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How a Myth Comes Into Being
The transformation of an occurrence into a full-fledged urban myth is a story all unto itself. Like a huge, cultural game of telephone, the Urban Myth is usually the result of half-truths or complete exaggerations. But sometimes, the myth turns out to be true. Check out these classic examples of urban myths and learn how they came into being.
The Legend:
If you sneeze with your eyes open, do your eyes pop out? This is one of those old-school urban myths that every child has heard at one time or another. When you sneeze, water droplets fly out of your mouth at an explosive 200 miles-per-hour so it's not that much of a stretch to think that if you kept your eyes open, they might pop out of your skull.
If this were possible, it would make life very interesting, but it's an urban myth. Our eyes are actually very secure in their sockets and, as the sockets are made out of bone and not connected to your nasal passages, the pressure of a sneeze does not affect them. For the eye to pop out there would have to be a muscle behind the eyes that contracted when you sneeze. The only muscles in the eyes are positioned at the front of the socket--and those are firmly holding your eyeballs in place. It's also almost impossible to hold you eyelids open while you sneeze. They snap shut by reflex. This gives people the impression that your body is reacting to the sneeze by doing its best to keep your eyes firmly in place. In actuality, the reflex serves no purpose. It's just the way you're wired. The nerves serving the eyes and the nose are closely intertwined, and stimuli to one often trigger a response in the other. But you're better off worrying about what might be shooting out your nose than off your face.
The reason we sneeze is that an irritation in our nose causes a nerve to trigger. This nerve then stimulates a group of brain cells called the "sneezing center," which causes a whole host of things to happen: Our eyes and nose water, we sneeze, our heads jerk forward and our eyes close. These reflexes get rid of anything nasty that might be in our nose, and because they're all linked it's almost impossible to sneeze without doing them all. We don't know exactly why we blink when we sneeze…maybe it cleans dust out of the eyes or stops anything nastier getting in.
True or False?:
This one is false, but it's great for freaking out your young brother or sister.
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