Nothing to sneeze at.

Why do we sneeze when we look at the sun?

Or any bright light for that matter.

"1) Do people really sneeze when they look at the sun? This is an important question! There a lot of things that people say they do that they don't really do. I personally do not sneeze when I look at the sun, and for a long time I thought this was a myth. But I am guessing that you are a sun-sneezer from your question. It seems that some people really do sneeze when they look at the sun, or actually at any bright light (there is nothing special about the sun). 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. "

More in the link provided.

Does this happen to anyone here?

I do not sneeze by simply looking at the sun, but if I feel a sneeze coming on, but can't quite get it out, I look at the sun or a bright light and.....a small localized hurricane! Ahhh....that's better.

I'm like Big Ed and sometime use the sun to make the sneeze come out. Don't know if a bright light other than the sun will do it for me though.

Chamenos made a comment about it in this thread. There were some interesting comments about it in the replies that followed, including an interesting link a few posts down.

I do not sneeze when I look into the sun ...... I squint.

Mike

My eyes water. Maybe they were confused between their eyes and their noses?

I don't sneeze when I look at the sun or other bright light either.

my wife and her brother both have this reflex. there is some info in a recent Discover article.

i used to tease her about it...but now i know the reflex is real.

i dont have it...only manual sneezing for me!

Bob

I, my daughter to a lesser degree and my son to a greater degree have this reflex. It is an established medical phenomon. It is genetic. My wife does not have it. Anytime we walk out of a building on a sunny day it is like a "sneeze parade"!

ha!

another reason to use a tactical weaponlight! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowlaugh.gif

Not to hijack this thread or anything, but back in college I was in a political science class in a lecture hall with 400 students. My buddy and I were bored, and he noticed that every day this one girl would sneeze 2 or 3 times over the course of the 1 hr 15 min class. We decided to keep track of how many times she sneezed each day. Well after the first day, we noticed a lot of people were sneezing each day, so we counted all sneezes. I would put a hash mark in my notebook for each one. Well each day we ended up with around 50 sneezes or so, give or take some. Each sneeze was different sounding, so we decided to give each one a "name" describing what it sounded like. Such as the classic "ah-choo", or the "fluffernutter", or "triplet mousies", or one of my favorites, the "not a handful, a pants-full". We came up with some pretty funny names for these, and entertained ourselves in the process. I guess we could have made a study out of this data, but we didn't. By the end of the year, we had over 1000 sneezes! And we didn't even start counting for a couple weeks after class started. I still have that notebook somewhere in my parents basement. I'll have to dig it out someday for a good chuckle.