Salvador Dali May Have Had Ekbom Syndrome

The famous Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí wrote in his autobiography about having what he thought were bed bugs on his body while he was staying at a hotel room in Paris back in 1926. Although it hadn't been identified as a diagnosable syndrome until after Dalí's time, the psychosis of someone thinking that bugs are crawling on their skin is called delusory parasitosis, also known as Ekbom syndrome.

The famous Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí wrote in his autobiography about having what he thought were bed bugs on his body while he was staying at a hotel room in Paris back in 1926.

Dalí wrote that he saw the bugs crawling on the ceiling before he fell asleep, and after waking, checked his body for bugs or bites, and believed he found one burrowed into his back.

He dug it out with a razor, and the doctor was called to the hotel only to tell Dalí what he had already realized - there were no bugs on him, or in his bed.

Although it hadn't been identified as a diagnosable syndrome until after Dalí's time, the psychosis of someone thinking that bugs are crawling on their skin is called delusory parasitosis, also known as Ekbom syndrome.

They will often go to several medical experts when they are told that the bugs are not real.

When asked for proof of whatever is crawling on them, people who suffer from this syndrome will collect lint or dust and put it into envelopes or baggies, believing it to be the evidence of something crawling on them.

Do you know of anyone who suffers from this syndrome?