I don’t know if you would call it an irrational fear, perhaps of all my childhood terrors it was the most well founded, but I always had a heathy terror of what science gone wrong could inflict upon me.  I think part of that was the era I grew up in, where they basically taught us to get under our desks in a nuclear attack and enjoy the wonder of reaching a billion degrees kelvin in the blink of an eye.

Disneyland was the most important place in the world to me as a child.  It was a once-a-year (sometimes two if I was very lucky) treat that required weeks of pouring over my treasured guidebooks, preparing just the right order of attack to make sure I hit every single ride in the ticket books, but there was one ride which was never on my list of things to do…Adventure Through Inner Space.

Yep, that was the big fit-causing, screamfest of terror if my parents even tried to pull me through the door.  The spoiler of the perfect Disneyland day, and cause of many nightmares.

For our younger readers who go to Disneyland 4 or 5 times a week to ride to enjoy the teacups and then leave, you might not quite understand, unless you imagine the times you have had to go for an entire day with Aunt (fill in the blank) and her family from out of town (and they just have to do every single ride in one day…ugh!!!) and then they come to Space Mountain, or Thunder Mountain, or heaven forbid Tower of Terror…The “no! no! no! no! no!” ride that even the mention of a potential trip upon makes your heart race and your eyes wide with fear.

So for those who didn’t ride it,  just what was Adventure Through Inner Space?  Well you know where Star Tours is now in Disneyland?  Do you know there was something there before it?  No not the other Star Tours with Captain Rex, even further back.  Yep once upon a time that same space was home to a scientific horror atrocity that took entire families, shrunk them down before my very eyes, and shot them microscopically into evil looking snowflakes, NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN!

Perception is reality right?  So imagine a small 5 or 6 year old child staring into the tiny pre-show line queue of this  particular attraction, watching people happily boarding Atom Mobiles, as an ominous sounding narration (Paul Frees) booms overhead:  ” YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE: This is the tracking procedure of an adventure through inner space. Adventurous men of science who have made this journey before you are carefully plotting every phase of this incredible journey as you shrink beyond the smallness of an atom: the smallest building block of matter. We wish you an enlightening experience. For though your body will shrink, your mind will expand.”

And these Atom Mobiles keep entering the large lens of a gigantic microscope, (again with people seeming to be gleefully happy doing so) and a moment later I see the same people at the tiny top end of the microscope continuing to journey forward on now much tinnier Atom Mobiles, until they disappear through the eye of a very, very, very tiny (in perspective) needle. 

What hath man wrought upon the earth?!?!?  How could my beloved Mr. Disney allow such an obvious end to guests in his park, and how freaking crazy is humanity to not only follow the meandering path down to the precipice of this perversion of science; to this “Mighty Microscope” of doom?!?!?

There was no microscope on the other end of the room where people were returning to normal size and exiting, NOT that it would have made it any better for me, I knew things went wrong with science experiments all the time…it would be just my luck to end up stuck forever the size of an atom!!!!

No this was a one way ride that even terrified me when I rode above it on my beloved Peoplemover.

This fear lasted with me a long time.   As I got older and would plan my yearly trip, I would tell my parents, that I would be brave this time, that it wouldn’t be the huge fight this year, that I thought I was finally ready to face my annihilation at Disney with the dignity an 8 year old should be prepared to face his imminent demise with.

Eventually I did, and the “trick” was experienced first hand, and I wasn’t afraid of that experience anymore.  It seemed very brave at the time, and I can still remember my pounding heartbeat the first time the safety bar came down and the car approached the gigantic microscope entrance.

It was definitely one of my most intense, and remembered gateway scares.