Looking at Vampires

  We shall take a look at what we are told about their appearance, their origins. The vampire will be described in the way that various authors knew him best, based on their expertise, knowledge, medical and scientific facts. Information will be borrowed from “The Vampire in Legend and Fact” by Basil Copper and “Vampires, Burial and Death” by Paul Barber. The vampires of folklore would always be described as different from that of movies and fiction. Neither the cloak nor the canines are prominent in vampire folklore. The image of vampires being lanky, having long crooked fingernails, with the hoods of their black cloaks shaped like the wings of a bat are also misrepresented. In folklore, the vampire is different from fiction such that the colour of his face is never pale, as expected of a corpse, but rather a healthy dark colour to be attributed to his habit of drinking blood. It is an infallible sign of a vampire as well when higraves with the face remaining ruddy and the body was mostly lacerated and swimming in a pool of blood in Prussia, Northern Europe or being in a different position from the one since it was buried. Unlike fiction where vampires age with astonishing speed at the time of their death or even simply disappearing, in folklore the body does not self destruct but has to be got rid of by a variety of methods. Fictional vampires are often designed to create a sinister, frightening aura, which has already shaped commonly

accepted perceptions about vampires from more factual accounts found in folklore.

   

 

  Various Terms of Vampirism

Psychologically

In medical

In Role-playing Game

In Folklore & Fiction

 

   Psychologically

Why would someone want to drink blood?
People drink blood for different reasons. Vampires from mythology needed fresh blood to keep alive. And some modern Blood drinkers who believe themselves to be "Vampires" drink blood for the same reason. Other modern day Blood drinkers, drink blood because they like the taste, or they find it very erotic/sexual, or they love the feeling of power they get when a donor lets them cut and drink their blood. Others needed to drink blood in order to refresh and sustain himself. So as you see Different People have different reasons why the drink blood. And if you think about it, most mothers have drunk blood at some point in their life, when kissing their children cut better.

    In medical Terms

Anemia

Derived from the Greek word for "bloodlessness", anemia is a blood disease in which the red-cell count is unusually low. Red cells are the carriers of oxygen throughout the body. When a person suffers from anemia, their symptoms are caused by inadequate oxygen. These symptoms may include:

A pale complexion

Fatigue

Fainting spells

Shortness of breath

Digestive disorders

There are three main causes of anemia: disease, heredity, and severe blood loss. Over the ages, a person suffering from these symptoms may have been under suspicion of a vampire attack. Once again, myth warps to suit the needs of the believer. Although the victim may have contracted a disease or simply have inherited the blood disorder, society would have found it easy to believe that the symptoms resulted from a vampire attack. Indeed, these symptoms may even have suggested to our ancestors that the victim was beginning his own transition to a vampire, marked with a pale complexion and trouble eating food.

Catalepsy

Catalepsy is a disorder of the nervous system that causes a form of suspended animation. It causes a loss of voluntary motion, a rigidity to the muscles, as well as decreased sensitivity to pain and heat. A person suffering from catalepsy can see and hear cannot move. Their breathing, pulse, and other regulatory functions are slowed to the extent that to an untrained eye, it would seem as though they were deceased. This condidtion can last from minutes to days. Before 20th century medicine came along, there were few diagnostic tests that could be done on a body to ensure it was in fact dead, and so it is possible and even likely that persons suffering from catalepsy could have been declared dead prematurely. Embalming a corpse before burial is also a 20th century idea, so it's very possible that these bodies were declared dead and buried while the person still lived. Upon recovering from their catalyptic state, the person would try to dig their way to the surface. Many myths may have arisen from this single condition alone.

Porphyria

Of all the disorders and diseases even loosely linked to vampirism, the most bizarre must be porphyria. It is a rare hereditary blood disease; its symptoms so closely match the myths associated with our modern conception of vampirism it's eerie. A victim of porphyria cannot produce heme, a major and vital component of red blood. Today, this disease is treatable with regular injections of heme into the body. However, as little as fifty years ago, this treatment was unavailable and the disease unknown. In the past, a porphyria sufferer would show symptoms that include:

Extreme sensitivity to sunlight

Sores and scars that break open and will not heal properly

Excessive hair growth

Tightening of skin around lips and gums (which would make the incisors more prominent)

This disease would likely cause the victim to only go out at night, in order to avoid the painful rays of the sun. In addition, while garlic stimulates the production of heme in a healthy person, it would only cause the symptoms of porphyria to become more painfully severe. Porphyria was eventually discarded by scientists as a reasonable explanation of the vampire myth that has pervaded our history. Although vampire accounts of the past bear little resemblance to the dashing figure we romanticize today, these qualities may have contributed to our look at the vampire in film and fiction: pale skin, extended incisors, even the fear of the sun!

   In Game

Vampire the MasqueradeA well known role-playing game that enables one to personate a vampire... 

'No one holds command over me. No man. No god. No Prince. What is a claim of age for ones who are immortal? What is a claim of power for ones who defy death? Call your damnable hunt. We shall see who I drag screaming to hell with me'
Gunter Dorn, Das Ungeheuer Darin

By becoming a monster, one learns what it is to be human.

Vampire is a game of make-believe, of pretend, of storytelling. Although Vampire is a game, it is more about storytelling than it is about winning. If you've never done this kind of thing before, you may be confused by the whole premise of a storytelling game. Once you catch on to the basic concepts, however, you'll find that it isn't all that strange, and is, in fact, eerily familiar.
You, along with some of your friends, are going to tell stories of madness and lust. Tales of things that go bump in the night. Tales of peril, paranoia, and sinister, shadowy evil. Tales from the darkest recesses of our unconscious minds. And at the heart of these stories are vampires.
These stories will capture your imagination far more readily than any play or movie; likewise, they are of a darker nature than the children's fairy tales you might remember. This is because you are inside the story and not just watching it. You are creating it as you go along, and the outcome is always uncertain
This game provides a way to experience a horror of an all too immediate nature, for you experience the terror from the other side of the mirror. The horror of Vampire is the legacy of being half a beast, trapped in a world of no absolutes, where morality is chosen, not ordained. The horror of Vampire is the evil within, and the all-consuming lust for warm blood.
Perhaps the greatest danger of playing vampire is that of seeing yourself in the mirror. To play this game you must face the madness within you, that which you strive to master and overcome, but cannot bear to face.

   In Folklore and Fiction

This is the link to search for various specified type of known vampires that are in existence according to different cultures and places around the world. From here, one will realize that though vampires are in many different forms, they all have one thing in common, that is they have long razor-like fangs and drink blood. 
http://www.csn.ul.ie/~egnarts/vampire/index1.html

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