![]() Suffice it to say, there's nothing good about staring at the sun. So do your eyes a favor and avoid looking at it.Īfter all, there are around 6,000 stars in the night sky you can safely observe for as long as you wish. Normally, our bodies have a built-in defense mechanism against staring at the sun. Specifically, when we squint we look up, which minimizes the amount of light coming in and protects our cornea and retina.īut during a solar eclipse, the sun doesn't appear bright enough to trigger our defense mechanisms so we can end up staring for longer than is safe. Doing so can lead to extensive and even irreversible damage to the retina and other anatomical parts of the eye. When you stare at that bright of an object for an extended period of time, you’ll be likely to experience more than a brief moment of blurry vision. Turns out, during a solar eclipse, most of the sun's light is blocked, which actually can trick your brain into thinking it's safe to stare. The sun itself shines around 5000 times greater than the average lightbulb. ![]() But in rare cases, the damage is so extreme it never heals, leading to a rare condition called solar retinopathy. This usually only shows up in reckless eclipse gazers. The cornea protects the rest of your eye and is therefore covered in pain receptors that alert you whenever a pesky eyelash is on the loose.īut UV radiation isn't the only issue. Too much visible light can penetrate your eye and damage the retinal tissue, which causes a condition called solar retinitis. This means parts of your retina can no longer process light normally, so you can end up with entire chunks of your vision blurred out.ĭepending on the extent of the damage, recovery can take weeks, months, and in severe cases over a year. ![]() They are Schatz & Mendelblatt, 1973, and Fuller, 1976. Now, you're doing more than just overloading your retina. For starters, you're giving your eyes an abnormally high dose of UV radiation the same stuff that causes sunburns. Like your skin, the cornea at the front of your eye can also burn. Erowid Note: While stories of eye damage resulting from LSD use probably outnumber actual incidents by a signficant factor, David Nichols cites two documented cases of eye damage resulting from staring at the sun under the influence of LSD reported in peer-reviewed journals.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |