I’m one of the 35% of people who do this weird thing when I yawn. You too?

The prospect of yawning in public fills me with dread.

My fear is not because others see my apparent boredom or because they notice how tired I am, but because of the strange thing my body does when I can’t help but perform the reflex.

About 90 percent of the time I yawn, a stream of water squirts out of my mouth. I describe it a bit like a cobra spitting venom at a predator to defend itself.

If I don’t cover my mouth, the spout can reach quite far, and embarrassingly over the years it has shot outwards to land on unsuspecting victims in close proximity – neighbors on planes, my partner next to me on the couch and my work computer, to name a few.

The last time I went home to visit my mother, she expressed her disgust while we were having a glass of wine together and I neglected to shield my mouth in time, causing a small splash of water to end up on the dining room table.

Although I thought this was just a weird thing, a friend recently told me that I’m not alone. And there’s actually a term for spitting up when you yawn. It’s called ‘gleeking’.

According to Dentistry for Children, peeking is “a natural phenomenon that happens accidentally while yawning, eating, or talking.”

This action involves “projecting saliva from the salivary glands under your tongue.”

Sadie Whitelocks of DailyMail.com says the prospect of yawning in public fills her with dread because of the ‘weird’ thing that happens (stock image)

Only 35 percent of people beam unintentionally, experts say, and only one percent can perform the act intentionally and on command.

Even though I’m in the 35 percent camp, I’m powerless to control my glee.

And it’s not a useful party trick, because when I’m put on the spot, all I produce is a normal yawn.

People grin when their tongue accidentally puts pressure on the sublingual glands, salivary glands located under the tongue in the floor of the mouth.

Steven Morgano, chairman of the department of restorative dentistry at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, shared Health.com Gleeking comes from ‘built-up watery saliva’ [in your sublingual glands, then,] pressure on the glands from the tongue causes the saliva to squirt out.’

It often occurs when people yawn due to the positioning and movement of the tongue combined with the movement of the jaw.

Dr. Mark Wolff, dean of the School of Dental Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, says that “anyone can peek,” but he doesn’t reveal why some people do it accidentally, while others can easily do it on command.

On TikTok, I was surprised – and somewhat comforted – to find clips about gleeking and other people who experience it.

People who can watch it even offer tutorials for those who want to recreate the water fountain-like saliva spout.

In one clip, Texas-based orthodontist Dr. Ben Winters offers a quick lesson on how to pee.

The content creator, who is commonly known online as The Bentist, says it’s important to “move your sublingual glands with your tongue” by pushing them around

Sadie (pictured) says that unfortunately peeking isn’t a useful party trick because when put on the spot she produces ‘just a normal yawn’

He then instructs viewers to “stick your tongue to the roof of your mouth and move as far back as you can.”

He continues, “The last step is to push your tongue up [against the roof of your mouth]while you squeeze [against it].’

After describing each step, Dr. Winters then squirts saliva from his mouth at the camera.

The video quickly received thousands of comments, with many viewers sharing their own experiences with gleeking.

Like me, one viewer revealed: ‘I can’t do it on command, it only happens when I don’t want it to.’

Similarly, another commenter wrote, “It happens to me every now and then and in the most embarrassing places.”

Many people who watched Dr. Winters also said they couldn’t perform the shiny action despite their best attempts.

On TikTok, Sadie said she was “surprised – and somewhat comforted – to find clips about peeping and other people who can do it.”

Dr. Benjamin Tweel, an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist at Mount Sinai told DailyMail.com “there isn’t much in the medical literature about peeping” and he “isn’t sure how common it is.”

He adds: ‘What’s also interesting is that the term ‘gleeking’, which always seemed universal to me, meant nothing to some of my partners; Even though they knew what the phenomenon was when I asked, they didn’t have a name for it.

‘When I was growing up, trying to peek was a popular playground activity, but only a few kids could do it on command, and even then not consistently.

‘So all I can say is that gleeking is the forceful expulsion of saliva from the submandibular gland through the submandibular duct (also known as Wharton’s duct), by contracting the muscles in the mouth and tongue.

‘There is no information available on how often this occurs. I can say that despite looking into thousands of mouths in the office, I have never had a patient look at me during an exam!’