Does the average person swallow eight spiders over the course of one year?

Posted 01-15-2010 6:00 am by
Have you ever heard the rumor that the average person swallows up to eight spiders a year in their sleep?  If you haven't, consider yourself lucky and don't start to panic because this is more than likely untrue.

A book was written in 1954 about insect folklore and contained this myth, and many versions of this myth that are passed around imply that you are swallowing these spiders while you are sleeping.  Creepy, huh?  In 1993, Lisa Holst wrote a magazine article describing how this swallowing spiders idea was a myth, “a ridiculous belief that someone would actually believe.”  In a classic myth-spinning form, people quote her article as a source documenting that people really do swallow spiders every year (even though that is the exact opposite of what she said in her article).

But how do we know that the average person does not swallow eight creepy crawlers per year?  Is there any way we can prove that this does not happen?  Unfortunately, there is not.  There are no studies that prove this does not happen, although there are also no studies to prove that this does in fact happen either.  Without any science or evidence, there is no reason to believe that this is actually happening. 

So how come we don't routinely swallow spiders in our sleep?  First of all, people roll around in their sleep.  This rolling around would probably scare the spiders from coming anywhere close to your face.  Second, you would need to have your mouth open, and not everyone sleeps with their mouth open.  Third, insect experts tell us that spiders, instinctively flee from open, breathing mouths.  Obviously spiders don't want to be eaten and will avoid this at any cost.  Finally, the spider would have to walk into your mouth and stay there in such a way that your swallowing reflex was triggered. 

Still, some people will claim that a spider could fall into your mouth.  What if it was hanging from the ceiling just above your mouth?  The odds of this happening are also incredibly small.  Your mouth is a relatively small target for a spider to hit randomly.  Before you begin to worry that eight spiders are going into your stomach every ear through your nose, it's even more unlikely that you would swallow them in this way than if they chose to crawl into your mouth. 

So, it is possible that you have swallowed a spider, perhaps even more than one.  But it is extremely unlikely that you have swallowed eight in the last year.  It is a total myth all around. 

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