  For a smooth stationary Gaussian field on $\mathbb{R}^d$ and level $\ell \in
\mathbb{R}$, we consider the number of connected components of the excursion
set $\{f \ge \ell\}$ (or level set $\{f = \ell\}$) contained in large domains.
The mean of this quantity is known to scale like the volume of the domain under
general assumptions on the field. We prove that, assuming sufficient decay of
correlations (e.g. the Bargmann-Fock field), a central limit theorem holds with
volume-order scaling. Previously such a result had only been established for
`additive' geometric functionals of the excursion/level sets (e.g. the volume
or Euler characteristic) using Hermite expansions. Our approach, based on a
martingale analysis, is more robust and can be generalised to a wider class of
topological functionals. A major ingredient in the proof is a third moment
bound on critical points, which is of independent interest.
