Do your eyes really pop out if you sneeze with your eyes open?
537932
I can assure you with one hundred percent total confidence, Lyndsey, that you've got nothing to worry about. How do I know this? Because I used to haunt carnival freak shows as a kid. Shows you the value of a misspent youth.\n\nI'll never forget one freak show performer I saw who had "popeyes"--the ability to open his eyelids wide open and bulge out his eyes at will. And I mean bulge to the point when you were convinced they were going to squirt across the room. Each eye was independently poppable, right-left-right-left.\n\nIt was a fascinating thing to watch, assuming you weren't too busy puking over your shoes. What it proved was that human eyes are pretty firmly anchored in place. What holds them in? Mostly the muscles that control eyeball movement. The eyelids play only an incidental role.\n\nYour eyes do bulge out a bit when you sneeze. This gives a few people the willies. If you know someone like this, take 'em to a freak show. They'll feel so reassured.\n\nAlso, not to quibble, but it's just about impossible to hold your eyelids open while you sneeze. They snap shut by reflex. The reflex serves no purpose, so far as anybody knows; it's just the way you're wired up. The nerves serving the eyes and the nose are closely intertwined, and stimuli to the one often trigger some response in the other.\n\nWe've already discussed photic sneeze reflex. Similarly, sneezing (or yawning or vomiting) can cause not only blinking but tears. Some beauticians claim that if your eyes start to water while you're applying makeup, you can stop it by blowing your nose. There is something about this arrangement reminiscent of having to shut off the engine in your Yugo by dousing the lights. Don't blame me. I didn't design the apparatus, I just describe it.
332206
Some people think it does. but really, the simple fact of looking up is opening your nasal cavities, making it easier for your body to complete the sneeze. It seems logical for people to try to make the connection between sneezing and looking at light... The sun and light are just making you squint when you look at it.
141049
Do you mean "why do we close our eyes when we <sneeze>?"?\n\nWhat a wonderful way to phrase that question :-)\n\nYou can find some answers at these sites:
333376
Closing your eyes is a natural reaction for several reasons: strong wind blasts and, of course, sneezing. It's mainly to keep your eyes protected from the resulting dust and mist. Your eyes will not pop out of your head, your actual sockets would hold them in! This is a myth. I don't know how it got started, but it's not true.
957324
I have never knowingly sneezed in my sleep, but my cat has. The end result is that it woke her up.
107788
Its to keep your eyes from popping out of their sockets! Just kidding.\n\nActually, ASK Yahoo already adresses this question at http://ask.yahoo.com/20050721.html\n\nHere's a copy of their answer:\n\nDear Yahoo!: \nWhy is it impossible to sneeze with your eyes open? \nKevin\nEl Monte, California \n \nDear Kevin: \nThe received wisdom states that if you don't blink when you sneeze, your eyes will fly out of your head. Thankfully, as is often the case with urban legends, this theory is a load of hooey. Your eyeballs are safe and sound in their sockets. For a funny pictorial representation of this hypothetical scenario, check out this urban myth page from MTV: http://www.mtv.com/onair/big_urban_myth/birth/index.jhtml?choose=Sneezing+To+Blindness\n\nIn reality, a sneeze is simply an involuntary nervous response to nasal irritation. According to this nifty science blog entry (http://sxxz.blogspot.com/2004/12/sneeze-science.html), the sneeze impulse affects a variety of body parts, including the abdomen, chest, neck, and face. During a sneeze, the impulses that travel through your face cause your eyelids to blink. This response is entirely automatic. There's nothing you can do about it. Sneezing puts a lot of pressure on your head and respiratory system, so blinking is probably a protective mechanism. \n\nThe point is that all of these responses (the abdominal contraction, the sharp burst of air out of your lungs, the general lunging movement) are intertwined. When you sneeze, you can't do one without the other.
327835
Due to the pressure in your cranium your eyes would be pressurized slightly. There would be a slight bulging of your eyes from your head which is actually what happens normally when you sneeze, however your eyes would stay in just as they normally do. The closing of your eyes is just to maintain some extra support to keep the muscles and nerves which hold your eyes in from having to do as much work.\n\nWithout the eyelid, the many eye muscles and optical nerve would do a fine job keeping the eyes in.\n\nIf you've seen Ripley's or Guinness Book of World Records, and you've seen the people that push their eyes out of their heads really far, you'd realize that you dont have to worry because your eyes can handle a lot.
232297
A sneeze is the fastest known action that a human can perform.  It is involuntary and can make the head mover VERY sharply.  Maybe our eyes close so that we don't get anything in them when our head jerks forward?  Dust, leaves, branches, etc. would be both painful and dangerous if they got into our eyes while we were moving our head at high speed.\n\nAccording to Wikipedea:\nIt is almost impossible for a person to keep their eyelids open during a sneeze, although some rare individuals report having little if any trouble doing so. The reflex of shutting the eyes serves no obvious purpose: the nerves serving the eyes and the nose are closely related, and stimuli to the one often trigger some response in the other.
341438
Eyeballs popping out when you sneeze is an urban myth.  I have intentionally kept my eyes open while sneezing with no ill effects.  The eye sockets are made of hard bone and are only connected to the sinuses through tear ducts.  Sneezing is a reflex action to the presence of an irritant in the sinus passages.  I would suggest that the reflex involves closing the eyes to prevent the transmission of this irritant into the eyes.
376602
Whenever I look at the sun (not often, be assured) I don't seem to feel any sudden sneezes coming on. Perhaps your sinuses are shaped as to when you tilt your head back, you trigger a sneeze? Maybe it's temporary, because of a cold or bad sinuses or allergies.\n\nYou should try looking into the sun (not for very long) in the morning or evening when you don't have to tilt your head and see what happens.
736877
As they all say that's false. However...when you have a heart attack a strong sneeze can *stop* the heart attack! It really works (I've had to force a sneeze a few times).
722090
When you sneeze every muscle in your body tightens, The muscle in your eye might be more sensitive to the sudden spasm
371550
No, but if you can keep your eyes open, you will not sneeze
853475
Sneezing contracts a lot of the muscles in your face, including the ones controlling your eyelids.\n\nAs for the people answering with the popping eyeballs: LOL!
1141521
This has been recognized in medical journals for at least 40 years, and is called different things, including the "photic sneeze reflex" and even the "ACHOO syndrome". In a few instances the reflex has been documented by shining bright lights at people to make them sneeze, so it probably really does happen. \n\nNobody is really sure why.  Apparently, somehow, the nerve pathway associated with sneezing is stimulated with the exposure to bright light.
149715
It is almost impossible for a person to keep their eyelids open during a sneeze, although some rare individuals report having little if any trouble doing so.\n\nThe sneeze center makes all these muscles work in just the right order, to send that irritating particle out of your nose -- at speeds up to 100 mph
640985
Sneezing helps u to remove an irritation from your nose.It is more of a response than a voluntary action. Like all other involuntary actions in our body sneezing also involves a lot of muscles. Some of these muscles may be involved in the closing of the eye lids. Being an involuntary action we are unable to keep our eyes open when sneezing. \nHowever we do find yogis who have control on many of their muscles - may be they will be in a better position to keep their eyes open when sneezing.\n\nOn the lighter side - what do you really expect to see when u are sneezing!!!!!