Anyone had any experience with sungazing?

Looks like superstition to me.

I don’t have seasonal affective disorder

It is magic hour for photographers.
And many religions suggest prayer at sunrise.

I think there’s probably something to it, if nothing else the daily meditation aspect would be good for calming the mind.

My brother does it. He claims he gets energy through his eyeballs… I’ve seen him do it mid afternoon just out of the car window.
I’ve talked about him briefly on some other threads. He has some odd (to me) beliefs, but he’s insanely healthy. I sent him an email asking him for more info for ya, so if he answers I’ll paste it here for you.

Thanks @Likeradar. So kind of you!

No prob. I sent him an email about something else from Fluther, and he never answered… so we’ll see. :)

Well, on 420 last year, I was walking through Arcata, our university town, and I saw a group of about 20 people just standing in the middle of the plaza just staring at the sun. Not sure if that’s what you were looking for.

I’m sure they were all smoked out of their minds.

ahahaha @dverhey that’s hilarious

maybe they were just tanning?

Well there are yogis that claim that they eat or drink nothing for months, stand in the direct sun, do not burn and and are confirmed by many people. There are mysteries that we know nothing about.
I personally suffer from S.A.D. and will try it next winter. :)

@SeventhSense Hmmm maybe they are plants…? but they still must need agua…

@aviona

Or maybe they’re lying…

For years people said that the three minute mile would never be beaten..then it was overcome and many did the same. David Blaine went 44 days without food. Christ went 40 days and 40 nights. Who’s to say?

@aviona: Well, they were wearing clothes. :)

But I wouldn’t put it past them…

@Likeradar
Show your brother this

Sounds pretty interesting. I think it’s worth a shot.

But to really answer the question, no. I like my eyes way too much for that.

I tried it once. I went blind. I’m going back to masturbating… ~~

@SeventhSense No one has ever broken the three-minute mile. David Blaine had water, lost a dangerous amount of weight, and suffered complications afterwards. Christ didn’t exist.

@Ivan
Yes it was the 4 minute mile- my mistake. And Blaine did as I stated. And as for existence, Jesus Christ both walked the earth and has eternal existence as does the real you inseparable from universal mind. The part of you which raises this contention is simply a figment of your imagination/ego and has no existential being. Therefore what you imagine to be Ivan does not exist.

Why would you wnt to atttempt this, given that one of the first sentences in the article is “The practice of sungazing is highly controversial, as there is considerable evidence that looking directly at the sun for even brief periods of time may cause blindness or severe damage to the eye”?

You can get in touch with the sun without potential blindness.

@SeventhSense

My point is this: people are far too willing to accept things that they would like to believe. Scepticism is a vitally important thing. The wiki said that no scientific analysis has been conducted as of yet. Until there is repeatable, positive evidence for this, there is absolutely no reason to accept it.

@Ivan
And, of course, the corollary is that there is plenty of easily-available, well-researched, documented evidence that it is harmful.

Can someone show me the evidence that looking at the sun during sunrise and sunset is harmful?

@fireside
Exactly

Yes of course staring at the blinding midday sun is harmful to the eyes, but almost every living thing benefits from the sun in one form or another. We derive vitamin D from exposure, sick people in almost all cultures are thought to benefit from fresh air and sunshine. Historically, the idea of the sun’s rise and set was extremely significant.
At Stonehenge(Britain) and New Grange(Ireland), the primary axes of both of these monuments seem to have been carefully aligned on a sight-line pointing to the winter solstice sunrise (New Grange) and the winter solstice sunset (Stonehenge). There may have been far more involved then simple superstition.
As per WebMD
“Lack of daylight correlates with depression and suicide.The regions with long, dark winters have high suicide rates, such as Scandinavia and parts of Alaska, such as Nome. Certainly, persons with seasonal affective disorders (SAD) who live in these regions experience depression in the absence of sunlight and, hence, have a higher susceptibility to depression.”

As for the vitamin D benefits from sun exposure these are widely known. As per Wikipedia:

“Vitamin D3 is made in the skin when 7-dehydrocholesterol reacts with UVB ultraviolet light at wavelengths between 270–300 nm, with peak synthesis occurring between 295–297 nm.[12][13] These wavelengths are present in sunlight when the UV index is greater than 3. At this solar elevation, which occurs daily within the tropics, daily during the spring and summer seasons in temperate regions, and almost never within the arctic circles, adequate amounts of vitamin D3 can be made in the skin after only ten to fifteen minutes of sun exposure at least two times per week to the face, arms, hands, or back without sunscreen.”
The sun is good just ask your cat. :O)

@SeventhSense

No one is doubting the importance of the sun…

We are doubting that staring at it for long periods of time can replace the need for nutritional intake.

It’s been done in India for centuries. The problem is that none of the practitioners has anything to prove and so are rarely scientifically studied. In fact the majority of highly evolved masters in almost all traditions find it abhorrent to elevate their lifestyles to importance. They would rather lead others to find the joy of their own path and so do things in a humble way lest they cause focus to be drawn on themselves as some magic practitioners and waste people’s limited time.
In any personal practice, I would be honest with oneself and have a friend monitor you. They can remain objective in case you are deluding yourself. But if in fact persons do such practices and can gain benefit, why not? I think that we are only touching the tip of the iceberg in realizing the mind and body’s true potential.
Some Bairagi ascetics take very strict ascetic vows, such as never dwelling under a roof, and in some cases never wearing a woven garment.

@SeventhSense

“the majority of highly evolved masters in almost all traditions find it abhorrent to elevate their lifestyles to importance.”

Is this your rationalization for why there isn’t any objective evidence for this stuff? No evidence, no acceptance. Sorry.

@Ivan
If objective evidence is necessary before experiencing life, then life is experienced in a box-the dimensions of which are determined by the criterion of the asker. Most people can drive long before they understand the workings of a combustion engine and most continue to drive still not knowing. Even still, I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. Life is too short.

“If objective evidence is necessary before experiencing life…”

Did I say that? No, I said that objective evidence is necessary to accept something. You are making a claim; it will take objective evidence for me to accept it.

I emailed my brother this q, and this is what he emailed back:

“Yes, I personally sungaze. My friends sungaze. And I have personally met and talked to H.R.M., the most well-known, but not only sungazing author and promotor out there. I would say I sungaze “casually,” as contrasted to the regimen that some people develop to increase by a minute every day until you reach 44 minutes. I just habitually get outside for the low sun times, more often sunset but sometimes sunrise as well, and look at the sun.

I recommend to understand the context first. A, no one thing is a cure-all. Some people think if they can look at the sun endlessly, they become enlightened. Some people think they’ll be healed of all disease, and some people think they’ll absorb all the nutrition you need through the sun and the bare feet on the earth while sungazing. While any of the above can happen, keep in mind there is no one answer, but lots of pieces of a conscious and natural lifestyle come together as they are meant to for you.

So, what do I notice when I sungaze?: All the goodies—clearer and more energized in body, mind, and spirit. Charged with energy, connected with the sun and more connected with the universe. I know and trust myself to be a being of light, not separate from the sun and the earth itself, as all life on the planet feeds on the sun.

A lot of beliefs that the universe is harmful fall away as I realized I am looking at the sun and my vision is getting better. But I did start very slow. After sunrise, only watch for 10 seconds the first day. Then 20 seconds. 30, then 40, then 50, etc. Just add 10 seconds every day until you get up to a few minutes.

Yes, you want to go where you can see the sun at it’s lowest. The reason is there is more atmosphere at that angle to absorb ultraviolet.

(Interestingly, there is a theory that the Dead Sea and Death Valley, respectively, are considered such holy places to their indigenous peoples, possibly because by being very low elevation, there is more atmosophere to protect the people. So they could spend more time there full-bodied nude and looking directly at the sun without being harmed, and this helped supercharged their bodies with universal prana, chi, or life-force energy.)

Well, driving is driving; how much does driving affect your S.A. condition, at the distance you have to go to see the view? The main issue is of course, get out of the car when you get to the viewing spot and put your bare feet on the earth. Dirt and stone are better than grass for completing the circuit.

You may find that sungazing naturally turns your food appetite towards raw, living plants, because that is the food that grows towards the living sun energy.”

Yep, sounds like meditation to me.

The bottom line is that sungazing is the most natural thing known to man. When done properly, it will help heal the planet.

@sungazingsoul “When done properly, it will help heal the planet.”

How?

lol4rl

Im @ 13 min. got an eye exam @ around 5 min and the doctor and nurse were pretty wide-eyed at how much my vision had improved; they were asking me what changes I had made to my lifestyle, I just told them I was eating healthier. I had been going to this doctor before I started sg. I consider my vision to be perfect now, and will get another eye exam when I reach 15 min. HRM has said that @ 10 min vision should be perfect. :)