Earwigs crawl into your ears

I used to freak out when I saw an earwig in my house because I thought that in the night he would crawl up my bed and go into my ear, then lay it's eggs in my brian and I would die because the baby earwigs ate my brain. Weeeeird.

Bella

When I was little I was deathly afraid of earwigs. I always called them "Pincher bugs" and thought they would crawl into your ear and eat their way through your eardrum and into your brain, and eventually consume your entire brain.

Mmm... eardrum... tasty

I used to believe when I was little that those little bugs with the pinchers on the end of their tail called earwigs would crawl up into your ear and live in there and kill you.

anglgrl0077

I used to believe that earwigs (those little pincher bugs) would crawl into your ear while you were sleeping and eat your brain! Needless to say, i slept every night with the covers over my ears.

skybluegirl

Earwigs crawl into your ears when your not looking and make nests in your brain.

Anon

I used to believe the earwig one as well (the one where they would crawl into your ears and lay eggs etc).
And Amy (below), no it isn't true.

Tim

My Dad used to tell me that earwigs (the insect)would climb into your ear to have their babies then eat holes in your brain.....I still believe that and I am 32 years old...this isnt true is it?

Amy

My sister told me earwigs crawled into your ears and ate your brain.To this day I still get nervous when I feel a tickle in my ear canal.

Cat

I was told by an elderly relative that Earwigs would crawl inside your ear when you were asleep and eat its way into your brain. Living on a farm where there are heaps of these horrible things, I was terrified if I saw one. Even now at 67 I cannot stand them.

Mandy M.

I once saw a Twilight Zone where a bug was put in someone's ear and it crawled in and layed eggs that ate the guy's brains. I assumed that earwigs were those bugs, and I still can't stand the sight of them.

Jon

I used to believe that earwigs would crawl into your ear and bite your brain. I finally figured out when I was 12 or 13 my Grandad told me that to keep me out of his garden!

Dee

My Nana told us as kids that earwigs crawled into your ear and ate through your brain before emerging out the other ear. Me and my brother would tease them by lying on the laundry floor with an ear on the lino. Very brave (or so we thought).
Nana also said that ticks burrow into you and lay eggs under your skin. I believed this until a Wilderness camp instructor got the s***s with me for making my fellow campers hysterical with the news.

Anon

When I was a kid, I was told that earwigs can only crawl forwards, not backwards. If they got inside your ear they could end up eating through your brain, because they can only go forwards. To this day I still believe it.

Anon

When I was a kid, we used to get earwigs in the house all the time. I thought that they were called earwigs because they'd crawl in your ear and eat your brain - this gave me NUMEROUS nightmares. One day when I was in my teens, Dad brought home a load of corn for canning. As I was husking the corn, I kept finding earwigs in ears of corn and all of a sudden, I realized that the bugs must be called earwigs because they were often found in ears of corn.

Still don't like them though and I don't EVEN want to tell you how many nightmares I had when Khan put the bugs in Checkov's ear in the movie The Wrath of Khan!

Pamela B.

I believed that the insects earwigs would crawl up inside your ears and into your brain when you were asleep in bed

Cathy