After testimony on "WWM?" Do we really eat "thousands of spiders in our sleep"?
Many people are familiar with the urban myth that we swallow spiders unnoticed in our sleep. Now the rumor has even been a topic on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" - but is there really anything behind it?
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- The myth that people swallow "thousands of spiders" in their sleep was discussed on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?".
- Myth or truth? Spiders avoid the human mouth because breathing, snoring and movements tend to deter them rather than attract them.
- Although spiders have occasionally been discovered in human ears, there are no documented cases of spiders being swallowed during sleep.
"Who wants to be a millionaire?" contestant Florian Lorenz won 64,000 euros in the last edition of the RTL quiz show. However, this won't help him much with a personal fear - Lorenz says he suffers from arachnophobia.
With this aversion, which describes the fear of spiders, the contestant is probably not an isolated case. Many people are afraid of the small (or larger) eight-legged creatures. Lorenz explained to Jauch that his partner regularly has to remove spiders from the house for him. And that's not all: "I don't want them in the garden either. They run back into the house where it's nice and warm," said the contestant. "I want to be there, I want to see the body too."
Finally, he talked about a famous myth that shouldn't make his life with a fear of spiders any easier: "I saw on 'Galileo' that thousands of spiders crawl into your mouth when you're asleep."
Jauch wanted to verify this directly by asking the audience to stand up if they had already experienced something like this. No one responded, but Lorenz pointed out: "You sleep at night too."
"Urban myth" or true horror story?
But is the myth true? According to the source Lorenz cited in the ProSieben program, it is not. In an article from June 2024, the science magazine "Galileo" emphasizes that the scenario is an "urban myth". And it also directly explains why.
According to the TV report, people are not really interested in spiders: "They probably see us as part of the landscape".
If we lie there with our mouths open while sleeping, breathing in and out or even snoring, the spiders are more likely to be put off by this. If a specimen did get into our mouths, the animals would most likely flee again immediately, as they would be in mortal danger. But ...
Spiders don't crawl into our mouths, but - very rarely - into our ears
Humans, too, would probably not miss something crawling across their face, even during a deep sleep. If an insect were to get into our mouth or even our throat, we would react with a cough. Science also gives the all-clear. According to the ProSieben knowledge magazine, a team from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture has already looked into the subject and assures us that there is "not a single case documented in the scientific or medical literature in which a person has eaten a spider in their sleep."
However, there is one small catch - and it is unlikely to reassure people with arachnophobia. Because, as "Galileo" explains, there have been cases - albeit very rare ones - in which spiders have crawled into a person's ear.
