It’s a thought that strikes fear into arachnophobes everywhere – swallowing spiders in your sleep.

The idea that we eat eight spiders a year has been doing the rounds for decades but there’s good news for all of us who find that thought stomach-churning.

It’s an urban myth.

It turns out that, we actually don’t eat any spiders in our sleep at all.

The truth is that spiders have no interest in climbing into our beds let alone our gaping mouths.

According to Scientific American, the myth goes against biology.

The eight-legged beasties like to live in places where there is prey and, unless you have an infestation of bed bugs, they are not interested in your bed.

Biologist Bill Shear, former president of the American Arachnological Society, said: “Spiders regard us much like they’d regard a big rock.

“We’re so large that we’re really just part of the landscape.”

Which probably means that the old adage of “They’re more scared of you than you are of them” could also be false.

Just saying.

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