This is one of those questions that’s a lot more fun to ask than it is to answer, and that’s because the answer is boring: No, you can’t. Despite what you might have heard, it’s not possible to sneeze while you’re sleeping, even in the earliest stages of sleep. Simply put: If you’re asleep, the part of your brain that notices those sensations is asleep, too. Sneezing requires a certain amount of cortical or brainstem stimulation, and that threshold actually increases at night. You need to wake up in order to sneeze. Just in case you’re wondering………no, sneezing in your sleep can’t kill you. That story you heard about your friend’s sister’s cousin was just that…….a story.
