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Hi, My Name is Peter and I Am a Sun Sneezer.
08/23/06
Hi, My Name is Peter and I Am a Sun Sneezer.
Sun sneezing
Do you have a tendancy of sneezing when you walk out of your front door into the sunlight? Do you sneeze when you look up towards the sky? Not everybody does but apparently up to about 1 in 4 of us sneeze as a result of bright light - usually the sun. Have you ever wondered why? Read on to find out...
What is sun sneezing?
Sun sneezing or photic sneezing is a genetic condition (sometimes called 'ACHOO Syndrome') in which the signals from your eye to your brain are somehow also received by the part of your brain which deals with the sneeze reflex. This means that when your brain is being told to contract your iris in response to increased light it also thinks that it is being told to produce a sneeze. - DanKarran.com
Other resource:
Madsci.org
6 comments
Since this wasn't an issue for me a month ago in Boston, and I'm having a similar effect, I'm gonna have to guess it has something more to do with that clean, crisp, Detroit air.But what do I know?
i am a sun sneezer too, i thought everyone was? 
1 in 4 is the highest stat i've heard. i thought it was only 10% of the population. guess we aren't as special as we thought! 
I can't imagine it's really 1 in 4, otherwise there would always be people sneezing around us. I don't personally know any other than me that sneezes consistently whenever introduced to the sun, but a number of friends and relatives have said that they do themselves have a much weaker form of sun sneezing. 
I agree with Dan. 1 in 4 is wild. Possibly 1 in 4 use the sun to bring out a sneeze that won't come, but the percentage who sneeze when they come out into the sun is much much smaller. Back in the 1990s when the Internet was new, the subject came up and about half a dozen people who experienced photic sneezing started corresponding about it. Though you wouldn’t think so now for all the references that are on the net now, but in those days, several of us had never met anyone else with the reflex.
So we got together and pooled what we could find on the subject, and it gave Photic sneezing resources : http://www.photic-sneezing.fr.st/
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