I have extreme photophobia (meaning in my case that bright light causes my eyes pain and can trigger migraines. Even when a tv or computer screen goes white or a flashlight on a screen goes by it still causes me eye pain.) However, it runs in my mother’s side of the family and I’m the only one in the family who accidentally drains batteries and messes up electronics just by being around them. Point being I don’t believe energy vampires naturally have any issues with sunlight at least not human ones. There are various types of vampiric spirits and some of them do have problems with it, though not many. If we go the folkloric route we can discuss many interesting types of vampires from around the word. The main ones stemming from improper burials or wicked souls. In those cases typically the spirit either can walk in its corpse in the night and torment others typically family. During this they might feed on nightmares, fear, luck, health, or blood. Though it should be noted that many, including myself believe blood simply refers or symbolizes our life force and isn’t necessarily always literal. Before the sun rises they must return to the grave because the sun’s light was considered purifying and could hurt them. If you have the opportunity I recommend reading Compleat Vampyre by Nigel Jackson and Between the Living and the Dead: A Perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age by Éva Pócs. Both are filled with folklore on the topic and helps put where these beliefs stem from in perspective. In Pócs book she argues that the traditional folkloric vampire was not necessarily a bloodsucker in the modern literary sense. Instead, it was a revenant—a restless, undead being that returned from the grave to torment the living, often bringing illness or misfortune. Based off of my own years of study on the subject I am personally in agreement with her. Now to discuss of modern enfleshed energy vampires and blood drinking humans. They typically don’t have any issues with sunlight, if they do I would think it’s more coincidental like in my case. Most are more energy life force draining and can effect people or technology. I seem to have little control over my effect on electronics but for me strong emotions can cause them to malfunction or disconnect from the internet/lose their signal and just my proximity will drain batteries. So I try not to keep those near me so that they function when needed. I don’t personally use my ability on living beings consciously but on occasion I have made people suddenly fall asleep… I’m better trained and can avoid that now but I have a friend who has insomnia and actually comes to me to have me do that when they need to sleep. I don’t get anything crazy from doing it I just feel more awake and alert after. Many human energy vampires have preferences for what emotions they like to feed off of. I personally think the ones who are going around causing depression and other problems are messed up and I also think you should get consent if you want to feed off of a romantic partner during coitus. If consent is given it can be enjoyable for both individuals assuming the vampire involved isn’t over feeding. There are some good books on human energy vampires available though some of them definitely lean to darker more selfish individuals. So if you read them it would give you a good idea of how to deal with and recognize parasitic energy vampires. There are the ones who also drink blood… I don’t personally really do that nor do crave blood or experience bloodlust. Manny of the darker energy vampires seem to have this struggle. I don’t know many personally but in Hawaii there was a vampire club where I met two and they went there to legally drink blood. This club also did blood drives for hospitals and for drinking. When talking to them it seemed more like it was part of their sexuality and it was their equivalent of wanting to get laid. It psychologically effected them and would cause their brains to release happy chemicals… but it didn’t seem like they were in need of it outside of that. But as I mentioned I don’t believe actual/spirit vampires feed on blood, just life force aka energy. I know there are blood drinkers here in WF so I apologize If my thoughts on this offend you, that isn’t my intent. I myself have been a willing blood doll for a lover, like blood based magic, and bonding ceremonies so I’m not trying to judge you in anyway. Let me steer this rant back to the original question. In my experience it doesn’t seem that human vampires have problems with the sun, in folk lore some do but many don’t, and there are darker undead vampiric spirits that Can even tolerate it, though there is one specifically that can only be in shadows, darkness, or night. So basically except for a handful of vampires most seem able to tolerate the sun and I would say pop culture has definitely affected how people view vampires and in turn how they identify, often having psychological impacts on what we all think of when we hear the word vampire.
