A sneeze tells us we’re not in control the way we think we are

Wednesday, 24 June 2026

The closest stock image we could find to illustrate the effect of a sneeze - “ A sneeze expels mucus from the nasal cavities and saliva from the oral cavity in the form of a plume of tiny droplets that has a muzzle velocity of 160 kph,” Joe Bennett writes.

Joe Bennett is an award-winning Lyttelton-based writer, columnist and playwright

OPINION: I said there had to be a column in sneeze, cough and yawn. I lied. There are three columns in sneeze, cough and yawn.

The Chinese believe that if you sneeze without good reason it means that someone is talking about you behind your back.

Most commonly we sneeze to rid the nose of an irritant. But one person in three – and I am among them – sneezes when they emerge from darkness into bright light.

No one knows why.

Rather fewer than one in three – and I am grateful not to be among them – sneezes when they are sexually stimulated. Again no one knows why. Some researchers have suggested that the nose contains erectile tissue and the brain gets confused.

Others have correlated a sneeze with an orgasm. Both involve a build-up of muscular tension followed by its sudden and pleasurable release.

No one can undergo either an orgasm or a sneeze with dignity. When sneezing, the nose wrinkles like a rabbit’s, the eyes close, the head flings back and the mouth opens like a portal to the underworld. When having an orgasm, well, you tell me.

I learned years ago that in the act of sneezing the heart momentarily stops and you are closer to death than at any time in your life bar one. It sounded bang on, but apparently it isn’t. The truth is that the only dangerous thing about a sneeze is trying to abort it, by pinching the bridge of the nose or whatever. For the act of sneezing involves such monstrous pressure on the chest that keeping it in can damage your innards.

A stock photo model doing a passable imitation of someone for whom a sneeze is imminent. “A sneeze just happens, like all the other things the body does, Joe Bennett says, ”without us telling it to do it“.

A sneeze uses air to clear the nose in the same way as a plumber uses a water blaster to clear a sewer. A sneeze expels – if you are currently having breakfast you may choose to skip this bit - mucus from the nasal cavities and saliva from the oral cavity in the form of a plume of tiny droplets that has a muzzle velocity of 160 kph. The plume can extend for up to eight metres. The sneeze, in other words, is the germ’s best friend. Atishoo atishoo we all fall down.

Hence the various methods of capturing the plume, including masks, handkerchiefs and the splendidly named vampire sneeze, as practised in the caring professions.

With the sneeze looming, a nurse is taught to wrap her arm about her face in the manner of Count Dracula sweeping his cloak across his features, so the plume is fired into the crook of the elbow.

The habit of saying “bless you” when someone sneezes may stem from the bubonic plague, because a sneeze was the first symptom of the illness. But it may equally stem from the belief that in the act of sneezing you blow the soul out of your body, and only a timely blessing prevents the devil from nipping up your nose to take its place.

A sneeze is all-consuming. If you’re sneezing you’re not doing anything else. And you have no control over it. A sneeze just happens, like all the other things the body does – blinking, breathing, digesting – without us telling it to do it.

For though we like to imagine we’re in command of our bodies, like an engine driver in his cab, the truth of things is that this train by and large drives itself. So every sneeze should remind us that our sense of conscious identity, our precious notion of who we are, rather than being captain of its fate, is in fact more like one of those little white birds that hitches a ride on the hippo’s back.