in.case.you.were.wondering.

Do you sneeze in your sleep?

I've always been curious about this. It seems like you would wake yourself up if this was the case, but who knows. Here's the research:

"Sneezing is a reflex to odorants in the nasal cavity-- meaning that it's an uncontrollable physical response to an outside stimulus. When an odorant stimulates nerve endings in the epithelial lining of the nasal cavity, the stimulus travels to the CNS (central nervous system) and is then sent back to the muscles of the face, throat and chest via the ventral ganglia/spinal motor nerves. So basically when stimulated, the muscles go to work and cause us to expel air from the mouth and nose--aka, a sneeze. Since the nasal epithelium swells when we lie down, it's much more sensitive to a sneeze. It's intuitive to think that this would seem that sneezing would be more likely during sleep. There is a big but though...Since there isn't much airflow in most bedrooms at night, and very little movement to stir up dust and other particles, the nose does not come into contact with as many odorants as it does during the day. Additionally, the area of the brain responsible for the reflexive actions is relaxed while asleep. So, even when a particle does touch the nasal epithelium, the brain doesn't notice, and we don't sneeze."

I think some people do sneeze while asleep, but it's not that common for the reasons given above. I buy it. My room's like a cave at night- no airflow at all!