So I am sitting in front of my computer and working when I suddenly notice a little fly in front of my eyes. The fly lands on my laptop, I try to scare it away, it starts to fly around again and then it happens! I experience something I have experienced so many times before. I feel an itchy sensation in my hair, my neck and from there it moves further down to my arms and my back
And I think to myself, am I crazy?! Why am I scratching myself when the fly didnt even land on me. So I decide to do a google search to see if that is normal and why is it happening. I was quite surprised when I found out that the itchy sensation you get when seeing or even talking about bugs is very common and frankly, very normal.
"A recent study conducted by the University of Manchester found that visual cues such as being shown an image of an ant or a bug bite can provoke an itch response in people, even if they havent felt a thing. In fact, you may not even need to see the itch-inducing stimulus, as the same study found that just seeing another person scratch can make viewers feel that they also have an itch to scratch, suggesting that itching, like yawning, may be a socially contagious response.
A small group of test subjects were shown neutral pictures, like butterflies, as well as images connected to things connected to an itch response, like ants or insect bites. While pictures of butterflies didnt generally set people to scratching, photographs of bug bites were found to leave people with an itchy sensation, even if the real thing was nowhere to be found. Just the visual stimulus was often enough to provoke an itchy feeling and a scratch response in subjects".
"Dr. Glenn Giesler, Jr. is a neuroscientist from the University of Minnesota, and he believes we always have tiny sensations on our skin that feel slightly itchy, but we only notice them when were thinking about the feelings - or about the creepy-crawlies that can cause them. In fact, whenever Dr. Giesler gives a lecture about itching, hes amused because most of the audience starts scratching".
Do you feel like you have to scratch yourself when you see a fly or when you think about a fly or when you see another person scratch himself?
Sources:
https://www.themarysue.com/seeing-bugs-causes-itch/https://www.tesh.com/articles/does-the-thought-of-bugs-make-you-feel-itchy-all-over/