Why does sodium-heavy liquids like pickle juice, chicken noodle soup, or saline hydrate you better than regular water when you’re dehydrated, but salt water dehydrates you?
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As with everything you eat, it’s about quantity. You want enough of it that it aids you (in this case the salt helps the body in a variety of ways, but the most critical being conducting nerve impulses, your muscles to function, and maintaining fluid balance), but you don’t want too much of it so that it kills you (kidney isn’t super fond of too much of..anything, really. Salt being especially hard for it). Salt water simply has too much salt in it.
You can also die of drinking too much fresh water as well. If you find yourself drinking more than a liter an hour, you need to consider cutting back, otherwise, again, your kidneys are going to complain about their workflow and kill you.
While we’re on the topic of salt and hydration; salt isn’t the only electrolyte your body needs. This is why sports drinks exist (on top of just being a highly expensive sugar drink that companies can make a lot of money from). For your everyday needs, you’ll get these electrolytes from other things. But in especially harsh environments (say, a marathon), it might run low on some of them, which sports drinks can help replenish
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