» Eating spiders while asleep myth

Its almost an urban legend -or myth-, that someone eats a spider while being asleep. But, real?

Facts show that spiders do climb onto the beds when hunting by night while human are sleeping. They go in search for insects, but not humans, of course. Yet spiders bite humans in their sleep, because people move while sleeping and roll onto them (more in Why spider bite while human is sleeping ). Now, spiders do hide in small dark places, specially holes, and the thing is a mouth wide open when being asleep just appears as a good place to hide. That is true, but wait; first of all, we are breathing. That is hot air going in and out from our mouth, and the spiders know --in the way spiders can know something-- that such hole is not a place to be safe. There is also another thing : despite the fact that a person can be asleep, the inside of the mouth is real sensitive, and anything with legs crawling into our tongue is really enough to make us wake up. Even if awake does not happen, we will probably push back the spider with the tongue, or close the mouth inmediatly when something is over our face, or take it off with a sleepy hand.

So, chances of eating a spider while asleep ? REALLY LOW, unless you are very hungry.

Read more about this in our eating spiders while asleep myth interview.

Myth : eating a spider while sleeping