Very often, when I lie in bed at night waiting for sleep, I'll feel a sudden tickle or itch, mostly on my face. I'll try to ignore it for a while, but eventually I just can't stand it any more and scratch madly, waking myself and re-setting the 'pre-sleep mode'. I've often wondered why this happens, and last night it occurred to me to ask AI. I proposed three possible reasons and asked which is the likeliest:
#1. Motes of dust falling on my face;
#2. Just random firing of nerve endings;
#3. Skin mites
Well, AI rejected both #1 and #3 and chose #2 as the explanation. While dust particles are landing on us continuously and we live with skin mites all our lives, they are far too small and light to be detected by our mechanoreceptors. And although random nerve firings are also occurring all the time, they cause only low-level sensations and during the hours of activity there are too many distractions occupying our attention for us to notice them, for the most part. It's only when things are quiescent and most external stimuli are absent that we finally notice them.
Even though I've always known all humans carry microscopic mites ("mite motes"?) living in their hair follicles (daily showers will not get rid of them; they are as much a part of us as are intestinal bacteria), nevertheless I was relieved to know that my nocturnal itching was not caused by tiny bugs crawling around on my face.
Subsequently I looked up "skin mites" and found this lovely meme:
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