When I was younger, my mother always told me that if you're "bad," a dead person would come and pull your legs when you're asleep and I believed it, so I used to sleep with both of my knees bent in a corner where they "couldn't grab me from." I eventually over-came this and didn't notice when.
Watching "America's Most Wanted" scared me, too. Possibilities of a mentioned "criminal" breaking into our home ran through my head.
When I was about four, an aunt used to "baby sit" us (my older sister and I) and she did nothing but hit and scold us, so every time that I woke up while he was getting ready to go to work, I would beg him to stay home. He used to put me back asleep and when I woke up later that morning, I would be excited that he stayed and would run towards him and when I took off the covers, I found nothing but a basketball and some pillows. His head was the basketball and his body were the pillows. Now that I think about it, he used to try to be a good father back then, but he changed. I guess this feel of being left alone was the cause for my not wanting to be left alone on the first day of kindergarten.
"Childhood memories" are more like "childhood traumas."