We can do all kind of things while we are sleeping. We talk, we walk, we can even drive while sleep. But in my entire life, I never saw a person who sneeze while sleeping. It should be fun to sneeze while sleeping because it may wake you up. So can human sneeze while sleeping?

By definition, “A sneeze is a reflexive action usually produced by your body in response to an irritant in the nasal mucosa.”(Learn more). Every things have a trigger point, so is sneezing. People sneeze when the areas of your nasal cavity and sinuses are stimulated enough, such as when you are sick or you breath in bad stuff. Some people will sneeze when they see the bright light and for now, there are no explanations for that.

While you are sleeping, our mucous membranes will swell. This means it’s more sensitive and we can sneeze more easily. But because there isn’t much air flow while we are sleeping, there normally isn’t enough stimulate to cause sneeze. But there is still a possibility to sneeze(Learn more).

Because our brain wants us to get enough sleep very bad, so it does something that prevent us from sneezing while sleeping. When we are sleeping, we enter a status called REM atonia. Our brain will shutdown the release of certain neurotransmitters, so that the message won’t get to brain. Even if there is enough stimulate, our brain won’t know. If the brain doesn’t know, it can’t control us to sneeze. But there is always an exception, when there is too much stimulate. Our brain will wake us first and then sneeze(Learn more).

It turns out that, people don’t sneeze while sleeping, can they are unable to. That is a good thing for us, when we are having cold or allergy we can still sleep. I can’t image the life that we can sneeze day and night. Human’s body is a really smart and amazing thing, it has many ways to protect itself. Next time, if a person said he is  asleep sneeze, you will know he is lying.