The Sandman...

As a youngling I would try and stay up as late as I could and for no good reason except to just stay up. My mother would tell me that if I didn’t go to bed that the Sandman would come and sprinkle sand in my eyes. This absolutely terrified me. I would bolt up and run to my bed. My heart pounding in my ears. My body trembling from the sheer terror of the thought of a stranger sprinkling sand in my eyes. I specifically remember a moment that will stick with me forever. I was pushing the envelope of the witching hour really hard. My mother would insist that I go to bed. I always protested. Finally, she said that the Sandman would soon come. Again, I protested. This would continue for a while. Then I heard a knock at the front door. I don’t think my feet hit the floor once as I flew into my bedroom. Later in life my mother would explain to me that she had never known any child as terrified of the sandman as I was. She told me that the sandman was a gentle person and that he only brought happy dreams and a good night sleep. I thought she was full of crap! She used my fear to her advantage and it worked!

According to folklore and my mother:
The Sandman is a character in popular Western folklore who brings good sleep and dreams by sprinkling magic sand onto the eyes of children. Traditionally he is a character in many children's stories, invoked to help (or lull) children to sleep. He is said to sprinkle sand or dust on or into the eyes of the child at night to bring on dreams and sleep. The grit or 'sleep' (rheum) in one's eyes upon waking is supposed to be the result of the Sandman's work the previous evening.

And the following is what I believed:
E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote an inverse depiction of the lovable character in a story called Der Sandmann, which showed how sinister such a character could be made. According to the protagonist's nurse, he threw sand in the eyes of children who wouldn't sleep, with the result of those eyes falling out and being collected by the Sandman, who then takes the eyes to his iron nest on the moon, and uses them to feed his children. The protagonist of the story grows to associate this nightmarish creature with the genuinely sinister figure of his father's associate Coppelius.

I have grown out of my fear of the Sandman. My brother makes fun of me from time to time about this but then I inform him that at least I was not terrified of E.T.!