Do We Really Swallow Spiders in Our Sleep?

You may have heard that we swallow eight spiders a year in our sleep, but is that really true? We debunk this myth in today's episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/arachnids/do-we-swallow-spiders-in-sleep.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff, lorn Boga bam here. Have you ever heard
that we humans swallow an average of eight spiders each
year while we sleep, or that the average person swallows
fifty two spiders over the course of a lifetime. These

(00:22):
so called facts are so widespread that it may be
hard to believe that they're completely inaccurate. The fact is,
the odds of swallowing even a single spider over your
entire lifetime are so low that their virtually zero. It's
extremely unlikely that a spider would even approach a sleeping human,
much less crawl into their open mouth and wait to die.

(00:46):
While just one in four people admit to a fear
of spiders and insects, spiders are generally much more afraid
of you than you are of them. Think about it.
The spider uses vibrations to sense danger, as sleep in
human is nothing but noise and vibration, from your breath
and heartbeat to tossing and turning, to snores, snorts, and

(01:07):
other sounds. Everything about a human even at rest, signals
for spiders to steer clear, giving them no incentive to
creep into your bed during the night. They prefer to
hang out in quiet, unoccupied parts of the home and
spend their time attending to their webs. Um But what
if you happen to come into contact with a spider

(01:27):
whose ability to sense vibrations is off. Sure, it's possible
that a spider that was going against every natural instinct
could find its way into your mouth, but it's still
extremely unlikely. At First, you'd have to have your mouth
open while you snooze, which is far from a universal trait. Next,
you'd have to find a way to sleep through the

(01:48):
sensation of a spider crawling its way across your face
and into your mouth. Finally, you'd have to actually swallow
while sleeping, which is not automatically going to happen. Hopefully,
the spider would change its mind or get bored and
crawl back out of your mouth before the stars got
align enough for all of these events to occur. There

(02:10):
is not a single reliable report anywhere in the scientific
or medical literature to prove that anyone has ever swallowed
a spider while sleeping, much less eight per year. That
being said, you absolutely can eat spiders. Your body will
digest it just like any other food that you eat.

(02:31):
Cambodian cuisine includes a dish of fried tarantula that's said
to taste a bit like fried prawns. Today's episode is
based on the article do we really Swallow Spiders in
our sleep? On how stuffworks dot Com? Written by Bambi Turner.
Brain Stuff is productive by Heart Radio in partnership with
how stuff works dot Com and is produced by Tyler

(02:53):
glen Or. More podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
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