Sneezing: a question.

[isis_newton]

Are you one of these people who suppresses a sneeze and produces some kind of weird noise instead?

If you are can you explain why you do this/started doing this? Did someone tell you to when you were small? Do you have to start early or can you begin at any age? What is it about sneezing that you are avoiding? Tell me everything, okay

Comments

[xraytheenforcer]

At home, I'll honk away. but at work I at least try to suppress the volume, if not the sneeze itself. don't want to give anyone a heart attack...

[silanah]

Gods no.

I sneeze when I eat too much and I let everyone know. There's no point in holding it back. It's fun to sneeze

N

[isis_newton]

I think that almost everything makes me sneeze - hot, cold, wet, dry, smoking, drinking, potentially ANY of the chemicals I use at work...

When are you coming to London btw?

[gtshuya]

My mother is famous for her loud sneezes (well, famous in the family). I definitely inherited that from her. Every time I sneeze, the guy in the cube next to me says "bless you" in a tone that says he believes my brains might be splattered all over because my sneeze was so loud! I can suppress the volume a little bit, but that usually doesn't occur to me unless I'm at a movie or a play or something.

[mistressofrohan]

The way I see it, a sneeze is an involuntary reaction to something. I sneeze when I first go into the sunlight, a reflex I inherited from my father. When it comes, it comes... but I do try to 'contain' the volume. But it is still very recognizable as a sneeze and not some ill-sounding squeak.

An interesting aside, someone once told me that a sneeze was like a miniature orgasm because all the muscles clench just before and then release with the sneeze. She always said she tried to sneeze as often as she could ;-)

[isis_newton]

Heh! I had a coworker at my old place who said a sneeze was an 1/8 of an orgasm. I kept asking her: how is it an 1/8? How did someone work that out?

[lijuun]

Someone once told me that if you sneeze several times in a row you'll actually have an orgasm. Naturally, the person who told me this was a guy. And, naturally, he tried to have multiple sneezes as often as he could. He told me, quite matter-of-factly, that he'd very nearly succeeded on several occasions. I told him I didn't need to know that.

So that may be where the 1/8th idea came from. I like to imagine a group of researchers standing around in lab coats inhaling pepper and making notes on clipboards.

[troublestorm9]

*giggle* Husband and all three kids sneeze when entering the sunlight. I tell 'em it's because they are creatures of the night...
I am a squeaker. You might hear it coming if it really sneaks up on me, but I almost never sneeze out loud. When I was a kid I had strep brought on by a wicked head cold, and my tonsils were just ginormous. Something about actually sneezing (which I was doing a lot of) made me feel like my tonsils were going to land on the floor. So for me, suppressing the sneeze was a way of saving myself misery, and I simply never unlearned the habit. However, I terrify everyone when I do sneeze, simply because total suppression makes everyone afraid that I will spring a leak somewhere, likely in the cranium.
Sorry, brains all leaked out years ago, aided by flow of much alcohol in my mis-spent youth.

[isis_newton]

Ah-HA! An answer! And it makes sense too. I wonder if it was that way for all the squeakers?

[troublestorm9]

I have no idea, but that is what happened with me. I am the only squeaker in the family, and as such, something of a laughingstock.
'Course, my nose in general is also something of a family joke as well, being ... Ahem... rather Roman, as my grandmother delicately put it. She also once informed me that noses, feet and ears never stop growing which made me nearly suicidal for a week. Of course then I got over that by having a sneezing fit. Naturally, everyone started razzing me again at which point I responded by saying that with a nose as big as mine, if it never stopped growing and I actually did just outright sneeze, I would likely blow them all to Kingdom Come.
When confronted with the plausibility of such an event, they all shut up.

[isis_newton]

So...it isn't hereditary then. ;)

Nice icon btw.