The oddity of your sneezes · Bodily Oddities

I’m very glad I published this page with a form where visitors can inform me of oddities I’m not aware of. It already led to the addition of more than 10 oddities, with more to come when I find enough time to research and edit.

A lovely odd pattern emerged in these submissions, and that is that people sneeze for the darndest reasons.

The oddities as they stand only include one sneeze related entry: Photic sneeze reflex, a.k.a. sneezing when you walk into bright sunlight. The leading idea there is crosstalk between nerves.

But then readers informed me of how uninformed I was:

regarding the sneeze, my wife is sneezing after finishing eating. it is called snatiation, look it up on wikipedia.

I had some amount of doubt, but yes, there absolutely is a Wikipedia page. The cause doesn’t appear to be known.

Photic sexual sneeze reflex, basically I sneeze as a reflex to sexual thoughts

I would have wagered we know even less about this one than the food one, but no, there’s a research paper - Sneezing induced by sexual ideation or orgasm: an under-reported phenomenon. Their proposed mechanism is indiscriminate stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system.

I have a sneeze response to chocolate especially dark chocolate.

Whenever I eat a piece of chocolate with at least 80% cocoa, I always sneeze.

This is apparently commonly reported, with no existing research covering it.

Then somehow the opposite of it:

Hunger sneezes! Before reddit came into existence I’d never heard of anyone else having this. But anyway for a small number of us, even vanishingly minor discomfort in the stomach can trigger sneezing. 99% of the time, this is caused by mild hunger, and hence those of us who experience it always associate it with hunger.

I suppose this would be great as a subtle way to warn my surroundings I’m about to get hangry, without needing to say anything. Reader has since informed me a subreddit exists for this!

I start to feel nauseous for anywhere from 30-90 seconds, then a sneeze will come and then the nausea goes away instantly! This thing happens to me maybe once or twice in a month.

Seems a bit different than the others because it’s a cycle with nausea included, like speed running a migraine that ends with a sneeze. To the reader who posted it: the scientific approach would be to try and abort the sneeze (within reason), and see if the nausea persists.

And lastly:

Gently scratching my scalp with my finger nails, the clip of a biro or similar slightly sharp things for a few seconds makes me sneeze. I get the same “I’m about to sneeze” feeling for a few seconds ahead of sneezing that I would get from a normal sneeze or a photic sneeze. The areas that cause this are my upper forehead and area just and the area just bore it inside my hairline. I can feel an increasing tingling sensation in the run up to the sneeze, and I only sneeze if I persist with the action beyond that point (if I stop then I don’t sneeze). Whereas normal sneezes from a cold or something for me tend to come in group of 2 or 3 sneezes, scratching induced sneezes tend to be one offs, though more scratching can then lead to a second occurrence.

Love the level of detail. A quick search indicates anatomy could explain this one. The ophthalmic branch (V1) of the trigeminal nerve carries sensation from the forehead and front of the scalp, while the same nerve also innervates the nasal lining.

This would also be the reason plucking an eyebrow can cause a sneeze. It is different, however, to plucking a nosehair. That reflex is simply the primary sneeze reflex of the “something weird is in the nose, sneeze time” kind.

Thank you again to everyone that has submitted their oddities, and voted as well. It’s all very interesting. So much so that I’ve decided to add select user submitted sneeze triggers to be voted upon by visitors, so we see how common these are:

Does this make you sneeze?

19 entries. Answer to reveal the vote count.

Trigger Your answer

• Stepping out into bright sunlight

• Finishing a large meal

• Hunger, empty stomach

• Plucking an eyebrow

• Plucking a nose hair

• Walking into cold air

• Sexual thoughts or arousal

• Orgasm

• Strong perfume or aftershave

• Chewing mint gum or eating something very minty

• Brushing your teeth

• Eating dark chocolate

• Combing or brushing your hair

• Looking at a bright screen in a dark room

• Standing up quickly

• Touching the inside of your ear canal, such as with a cotton bud

• A short wave of nausea

• Crying, or feeling close to tears

• Eating something very sweet