Don't touch your face while you sleep!

Okay, so, this is a weird one. At first, I thought I was wrong. I thought, "Maybe it wasn't this". I thought maybe if I changed my diet for the better, maybe if I drank more water before going to bed, something would help. But no, it didn't help. So instead, another thought occured. "Hey! Why not test this theory out fully?" So, I plucked up the courage in order to see for myself. I tried this two or three different times on purpose, and I have to say this. Don't touch your face while sleeping!

Like I said, a weird one. But let me explain. First of all, this is just my own personal experience I had while trying to sleep for the past few years now, and not everyone is the same in this regard. Here's some backstory. Ever since I was young, I've always had very vivid dreams that I can remember very fondly, which I felt very blessed for. But the same could also be said for my nightmares. Whether it be a shark attack in a murky swimming pool, the Moon talking in a GLaDOS voice, falling from a great height, sleep paralysis demons etc, I remembered them all and they left their usual negative impact, as most nightmares tend to do. But why? Why did these nightmares occur? For the most part, I just went along with it, as everybody does after dreaming, good or bad. They have their own personal dreams, get happy or scared when waking up, then move on, this is the standard. But then, in my teenage years after waking up from a nightmare that left its usual impact, a thought occured. "Don't move."

This was important. I woke up from the bad dream still fresh in my mind, with me lying there as normal. Why? Why did it occur now? What was my body doing differently compared to all other nights of sleep? So instead of moving my body around to see what the cause was, I moved only my eyes and my senses. There was nothing too special about the way I was sleeping, I slept on one of my side as usual. But then, I moved my eyes again. My face was lying on my hand. Now, this was odd. I've seen in films as well as real life that this was normal. At first, I didn't think much of it. "This was a fluke, it was just another random nightmare", I thought to myself. Then, another night later, I looked around again, and there was my hand. Right on my face. This was weird. I was sleeping on my other side that night. Was it really that simple? Are my hands really causing me to sleep like this? It was in that moment I thought, "I need to test this". The first part of the test was simple: Put both hands away from your face, either under your pillow or covered by the dovet. I slept and...no nightmares. Really? Was this another fluke? I needed to be sure. The next part needed courage. I mean, who wants to intentionally give themselves a nightmare? If so, why multiple to see if they're right? Answer: This guy.

Three times. I tried this theory twice as a teenager and once as an adult. All three results were the same. Vivid, vivid nightmares. Trust me when I say, I've tried Google searching this. Recently too. Not much has been shown regarding this topic. The usual results are usually "What your sleep position says about you", or, "How not to touch your face or it causes damage to it". Not much else. Heck, I tried wearing a sleep mask and it still didn't produce the same results. This was one of those things growing up that was just something I noticed out of sheer curiosity, wanting to see what my whole body was doing after sleeping and how something could have been off to see an end result. To finish this off, if you're brave enough to try this on purpose to see if it's real for you too, give it a go. If not, good night, sleep tight, and don't let your face to hand give you a fright.