I finally looked up how many spiders the average person swallows in their sleep

I mean, I've heard that one my whole life, that you eat like eight spiders a year in your sleep. I was telling my kid about it last night and decided to actually check. Turns out, it's a total myth made up online to show how fast fake facts spread. The number zero came up a lot in the articles I read. It felt like a tiny win to kill that old story for good. Has anyone else had a common myth they believed that turned out to be totally made up?

3 comments

3 Comments

julia_lee1mo agoMost Upvoted

Good call looking that up, it's wild how these things stick around. @joelwells, that brain myth is another classic example of fake facts that sound just believable enough. Always worth a quick search before you pass stuff on, lol.

joelwells1mo ago

My whole life I believed we only use ten percent of our brains.

sullivan.finley1mo ago

Wait, is it really that big a deal to believe that stuff? I mean, we all heard it growing up. Julia Lee is right that it's fake, but it's not like it hurts anyone. It's just one of those things that sounds cool and sticks in your head. I don't think it's worth stressing over who believed it.