Vampire Truth

As I’m guessing many regular visitors know, vampirism has been a big subject recently. Many people have come forward claiming to be one and writing stories about their “experiences”. I find this very interesting in this time, with vampires being so popular. Lets explore this.

Stories of vampirism have been around for hundreds, even thousands, of years but back then they were seen as monsters sneaking into your home to suck the very life essence out of you. There were thousands of deaths blamed on them, leading to corpses being dug up and mutilated in the name of the safety of the village. Of course, nobody came forward claiming to be a vampire, and that’s understandable. But in the “age of enlightenment”, still nobody stepped forward with these claims.

In fact there is no real documented evidence of people stepping forward claiming to be a vampire in any form at that time. The earliest that this can be seen happening was in the mid to late 1920’s. Why is this? By this time in history, stories of vampires had died down drastically. Science had come to the forefront and monsters and myths dropped to the way side. Here’s the answer – Dracula. Bram Stoker published his most famous novel in 1897, but it was met with luke warm reviews and sales. It’s popularity only picked up after a stage adaptation in 1924. It began traveling across the country, telling a story of immortal love and the strange sexuality of the vampire. It stuck in peoples minds. The romantic tones being gripped by the repressed society of the time.

Claims of oneself being a vampire has steadily grown since then. Dracula, going on to become the second most used character in stage and film just behind Sherlock Holmes. It sticks with people, someone being so sexy and never having to die. It’s a concept that everyone wants. But, sometimes you have to step back and look at the science and psychology of it.

Getting to the bare bones concept of it, it’s human instinct to want to stay alive. We naturally fear death because of the sheer inability to understand it and what’s beyond it. The mind is always subconsciously looking for a way to stay alive. This is why the idea of immortality is so appealing. One thing that differentiates us from the animals is our imagination. Imagination is the ability to form concepts that are not perceived by the senses. The imagination is used to solve problems. It is the part of the brain we use when we make theories. We use the same part of our brain to tell stories. It is when these concepts blend that people could become confused.

Now on to immortality. The simple answer is that it’s impossible. Death is the natural end of the life process. Nothing lasts forever. Rocks, metal, everything disintegrates. Everything in your life deteriorates at your body and mind. The moment you are born, your body starts to break down. The food we eat, the air we breath, the water we drink all causes damage to our bodies throughout our lives. There are ways to prolong the lifespan but you can’t stop the inevitable.

Now on to the preconceived concepts of vampires. In almost all original myth, vampires did not have fangs. In most cultures, the vampires drinking of blood was called the kiss of the vampire. Fangs only came into the public consciousness within the last century. Another concept that’s actually new to vampires is the pain and death from sunlight. This also started within the last century, in fact, most original myths on vampires say that they can be out during the day. To think that we are only conceivably getting close to the real thing now would be extremely egotistical. This can also be said about the misconceptions about werewolves. Almost all of what our society knows about werewolves, changing during a full moon, being infected through bite, the only way to kill them is with a silver bullet, all came from the movie The Wolfman in 1941.

What is in blood that vampires need anyway? Blood consists of red and white blood cells, blood plasma (which is 90% water), proteins, minerals, glucose, hormones, oxygen, carbon dioxide, eukocytes, platelets, hemoglobin and waste from the body. All of that would either already be in their blood or be easy to get in hundreds of other ways. We are meant to believe that this “virus” will mutate the body, but no virus is selective mutagenic, as in growing fangs, or “upping” strength, or changing the body to digest large amounts of blood. In fact, besides evolution itself, there is no known mutation that is beneficial to the being, most mutation is degenerative.

Here’s a list of normal things to millions of people. Some of them may be rare but not unheard of.

• Paleness
• Photosensitivity (easily burned by the sun)
• Changing of eye color
• Varying strength
• “Fangs”
• A craving for blood
• Being more comfortable in the dark
• Heightened sexual appetite
• A ring around the iris
• Low, or high, body heat
• A dislike for garlic or holy objects
• A seemingly slow age progression
• An inability to tan

These are all semi normal things and does not mean you are a vampire.

Porphyria is brought up many times connected to vampires. Here’s a quote from a friend on the Talk Paranormal forum named UglyNRude. “This theory was written in 1985 biochemist David Dolphin proposed that the vampires of folklore may actually have been people suffering from porphyria, a group of rare, largely hereditary blood diseases. According to the Times account of his remarks:

(1) Porphyria victims are extraordinarily sensitive to sunlight. Even mild exposure can cause severe disfigurement. Facial skin may scar, the nose and fingers may fall off, and the lips and gums may become so taut that the teeth project like fangs.
(2) To avoid sunlight, people with serious cases of porphyria go out only at night, just like Dracula.
(3) Today porphyria can be treated with injections of blood products. Centuries ago, porphyria victims might have sought to treat themselves by drinking blood.
(4) Porphyria is inherited, but the symptoms may not manifest themselves until brought on by stress. Suppose a sibling with an active case of the disease bites you to quench his thirst for blood. Très stressful, non? Suddenly your own latent porphyria goes critical and you start growing fangs too.
(5) Garlic contains a chemical that worsens porphyria symptoms, causing sufferers to avoid it. Just like vampires.

Just one problem. People with porphyria aren’t vampires, and there’s no reason to think that the vampires of folklore had the disease (or existed at all). To respond point by point:

(1) Porphyria comprises seven separate disorders. Skin problems are a fairly common symptom, but only the rarest form–congenital erythropoietic porphyria–causes severe disfigurement. Just 200 cases of this disease have been diagnosed, surely too few to account for the widespread belief in vampires. In any case, alleged vampires exhumed in the 18th century typically weren’t disfigured but appeared as they had in life (except for being dead, of course).
(2) The idea that vampires abhor sunlight was an invention of fiction writers. In Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries, vampires were sometimes reported to have been sighted during the day. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was deathly pale, but folkloric vampires, in the Balkans anyway, were said to be ruddy-faced due to blood consumption.
(3) Porphyria victims don’t crave blood. Drinking blood will not alleviate their symptoms, nor has there ever been a general belief that it would. The blood chemicals porphyria victims need do not survive digestion.
(4) No one has proved that garlic worsens porphyria.

If a vampires existed according to legend they would of destroyed their blood source in less then 3 years. Every person they supposedly turn into a vampire then claims more victims so the multiplication would wipe themselves out.”

I have a section on the science of vampires in my article The Vampire Compendium if you’d like to know more.

The human mind can convince itself of anything and just because you think you are a vampire, it doesn’t mean you are. I find it funny that with the popularity of vampires in the media, they are all of a sudden popping up everywhere. The fact that this happens makes me severely question when someone shows up claiming to be a blood sucker. Any regular visitor to the site will have noticed that these supposed vampires practically popped up out of nowhere, and if we are meant to believe that they have been around this whole time, why haven’t they shown up sooner? This reminds me of an article in an old news paper my grandfather had. It was from 1934 and it was about people claiming to be gangsters even though they had legal, mundane, jobs. Basically, they believed what they wanted to believe.

So, like I said, just because you want to be a vampire, it doesn’t mean you are.

Written by Bracket, Copyright 2009 VampireTruth.com

Well, reading everyone else’s experiences with vampires here (and some that thought that they might be modern vampires) I might as well tell of my reasons for believing that I could be a “modern vampire”. As a side note, I would like to add that this is all 100% true, whether you believe me or not 

Several traits of mine are similar or the same as those listed under distinguishing features; I have the dark coloring (pale skin,dark hair and eyes that admittedly go lighter in the summer), My canines are longer than anyone else’s that I know, and are sharper with the top canines being more fang-ish than the lower ones.

My skin tone never tans, and yet doesn’t burn, unless under extreme conditions, and even then not that bad (not like I’d want to find out how a horrible sunburn feels. I never really go outside much, although that might be chalked up to laziness, and when it comes to garlic I actually quite enjoy it, when in powder form. In solid garlic, I tend to avoid it in foods.

But, here’s my big thing; Water. I actually have a small phobia of being completely under-water, and have never wanted to learn how to swim, nor do I know how to this very day. The one worst way for me to die, in my opinion, is to drown. Funnily enough, I actually can go into pools and such, but I only go into the shallow end. Anything else and I get scared, and demand to get out of the water at once. I can’t even take showers first thing in the morning because then I’ll feel weak, nauseous, and have my vision start to fail. I have to get out of the shower when this happens or risk passing out. My very lungs start to squeeze in, like a big hand or something is trying to suffocate me (do remember that this is all true. I can understand if you have hesitations trying to believe me, but this is my way of describing things). I can barely even get my thoughts straight.

Blood, in my opinion, isn’t scary at all. It’s not quite the horror feature as some people make it out to be, to me. It’s actually quite pretty, in a way. But I would never drink it by the buckets 

As an added side-note, people have been acting as if hypnotized when I speak for extended periods of time, like if I was reading an excerpt from a book. When I finally finish talking, they act dazed for a minute, and then continue on as if they were never dazed at all. Another time, or times, is that I have seemed to display ESP or precognition at times. I correctly guess answers to everything, thougt that could be numerous coincidences, and sometimes, though rarely, have a sort of voice in my head that speaks what the person I’m listening to says a split-second later.

One very strange time, and one of my friends was a witness, was that when I was changing for gym, and horsing around on the benches even though the teacher expressly told us not to, I slipped on the bench and almost fell. I was falling in a manner that might have possibly gotten me injured as I landed, but I then felt a strange twinge in my heart, there is no other way to describe it, and thought desperately ‘Don’t let me fall!’. Immediately, I felt as if time itself had slowed down massively, and my legs folded under me so that I would be falling in a sitting position, with my legs tucked under me, and floated gently down back onto the bench. Me and my friend were staring at each other in mild fright and wonder, before exclaiming loudly how freakish it was. I asked her if she saw it, and it turns out she did as she said she saw me falling, as she said, “Really slowly!” The rest of the day was quite uneventful, ending with no other incidents.

So, what do you all think? Am I or am I not a modern vampire?

Written by “anonymoose”, Copyright 2009 VampireTruth.com

Vampirism is a disease unlike any other it feels unnatural and has properties that make themselves manifest physically even before the transition. Vampirism is a mutation of a disease much like a combination of Poryphic Hemophilia and Rabies, but yet, it isn’t during the first stage of the disease contraction (1 of 3), the body feels tired constantly and weak much like that of a cold or flu. At stage 2 the skin becomes pale slowly until almost white, at this point the victim is highly vulnerable to anything sharp even a cut could kill them as the blood is so thinned, and at stage 3 the victim goes into a deathlike sleep for 2 days or more (it is different for some people, for me it was 2 days) after which the person awakens feeling hungry but the most remarkable part about that first waking breathe is hearing the world come alive in an array of sounds and smells unlike nothing anyone could ever experience in this lifetime. Of course the new vampire is going to find food only to realize normal food is almost toxic, it induces vomiting and dizziness. Consume too much of it and death by throat muscle constriction is almost immanent. After that if they haven’t discovered they are vampires they will because you are immune to sunlight like a normal person for about 18 hours so once they start feeling their skin starting to tingle and then sting they start piecing it together. After that they usually find somewhere remote or rarely looked to hide until dusk, vampires have an innate ability to sense other vampires so they will most likely seek one out for shelter as I did, once found they are usually housed outside the coven or community for a few months (I lived outside for almost 2 years) living on their own while they adapt to their affliction. Once the coven decides to accept them, they are asked to move into it and are told the rules of the coven:

General Rules of any Coven:

Rule 1: Never feed on humans unless you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO
Rule 2: Never compromise the coven or community
Rule 3: Avoid public feeding
Rule 4: No outsiders are allowed to see the coven

Aside from these 4 most important rules each coven may vary in the next set of rules depending. A coven is a community of vampires and is more of a hierarchy than a democracy the highest vampire in the coven is the “elder” vampire and that means he or she is the oldest, wisest and strongest of everyone, there are others like him but the elder is elected based on his or her leadership skills. If the coven feels that one or more of their members are threatening the covens existence action may be taken and depending on the offence it can result in death or exile lasting anywhere from 10 to 300 years, if in the case the result is death it could be done 1 of 3 ways:

1. Death by beheading.
2. Death by the members of the coven drinking them dry. (being sucked dry of blood)
3. Death by impaling.

These punishment were learned and brought into effect from different cultures over the years. During the event of an exile the vampire is assigned a place in the world to live usually a place with no other vampires around and the exile is regulated by other vampires from time to time in the sense of “house calls.”

Vampires can be made by choice also known as humans wanting to be infected with the disease, or by breeding as humans do. If a vampire is conceived by breeding it will more than likely not have the pale skin so it will be able to travel in the daytime. If a person is bitten, they will experience the side effects mentioned above at the start. Since being bitten was already described I will go with the breeding, when vampires mate it has a rare chance less than that of a human to conceive a child, and in the event a child is going to be born it is carried within the mother for around 15 months after which the mother gives birth to a egglike cocoon, which is then either buried or put in the coven undercroft for 15 additional months, after that it is taken out and after a day usually a new baby vampire is born, it is a very weird process if I do say so myself, and when a human and a vampire mate it is usually a normal human birth but the child will have no visible vampiric properties other than longevity and superior senses like smell and hearing.

A vampire must feed to remain alive but they are not allowed to feed on humans unless it is absolutely necessary, instead they are urged to feed on animals like cattle, sheep, or pigs to name a few, and some vampires bring packs of blood like those used in hospitals for blood transfusions.

Closing Notes:

Vampires are not people who like to stand out and be noticed in public.

Vampires are social and calm but can have a very short temper.

Vampires are not beasts or demons or anything to be afraid of remember they were once human too.

Vampire society is highly secretive usually in plain sight but not obvious.

Comments: This is about as far as I will go in this in-depth explanation.

Written by Xavier, Copyright 2009 VampireTruth.com