Do you lie awake at night and see large, hairy beings, their eyes the size of the moon, leaping out of the wardrobe and looming over you

Do you walk into dark spaces and feel the presence of ghostly apparitions ready to make deep-throated noises before they turn your epiglottis into carpaccio

Do I sound like I am talking to a 6-year-old This is because many children endure such fears. However, perhaps you too, still suffer from such traumas.

Might I offer you the potential of a remedy Please begin by clutching your iPhone and availing yourself of a Monster Meter.

This thoughtful and much-needed item claims on iTunes that it can offer "undeniable proof that there are no monsters under the bed." Well, now. The truth is that monsters can leap from any given nook, cranny, or, in one movie I happened upon, granny. So Monster Meter had better be efficacious in every corner.

You might think that this app is a very shallow way to fool your child (or yourself) into believing there's nothing untoward toward the window sill. However, Monster Meter promises four monster detection technologies, each seeming to offer a different emphasis on the axis between levity and gravity.

There is, for example, a Green Meter, which the makers describe as "playful, yet serious." Like Renee Zellweger, I suppose. But then there's the Metal Meter, something that is described as a "more serious looking meter for serious monster finding".

The makers emphasize that Monster Meter is designed to help your kids feel safer by seeing on an iPhone screen that there are no otherworldly gorillas in their midst.

But there are surely adults, too, who might keep their Monster Meter close at hand.

Politicians, for example, could use one before stepping into a room that might contain hidden adversaries, like the troubled ghosts of Richard Nixon, FDR, or Machiavelli.

Actors, too, might wave their Monster Meters around before stepping into their trailers. There is surely something very comforting about knowing that the spirit of monster actors such as Orson Welles or Mel Gibson isn't lurking, ready to interfere with the final polish you give your lines.