Things They Should Study: why are there monsters under the bed and how did they get there?

When I was little, my furniture turned into monsters at night. Sure, it sat very very still, but I knew it was a monster and I knew it was going to get me. The cabinet in the downstairs bathroom also turned into a monster if I blurred my eyes a certain way, and ALL the furniture in my baby sister's room (where my parents would sometimes send me as a punishment because there were no interesting toys in there, unlike my room) was turned into monsters at all times, even during the day. (No, I never questioned why the baby was kept in a room with monsters. I was too young to see a baby as something that needed protecting.) When I started elementary school there was no respite from the monsters. Some of the toilets had monsters in them, and this wisdom was carefully handed down over the years. I'll bet you anything that if you asked a current student at my former elementary school which toilet the toilet monster lives in, she'll say the last one on the right-hand side.

When you're a kid, there are monsters everywhere. Under the bed, in the closet, we know this. When you were reading me describe my childhood monsters, you probably weren't thinking I was a completely delusional loony. You probably know that they aren't there now because I'm a grown-up, but there were very much real when I was a child. Sure, they didn't actually get me and I never actually saw them move, but they were real.

But why do children have monsters? How did this come about? Is it cultural or evolutionary? Do all children in all cultures have monsters? If so, what evolutionary purpose does it serve? If not all cultures have monsters, which ones don't and why not? Why do we have them?

Life should be scarier now than it was when I was a child. I know, in more specific detail than I've ever wanted to, about things like torture, rape, and war crimes. If there's a phobia trigger, no one is going to rescue me. My grownups can't solve all my problems - in fact, we're getting frighteningly close to the point where they can't solve any problems that I can't already solve for myself. I'm well aware that my financial resources are finite and competence and hard work aren't enough to earn a living. The number of people in the world who actively want me to be safe is so small I could probably type up a list of names, and the number of people in the world who directly or indirectly want to do harm to me seems to be bigger every time I turn around.

But I don't have any monsters, and generally live in less fear that I did back when my dresser turned into a monster. So why did we have that omnipresent but nonspecific fear back when we were kids, and why do very real and specific fears seem to chase it away?