"scary, old, yucky toys"

The last few nights at home, Dylan has been waking up several times at night and crawling in bed with us. The first night he told me he was scared of Nemo’s eyes. The next night he said he had a bug in his bed, so we used our “bug detector” otherwise known as a cell phone, to scan his bed…(we thought it would work but it only lasted a few hours until he climbed back into bed with us). Tonight however, he said he was scared of ALL the animals and their eyes. So, I took them all out of his room hoping he would stay in his bed this time. Not a chance. He quickly started crying because behind the door (the closet) there were “scary, old, yucky toys”. I figured he was talking about maybe one or two toys, but of course when I opened the closet he got up and pointed to practically everything saying they were scary, old and yucky, and to put them in the hall with his animals (they are all hand me downs but they are clean and in perfect shape, and Dylan plays with them every day). As I was talking to Dylan about his toys I asked him, “do you want me to throw them away since you don’t want them anymore?” He said, “no I want them, Santa is going to come and get my old, yucky toys and make them new”. I then told him this was not going to happen, to which he sternly said, “Santa is coming mommy!”.

So my question is where on earth do kids get this? How does Dylan know what is old and what is new? Since when does that bother him, especially with toys? And more importantly, why is he scared of these toys? I totally remember being scared of my stuffed animals and dolls, but wasn’t that during the Chuckie phase, and wasn't I way older? I had a reason to be scared and that was because I saw a crazy movie where a crazy doll came alive and ate you in your sleep. So what is Dylan’s reason for being scared? He has never seen or heard of Chuckie. Could it be Toy Story and the crazy kid next door who makes the toys all freaky looking? Should I not let him watch that movie anymore?

Whatever the answer is, we now have a ton of toys sitting in the hallway with no place for them to go. Any suggestions? Am I really not going to have toys in his closet or in his room anymore…that is absurd!