on the lights before I went in. Even as an adult I don't like looking at the mirrors because I am afraid I am going to see bloody marry instead of my own reflection."

"I was always afraid I would see my reflection, but it would be moving differently than me."

"I was always afraid that I would see someone standing behind me."

- The mirror itself seems to be a common theme in human urban legends. This generally involves standing in front of a mirror, chanting a monsters name a few times, and then the monster will show up to kill you. This includes bloody marry and candy man to name just two instances. The use of mirrors is common in horror related films and mythology.

- Mirrors were once considered to be doorways to different planes of existence.

- Many older generations held superstitions around the existence of mirrors and would cover them at night to avoid scrying from witches

- Mirrors would be covered after the death of a family member to avoid that person getting their soul trapped inside.

- There are a slew of mirror related mythologies and horror tropes that include the mirror, so it is no surprise that the mirror features heavily in the childhood fears.

"Facing towards the room is safe but less comfortable. Facing towards the wall is dangerous but more comfortable, because if you can't see the room than the under the bed monster might come get you."

- Here we have an almost complete reversal of the hold still and close your eyes rule. As in this case it seems that the ability to see the room deters the monster from being able to do anything.

"When I was a kid I used to wear a scarf around my head when I sleep because I was worried that a bug was going to crawl into my ear and lay eggs."

"One time I woke up with a house centipede crawling on my face and heading towards my ear. I wore earplugs after that."

- This one is extremely common, but not unfounded like many of the others. Because the human world is such a cesspit of horrors, it actually is possible for a house centipede to crawl into our ear. In fact roaches, earwigs and spiders have been found to do this on occasion. It is not very common, but there might be some truth to this one.

"Every time I would walk into the bathroom , I had to check behind the shower curtain to make sure that no one was hiding behind there with a knife to murder me."

"Mine was the opposite, I was always worried that, while I was in the shower, someone would come around the curtain with a knife and stab me while my eyes were closed shampooing my hair."

- Weirdly enough the bathroom seems to be a focal point for fear related things inside someone's own house. This primarily includes the shower.

- Weather you are inside the shower or outside the shower, there was always a monster ready to stab you without you knowing it.

- There are a few additional shower and bath related fears.

" my brother told me, if I sat in the bath while It was draining, I would be sucked down inside."

"Mine was similar, but I was always told that the drain monster was going to grab my feet and pull me down inside

"I thought the same thing, but when I was little I was sure that flushing the toilet while on it meant I would be sucked down inside."

- Drain related fears don't generally tend to remain into adulthood, but the shower curtain issue is soemthing that is also common in human adults. This might be related to iconic horror movie scenes that include stabbing someone while in the shower as a central theme.

"Closet doors.... Mmm they absolutely have to be shut or that will let the monsters in."

"Point of debate, on the closet door thing. If I can see into my closet, than the monsters can't create a portal to appear and come get me, so it absolutely has to be open."

- Closets ae another focal point for childhood fears, but the jury is still out on weather or not the door is supposed to be opened or closed as there seem to be two camps on this subject.

This is not in itself an exhaustive list of common human childhood fears, but it does raise a few pointed questions.

Why are children so afraid of the monster under their bed? What happened in the collective human past that caused their psychic to project monsters into their most vulnerable places. Though now that I think about it, I wonder if this is an adaptive mechanism. The bedroom and the bathroom seem to be the most common locations for childhood fears, both of which are locations where the human child is at the greatest disadvantage. Sleeping and relieving ones self are those times when an animal is the most vulnerable, so it would make sense that human children would associated both bedrooms and bathrooms with vulnerability and so create scenarios in their heads on how to deal with the inherent dangers associated with these locations.

It is simply a theory of course, but I argue that the representation of fear in the bedroom and bathroom are a manifestation of a child, or adult's response to perceived vulnerability.