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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey, brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum here with another classic episode from our archives

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Speaker 1: and from previous host, Christian Sagar. This one, Okay, it

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Speaker 1: gets a little bit gross, and if you're sensitive to

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Speaker 1: medical discussions, maybe skip it. But we love mythbusting here

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Speaker 1: and so we couldn't help but answer the pervasive playground question.

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Speaker 1: If you sneeze hard enough and keep your eyes open

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Speaker 1: while you do it, could your eyes pop out of

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Speaker 1: their sockets? Hey there, brain Stuff, it's Christian Segar. If

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Speaker 1: you're a person who has a nose and eyeballs, you've

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Speaker 1: probably noticed that when you sneeze, your eyelids naturally snap shut.

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Speaker 1: It's the reason that sneezing while driving is a terrifying

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Speaker 1: roulette game of death. But I've got a question for you.

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Speaker 1: When you were a kid, did you hear the story

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Speaker 1: that if you manage to resist this reflex and hold

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Speaker 1: your eyes open during a sneeze, that they would pop

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Speaker 1: out of your head? I did. In fact, my ninth

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Speaker 1: grade science teacher, Mrs Abraham told me this is it true? Though?

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Speaker 1: Well short answer, almost definitely not. But unfortunately we can't

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Speaker 1: be as perfectly certain as we would all like to

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Speaker 1: be about this particular topic. So here are the facts.

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Speaker 1: Fact one. Your eyes can pop out of their sockets.

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Speaker 1: It's not very common, but it can happen. Doctors call

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Speaker 1: anterior bulging of the eye beyond its normal orbit a

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Speaker 1: case of exophthalamus. If the eyeball gets dislocated from its

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Speaker 1: socket enough that's equator is literally outside your retracted eyelids,

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Speaker 1: This is known as globe luxation. Fact number two. If

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Speaker 1: you want to sleep soundly tonight and really every other

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Speaker 1: night for the rest of your life, you should not

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Speaker 1: search the web for images of globe luxation. Fact number three.

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Speaker 1: Globe luxation is rare, but it can be caused by

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Speaker 1: a number of conditions. Of course, gouging at an eyeball

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Speaker 1: with a finger or another instrument that will do it.

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Speaker 1: Some various types of traumatic head injury can cause the

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Speaker 1: eyeballs to pop out of their sockets. Many cases of

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Speaker 1: spontaneous globe luxation in the medical literature have happened while

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Speaker 1: the eye was being messed with in some ways, such

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Speaker 1: as during the application of a contact lens or eye drops,

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Speaker 1: or when a doctor was manipulating the eyelids during an exam.

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Speaker 1: Violent vomiting has also been cited as a cause of

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Speaker 1: eyeball dislocation. And I might add that whoever this refers

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Speaker 1: to has my sympathies, because that sounds like the worst

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Speaker 1: day ever. Now, if we are to believe our historical sources,

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Speaker 1: there may have been a few cases where a sneeze

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Speaker 1: knocked somebody's eyeball out. For example, in April of two,

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Speaker 1: a US newspaper reported that a woman on a street

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Speaker 1: car in Indianapolis burst one of her eyeballs in the

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Speaker 1: middle of a sneezing fit. Whether this means she suffered

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Speaker 1: globe luxation, or that our eyeball just up and exploded,

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Speaker 1: or that journalists in the eighties sometimes reported rather dubious stories, look,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to say, but if we look at the

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Speaker 1: more recent sources. A two thousand two ophthalmology study reviewed

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Speaker 1: the twenty six cases of spontaneous globe luxation then known

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Speaker 1: to the medical world. While most of the cases they

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Speaker 1: found were triggered by manipulation of the eyelids, the authors

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Speaker 1: did also claim that a small number were brought on

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Speaker 1: by other triggers, including things like crying, coughing, nose blowing,

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Speaker 1: bending over, and yes, sneezing, So sneezing might have caused

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Speaker 1: the dislocation of the eyeball in a very very small

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Speaker 1: number of known cases. But does keeping your eyes open

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Speaker 1: during the sneeze have anything to do with it? As

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Speaker 1: I said before, almost definitely not. And it's certainly true

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Speaker 1: that eyeball dislocation doesn't happen every time you sneeze with

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Speaker 1: your eyes open, because you can go to YouTube right

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Speaker 1: now and look at the yeos of people sneezing with

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Speaker 1: their eyes open. It's not easy, but some people can

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Speaker 1: do it, and their eyeballs are They're fine, and they

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Speaker 1: seem to enjoy showing off this disgusting trick. But the

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Speaker 1: complete lack of correlation between open eyes and eyeball poppage

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Speaker 1: is a combination of the fact that sneezing almost never,

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Speaker 1: if ever, causes the eyes to pop out, and the

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Speaker 1: fact that your eyelids don't really do any of the

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Speaker 1: work of keeping your eyeballs in their sockets to begin with. Instead,

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Speaker 1: your eyeballs are primarily held in place by a combination

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Speaker 1: of six muscles known as the extra ocular muscles. They

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Speaker 1: control the movements of the eyes and are much stronger

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Speaker 1: than the eyelids, so whether or not you can manage

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Speaker 1: to keep your eyes open during a sneeze probably has

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Speaker 1: little to no effect on the chances that your eyes

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Speaker 1: will pop out, and those chances are very very slim

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Speaker 1: in the first place, though possibly not zero. Take that,

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Speaker 1: Mrs Abraham. Today's episode was written by Joe McCormick and

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Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots

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Speaker 1: of other popping topics, visit how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of my Heart Radio. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.