Eye twitching
An eye that twitches on its own foretold tears in Native American belief recorded in 1903, and old English writers disagreed on whether an itching right eye meant crying or laughter. The flutter can also show how much you are hoping for.
This page only describes folk beliefs. If the sensation keeps coming back or worries you, please see a doctor.
What it may mean
A twitching eyelid is a strange small sensation: it feels enormous from the inside, while the person across the table rarely notices a thing. Perhaps that is why people have always wanted their eyes to tell them something. In one of the oldest examples, from the Greek poet Theocritus, a lovesick goatherd feels his right eye itch and wonders whether he will soon see the girl he loves. That is how longing works. When you want something badly, every flutter starts to look like a hint, and reading signs can slowly replace the step you could take yourself. Beliefs about twitching itself are gloomier, with tears in Native American lore and misfortune in China, so a hopeful reading may be yours to write.
Depending on how you saw it
Right eye twitching
The old English sayings Brand collected speak of an itching eye rather than a twitching one, and even they could not agree: a writer of 1650 heard joyful laughter in the right eye, while Grose later said it foretold tears. If both are possible, which would you rather prepare for today, and what would help?
Left eye twitching
In Grose's list, which also speaks of itching rather than twitching, the left eye was the laughing one. A flutter on that side is as good a reason as any to look for something funny in a heavy week. What would make you laugh out loud this week, and could you plan it?
A flutter that keeps coming back
A flutter that returns several days in a row starts to feel like a message you are failing to read. The repetition is what makes it seem important. Which thought has been returning to you just as often, asking for a decision?
Why it happens in nature
A flicker or twitch of the eyelid is something most people feel now and then, sometimes for a few seconds and sometimes on and off for days. It often feels much bigger from the inside than it looks to anyone else.
What folk beliefs say
Native American lore
American Indians believed that if the eye twitches on its own, the person will weep.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 1 (1903), vol. 1, p. 338. View the page
England
Grose, quoted by Brand, wrote that when the right eye itches you will shortly cry, and when the left eye itches you will laugh.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, p. 174. View the page
England
Dr. Nathaniel Home, writing in 1650 and quoted by Brand, listed among common beliefs that an itching right eye betokens joyful laughter.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, p. 172. View the page
Ancient Greece
Brand points to the third Idyll of Theocritus, where an itching right eye is a lucky omen for a lover: "My right eye itches now, and shall I see my love?"
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, pp. 172-173. View the page
China
In China, an involuntary movement of the eyelid was taken as a sign of misfortune.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 1 (1903), vol. 1, p. 264. View the page
To reflect on
What are you hoping for so much that small things start to look like signs?