It's hard to imagine sneezing with your eyes wide open, let alone doing it in real life, but why does it happen?
Why do our eyes close when we sneeze?
Sneezing is a protective unconditioned reflex that higher animals have.
It's not hard to guess why nature has given us this ability: sneezing protects the nasal passages from particles that shouldn't be there.
When information about foreign particles on the mucous membrane is transmitted via nerve endings to the “sneezing center” in the brain, a signal is sent from it to contract a huge number of muscles throughout the body at once, including the eyelids.
Unfortunately, scientists do not have a definitive answer to the question of why this happens.
David Houston, MD, associate dean of the Texas A&M College of Medicine, suggests that our eyelids automatically close to prevent irritants from getting into the mucous membrane of the eye.
According to Houston, this is not a "hard and fast" rule, and it is still possible to sneeze with your eyes open.
And although your eyes won’t pop out of their sockets (there is such a myth), scientists still don’t recommend experimenting.
