I have enjoyed reading Phantom Cat stories here. My personal experience has been somewhat disturbing.
Phantom Cats are not new to me, but I never called them that before now. I have felt them for many years, and occasionally seen one out of the corner of my eye. At first, they were more surprising than disturbing. I thought it was kind of neat! I was not disturbed at all. However, this has recently changed.
Several weeks ago, for the first time in a while, I began to feel the Phantom Cats again. In addition, I was again seeing the "creepy crawlies" in shadows. They are like Daddy Long Legs, but with hundreds of legs, kind of fuzzy and legs wiggling. They grow. I have never seen them leave the shadows, but I do see them on the periphery.
Well, when I began to feel the "cats" once more, it quickly progressed to feeling like the "creepy Crawlies" were climbing on to my feet and lower legs - that's what I thought anyway. There were multiple ones at the same time. They would bite my toes, and I could feel it very acutely, and with associated pain. I was scared of them.
I tried praying them away, I would "kick" them off, but they would persistently return. They would only go away if I were to fall asleep.
I thought perhaps this was some psychosis associated with peripheral neuropathy. As such, I tried taking more Gabapentin at bedtime. At first, I thought it was helping. That did not last long, and they returned in force.
I literally thought I may be possessed by some evil spirit. These incidents even began to occur when I was sitting or lying in my recliner and would move with me if I got up and walked around. At times I felt a heaviness from the creatures, and always a sense of feet of some kind walking on my lower extremities.
One night, I though "Oh my goodness - they're Cats! We once had a cat that would nibble at my toes at night. This, I thought, was an exacerbation of that. I felt much better, thinking these were phantom cats rather than the creepy crawlies.
To stop the biting, I began to wear shoes to bed, but that did not help. I could still feel the bites. I just wanted it to stop. I tried taking a sedative and holding off on getting in the bed until I was very nearly passed out. That helped, but sedatives tend to work a very long time with me, and I would oversleep.
I feel I am back to square one. I am afraid to get into my bed or recliner. I am experiencing progressive sleep deprivation and psychologically I'm screwed. I fear discussing it with my doctor for fear of being locked up or something. I'm not generally "crazy" - but this is slowly eating at me, and it is only getting worse by the day. I do not know what to do. Tonight, it started in my bed, so I moved to the recliner. They followed me. It seems this time there were even more cats than usual, and they followed me when I got up and went to the kitchen for a snack. That has never happened before. That's why I am writing this, hoping for some advice.
I am in agreement with the others on this one, I think it would be wise to get checked out medically to be safe. The fact that these encounters as uncomfortable as they are, cease when you sleep makes me think it may be something more physical.
You can always have a just a candid discussion with your Dr during an exam, you don't have to tell him what you've seen in your peripheral vision, or what you think it is in paranormal terms, just tell him you are having sensations on your legs that feel like somethings crawling on you and sensations akin to being bitten with the associated pain. I highly doubt they're going to think you're ready for the rubber room if you stick to what's going on physically. As it's been stated so well in other replies, there are biological reactions that produce these effects as well.
I'm not saying it's not supernatural/paranormal, but my feeling is there's a physical component to this that needs to be addressed and hopefully will resolve the problem. Good Luck!