A Little Tickle in Your Throat

Tracy Beckerman
Mon, 16 Feb 2026 21:00:00 -0800
Lifestyle

I recently read that the average person will ingest eight spiders in his or her lifetime.

Apparently, this happens when we are sleeping, which would make sense, because I don't know anyone in their right mind who would choose to eat a spider when they're conscious, except maybe my dog.

While this might explain that full feeling I sometimes have when I wake up, I was reluctant to believe that even one spider would willingly climb into bed with me and take a kamikaze dive into my mouth. I've smelled my morning breath. It would kill anything smaller than an elephant upon impact.
Updated: Tue Feb 17, 2026

I recently read that the average person will ingest eight spiders in his or her lifetime.

Apparently, this happens when we are sleeping, which would make sense, because I don't know anyone in their right mind who would choose to eat a spider when they're conscious, except maybe my dog.

While this might explain that full feeling I sometimes have when I wake up, I was reluctant to believe that even one spider would willingly climb into bed with me and take a kamikaze dive into my mouth. I've smelled my morning breath. It would kill anything smaller than an elephant upon impact.

Moreover, being a light sleeper, I'm pretty sure I would wake up if I felt someone or something tickling my tongue. It's just not the kind of thing you can continue to sleep through. I have to imagine that somewhere in the deep recesses of my sleeping mind, it would register that a spider was crawling into my mouth, and before you could say "Charlotte's Web," I'd be wide awake and spitting that sucker across the bedroom floor.

This is not to say that I haven't accidentally eaten a few bugs over the years. I distinctly remember the joy of flying down a big hill on my bike when I was kid, and then the feeling of pure horror as a bug flew into my mouth and down my throat. I had no idea what kind of bug it was, other than the knowledge that it buzzed and crunched before it went down. Distraught, I told my mother, who responded that it was just a little extra protein in my diet that day.

Still, it's one thing to inadvertently inhale a beetle, and quite another to find out that an army of spiders are playing tonsil hockey with you on their way down to your stomach.

Since I do not believe everything I read on the internet, I decided to do a little research into the matter to help allay my fears.

The first site I checked said we swallow four spiders in our lifetime.

That was better but still not great news.

The second site I checked said the number was closer to 20. After reading that, I felt compelled to wash my mouth out with Listerine and lie down with a cool washcloth across my head. But then I was worried I might fall asleep and swallow a spider, so I got up and went back on the internet.

Another site said we swallow a pound of spiders over our lifetime. According to the site, that would be about 20,000 average-sized house spiders. I decided this information must be flawed. If we had 20,000 spiders in our house, I wouldn't BE in the house long enough to swallow them.

I finally decided to check out Snopes.com, the go-to site for verification of urban myths.

According to them, the whole thing is a made-up crock of arachnids.

Flies, however, are another thing.