{"id":3626,"date":"2012-02-02T23:34:01","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T12:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/?p=3626"},"modified":"2012-03-21T16:50:59","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T05:50:59","slug":"ask-us-can-humans-sneeze-while-sleeping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/science\/ask-us-can-humans-sneeze-while-sleeping\/","title":{"rendered":"Can humans sneeze while sleeping?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3627\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 605px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3627\" title=\"sneeze\" src=\"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/sneeze.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"605\" height=\"375\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sneezes are triggered when our noses are irritated. Image: Shutterstock.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>We don&#8217;t sneeze when we are sleeping, thanks to our brains and our location. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>We actually should be more prone to sneezing during our sleep, as the mucous membranes swell when we lie down. This makes them more sensitive, but there usually isn&#8217;t as much airflow or movement to stir up irritating particles, so they aren&#8217;t as exposed to stimulants.<\/p>\n<p>When we&#8217;re awake, particles, allergies or an illness can stimulate the nerve cells in the nose. The nerves then send signals to the brain in order to initiate a sneeze to get rid of whatever is irritating it.<\/p>\n<p>But during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, certain neurotransmitters shut down- this state is known as REM atonia. This means that the motor neurons are not being stimulated, so they aren&#8217;t sending these signals to the brain.<\/p>\n<p>In some cases, sufficient external stimulates will trigger the need to sneeze. But you will wake up to do so.<\/p>\n<p>Got a burning science question?<\/p>\n<p>Send us your questions to letters@scienceillustrated.com.au. If we publish the answer on our website or in the next issue of Science Illustrated you could win amazing prices!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We don&#8217;t sneeze when we are sleeping, thanks to our brains and our location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,48,8],"tags":[119],"class_list":["post-3626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-us","category-health","category-science","tag-curiosities"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3626"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4456,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626\/revisions\/4456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}