There are many similarity between sneezing and orgasm. But does sneezing fit into our yoga practices (like sex)? Are we depleting or charging ourselves with sneezing?
For me i don’t feel much difference. And it’s not quite reasonable that something our body do automatically during sickness is depleting for us. So I think sneezing is just a natural neuro-response which has very little to do with yoga.
Any ideas?
Alvin,
I think that sneezing may even be stimulating in a positive way, which may be why people have used ‘snuff’ in the past (and I presume they still do in many places). I really don’t think it creates the depletion of orgasm.
-D
It is such an odd thing, a sneeze. So many of the body’s natural functions are oddly pleasurable. I’ve been trying to freezeframe the sensation of the sneeze as I do with orgasm. Who know’s why? Perhaps just out of curiousity and an attempt to gain more influence over previously uncontrolled processes.
I’ve been trying to, too, for pretty much the same reason. But the most helpful and urgent uncontrollable process that I would like to master: when I don’t have enough sleep, unlike most people, I would not fall into sleep say in a public transport. This makes me unable to rest fully. I seems to be more agitated when I don’t have enough sleep. Tension built up in my forehead as if I have over-practiced yoga…
Any ideas?
Sleep is a tough thing to get a hold of. I used to have absolutely aweful insomnia.
When I get that agitated feeling from not getting enough rest, which seems to carry through the day, I find the best way to get relief is to do 3 things.
A rejuvinating, deep, but short meditation. Doing it standing up or in a fairly simple activity is good.
Doing an exercise like running for just five minutes at a decent pace.
And though I am not currently well rested, planning well ahead for a time whre I can, which often involved going a day or two without full rest. Basically, I have to get up early whether I want to or not for the sake of the sleep rhythm, until I am able to hit that pillow and fall into restful sleep.
Thankfully, I’ve noticed, like most here, less need of sleep. Perhaps the lack of sleep just doesn’t impact one as greatly as before, though I imagine the negative affects it can have on our deep meditations is all the more apparent.
I have mastered the sneeze. My trick to staying at the climax of the sneeze is pressing on the outside of the nostrils, so that it rubs the insides together, which holds off the explosion.
Kind of silly, but maybe you guys will like it.
I would do sambhavi and relax my mind, only witness the tendency to sneeze. Witness every moment of the sneeze without encouraging it to continue.
This works when the sneeze doesn’t come too quickly.
Katrine mentioned trying to stay with the sneeze in a post a few months back and so I have been experimenting with it. I find it such a curious thing, I feel the sneeze coming, I put my full awareness into it and completely surrender to it and it just dissipates and it feels like the energy stays within.
It doesn’t feel like it is going to work sometimes but it always does.
Something to play with.
A
Similar experience here. But I think sneezing may be a spontaneus bhastrika which I’m not sure if I need to dissipate it.
Hi guys
I’ve been successful with Katrine’s “technique” too. The allergies that are my constant companion give me countless opportunities to experience sneezing, snot and various other nasal entertainments. Another thing I do is take the pre-sneeze in-breath all the way past the top in a calm manner, and then watch the sneeze fall away. Unfortunately snot almost always ensues. If I avoid, or bypass the sneeze in this way the snot runs worse, and more violent sneezes comes up until I blow whatever culprit out of the offended membranes. Watching the sneeze go away as Katrine posted about some time ago (as Andrew mentioned 
) can for me sometimes put an end to all of it if I am really still and present. You know, it is a lot like avoiding orgasm. There’s a lot of sex going on in these heads of ours (kechari, sneeze climaxes) 
Presence, Alan
Hahaha! 
I have been a nasal freak for a long time. Nose fetishist! This is hilarious! I shall immediately start to be more aware when sneezing!
Well Alvin, the Kechari has a lot to do with ecstasy within the nostrils… maybe why you feel that way on the verge of the a-tishoo!
But excuse my ignorance please
Seems only an epidermal tease
Or a block, perhaps, released
Not a sniff here of birds and bees.
I don’t know about sneezing but I’ve been trying to study yawning, what energetic processes are involved etc…
I discovered something really funny about yawning, I have really bad migraine attacks sometimes and for some reason at the moment of the peak of a yawn (when you feel the head and tympans trembling), for that second the headache is gone.
Bliss,
I’ve been noticing that yawning is the body’s natural form of kumbhaka. I’ve been yawning and cat stretching (which is the body’s natural means of asana). I’m sure increasing oxygen levels isn’t all that yawning is good for…if you come up with anything let me know.
Hi Alvin and all,
Thanks for the sneeze awareness thread. Last night I had my first aware pre-sneeze without a sneeze where I felt like my mere observation prevented the sneeze. Strained a rib.
But the main thing I wanted to mention here is my experience with a voluntary pre-sneeze: Three quick little in-breaths. I noticed that it does consistently stimulate some “conductivity” from lungs up to crown.
Thanks for your question Alvin about how to describe this thing we are calling “ecstatic conductivity.” It seems quite likely that you have experienced “it” spontaneously in the moment before a sneeze. Fine observation.