Vampires in real life facts and myths. Do vampires exist today? Dracula may have had porphyria

Vampire theme Lately, began to appear more and more often on television, in newspapers, on forums, communities and other sources of information. Don't you think this kind of activity is quite strange?! Why did everyone suddenly become interested: do vampires exist in our time or not?! This fact can be interpreted in different ways, for example, the release of the revolutionary film “Twilight” or the TV series “The Vampire Diary”. However, in this case, other questions arise: “Weren’t they making films on this topic before these films? Didn't they publish books? Has this issue been raised in the news?” Naturally they filmed it and of course the media published similar facts more than once. To say that now there is a different generation that is interested in this topic would be, to say the least, stupid, since people of all ages are showing interest. Then only one logical answer comes to mind:

“Vampires exist nowadays! And they woke up quite recently, and, noticing such violent activity around their clan, began to panic, making imprudent actions, thereby giving themselves away.”

Whether this assumption has a chance to be true or not - we will find out about it a little later, but for now let's delve a little into the history and description of the vampires themselves, because if we come to the conclusion that vampires exist, then we must somehow define them. And it’s not for nothing that the saying was invented: “keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer,” so that the latter will not be able to build an insidious plan behind your back.

The history of vampires

I don’t think anyone will argue with me about how popular vampires of all types of evil spirits are: hundreds of legends are made about them, films are made about them, songs are written about them, people talk about them with friends. However, due to such unhealthy popularity, various terrible deeds and details began to be attributed to vampires. Over thousands of years, it is already difficult to distinguish where in this or that legend there is truth and where it is pure fiction, but as we already know, every myth and legend has its own share of truth, which is difficult to refuse to modern man, so he delves into history to finally find the answer to the question: do vampires exist in our time or not. The final decision: believe it or not, everyone will still have to make on their own...

The history of the existence of vampires goes back to Poland; according to legend, it was there that the bulk of vampires existed, regularly killing dozens of living people by drinking their blood. For a long time, local residents passed on their notes about what was happening, as the only evidence of the existence of vampires at that time.

Eastern Europe also suffered from the oppression of bloodsuckers; from their legends you can learn that every person who committed suicide could become a vampire. As a rule, all the most terrible atrocities were attributed to vampires, such as dismemberment and blood sucking. In addition, people who went against the church and its church servants were also doomed to turn into vampires.

A dead person could also turn into a vampire if a black cat jumped over his coffin, or if some creaks were heard in the deceased’s coffin during burial, or if his eyes opened slightly. At such moments, relatives watched in every possible way over the deceased and his coffin, and if one of the above happened, then they always put garlic (closer to the head) and a fresh hawthorn sprig (closer to the feet) in his coffin.

There are several types and representatives of vampires, for example, in Portugal, Bruxa is such a representative. Nowadays, the inhabitants of this country still fear and believe in the existence of vampires (Brooks). Outwardly, she is indistinguishable from an ordinary woman, but at night she turns into a bird that kills babies, sucking their blood to the last drop.

Where do vampires live and what do they look like nowadays?

Why didn’t the whole world suspect that vampires live among us, because there are so many legends?! The answer is quite simple, in each country vampires are called differently and their appearance can be different, so vampires could not be “systematized” for a long time, and just recently we succeeded. We have compiled the most full list names of vampires given by residents different countries. We invite you to familiarize yourself with it:

As you can see for yourself, vampires exist in many countries, but it is almost impossible to recognize them, since their appearance often changes. They are often similar to ordinary people Over thousands of years, vampires have already learned to hide from people. However, let's make a list of those factors that will indicate a vampire. If vampires exist, then what do they look like nowadays:

pale and dry skin;
thinness;
long nails;
long and sharp fangs;
are afraid of sunlight;
their age and appearance can remain unchanged for a long time (they do not age).

Do you think this is true?! Just the opposite! And there is evidence of this!

Evidence of the existence of vampires

Of course, if we are talking about vampires, we need to provide evidence of their existence. Stefan Kaplan, a famous scientist who has earned worldwide respect, back in 1972, opened a center in New York for the study of vampires and the search for evidence as such. Naturally, his search was crowned with success; he found dozens of living vampires. They turned out to be ordinary-looking people. What conclusion did Stefan Kaplan come to?:

Vampires exist in our time!
They really don't like sunlight, but all they need to do is wear sunglasses and apply sunscreen to exposed parts of their bodies.
Their fangs and nails are the most ordinary.
They do not know how to turn into birds, animals or other people.
Vampires do drink human blood, but they only need 50 milligrams (a shot glass) 3 times a week to quench their thirst.
Vampires are absolutely not aggressive; on the contrary, they make wonderful parents and loyal friends. By the way, the latter let them drink their blood because they understand their problem.
When they have nowhere to get blood, they drink animal blood, but they really don't like the taste of it.

Many consider these people not vampires, but people with mental disorders, but Professor Stefan Kaplan argues the opposite, based on his study, he and his team say that the need to drink human blood is physiological, not mental. And the fact is that vampires, feeding on the blood of people, really always look young.

In other words, the fact of the existence of vampires is obvious, you just need to perceive them not as deadly animals, but as ordinary people who simply feed on blood.

Photos of vampires in our time:

Vampires actually exist. But they usually don't wear hooded cloaks or display a villain's smile. These are, rather, people who have ordinary jobs, people who simply consume blood or energy because they believe that they need it. Sometimes they need the help of a therapist, but prefer not to talk about the fact that they are real vampires. Information about real-life vampires is contained in an article recently published in the journal Critical Social Work.

Of course, such concerns are understandable given the stories of suspicious people being accused of vampirism, as well as the sensational descriptions of modern vampires.

However, real vampires do not live up to the popular image of them. D.J. Williams of Idaho State University has been studying them for years. “These are successful, ordinary people,” he told Reuters' Laura Zuckerman.

Many individuals who consider themselves vampires find others like them on the Internet. Williams and Emily Prior of College of the Canyons are the authors of the study.

According to them, some people who consider themselves vampires actually take part in role playing games and like to wear special clothes (made of thin black material in the form of a cloak), while others are vampires only because they believe they need to feed on the energy or blood of other people. For the most part, voluntary donors themselves provide blood when needed.

“According to the vampires themselves, without episodic feeding of this kind, their general state health is deteriorating. Therefore, the term vampirism is used, in essence, to describe the process of feeding. Real vampires may or may not be interested in mythical vampires or vampirism in pop culture; this does not appear to be significant for identity-based vampirism,” Williams and Prior note.

The two authors' collective work shows that such groups exist across a spectrum of religious beliefs, races and ethnicities, sexualities, genders, ages, and occupations, and many report feeling isolated. These types of vampires also report feelings of fear - they are afraid of being identified as vampires.

“People with a true vampire identity - at least within this category - fear that doctors will classify them as people with certain psychopathological disorders (tendency to hallucinate, immaturity, instability). They may be seen as vicious and incapable of fulfilling normal social roles, including parenting.”

Williams and Prior end their article with a call for doctors and mental health professionals to listen to real vampires, learn from them, and treat them the same as people of all alternative identities. For those individuals who appear to function well in society - this is the case with some of the people mentioned in the study - an effective approach must include trust in them and the ability to listen.

“The real vampire community appears to be conscientious and ethical,” Williams said in an interview with Reuters. “Most vampires believe that they were born this way; They don’t make that choice themselves.”

Photos from open sources

Probably each of us, after watching numerous feature films wondered: do vampires really exist or not? And, as a rule, we reassured ourselves with the answer that all these were inventions of the authors of science fiction works, and in real life vampires don't exist. However, we are all deeply mistaken. (website)

In real life, vampires exist, however, they do not wear black cloaks, like Vampires, and try in every possible way to keep silent about their existence. This is not surprising - who wants to be in the center of attention of modern society as an object of bullying or as a guinea pig.

Real vampires feed not only on blood, but also on the energy of living beings (usually human). They believe that this is simply vital for them. And often volunteer donors meet them halfway and supply blood if the vampires need it. This shocking diet, in the opinion of many, allows vampires to restore strength and improve their deteriorating health. True vampires may not actually be interested in the legends of their ancient relatives or vampirism in modern culture in order to somehow identify themselves. They are afraid public opinion and do not want to be pigeonholed as vampires with subsequent condemnation and witch hunts.

Real-life vampires may profess different religions, belong to different races or ethnic groups, have different gender or sexual orientations, professions and ages.

Why do real vampires hide from people?

Real vampires also fear that doctors classify them as people with obvious mental disorders followed by forced treatment. Modern society simply will not accept vampirism as something normal and will accuse representatives of this social unit as vicious and incapable of raising or performing other social roles in society. Moreover, people can accuse vampires of any crimes that the latter did not commit, which will bring upon them the wrath of society and excessive attention from law enforcement officers and psychiatrists.

Many scientists today urge doctors, including psychiatrists, to treat real vampires in the same way as other people representing alternative identities. After all, most vampires are not able to make a choice regarding their alternative status, because, according to them, own opinion, they are born with it and try to integrate into society as comfortably as possible without causing harm to others.

Evidence that vampires exist

The incredible popularity of vampires in last years(although books and films have been made about them before) pushes scientists and doctors to more thoroughly study this phenomenon. Vampirism has its origins in Eastern Europe, largely in Poland, where there were often reports of people drinking human blood. But in order to distinguish truth from fiction, modern man needs evidence and facts.

The world-famous scientist Stefan Kaplan began searching for evidence of whether vampires exist in real life back in 1972, organizing a center for the study of vampires and searching for evidence of their existence in New York. And Kaplan very quickly found real vampires, who turned out to be ordinary-looking people, but with some peculiarities in behavior and nutrition. Here are the conclusions he came to:

vampires really don't like sunlight, so they use sunglasses and special sun creams;
real vampires' nails do not turn into claws, but their fangs are of the most ordinary size;
Vampires are not able to transform into other people or animals;
real vampires actually drink blood, but to quench their thirst, one 50 mg shot three times a week is enough for them;
real vampires do not show aggression, being, as a rule, good parents and friends;
in the absence of human blood (which donors share with them voluntarily), vampires drink the blood of animals, although the taste of such blood is significantly inferior to human blood (all vampires who have been studied by scientists say this).

Whether vampires exist or not in real life - you can now answer this question yourself. Yes, they exist, but their appearance and behavior differ significantly from those known in modern society stereotypes. Real vampires are people with an unusual physiological (and not mental, as many believe) need to consume human blood. Scientists have proven the existence of vampires in real life, but have dispelled many myths that have haunted people who drink human blood from century to century. What do you think about vampires?

In the culture of every nation you can find references to blood-sucking monsters. However, in order to understand whether vampires exist in real life, or whether they are just a figment of people's imagination, it is necessary to understand the very essence of these creatures.

Basic characteristics of vampires

A vampire in the mythology of the peoples of Europe is a lower creature that came to life after death and fed on the blood of a person or.

Various legends attribute to them many supernatural skills. Among them:

the ability to transform into animals;
the ability to send damage and disease;
superhuman strength;
regeneration;
immortality.

Appeal

In the Middle Ages, people believed that such a bloodthirsty monster could not only be born, but also become. Therefore, they are conventionally divided into categories:

Firstborn.
Killed by a violent death.
People who have made a contract with the Devil.

Firstborn

All creatures of Darkness, whose diet becomes human life force, belong to this category. It includes deities and their minions, demons and monsters generated by otherworldly forces.

Examples of such creatures are:

Amam is a demon in ancient Greek mythology who punished sinners. He drank their life force, and the body itself was torn into pieces.
Kali is an Indian goddess, a symbol of destruction. Considered one of the most bloodthirsty deities in Hinduism.
Chivatateo - in Aztec mythology, servants of the Moon Deities. They kidnapped children at night and drank their blood.
Sakhmet is the consort of God Ptah in Egyptian mythology. She was the patroness of battles. It was believed that she, tormented by thirst, forced people to carry out massacres in order to get enough.
Empusa - Hecate's assistants. They lured children whose parents had angered the goddess into caves and drank their blood there.
Akshar - demons of Sumerian mythology. They mainly hunted children and pregnant women.

Killed

Usually these were adults who had unfinished business. However, children, especially unbaptized ones, could also become vampires.

Typical representatives of this group:

Striga - in Moldavian and Romanian mythology, a hanged man who turned into a vampire.
- in the mythology of the Slavic peoples, a living dead who was incorrectly buried. Every night he crawls out of his grave and harms people and livestock. According to legends, he has primitive animal habits, he feels nothing but hunger, and does not remember who he was during his life.
Mora is an unbaptized girl who killed herself. According to Slavic mythology, she persecuted unfaithful husbands and negligent wives. Maura took revenge on them for not appreciating what she would never have.
Ubor is a reborn man who was unjustly killed. In Bulgarian mythology, this is a spirit that burns with a thirst for revenge on its offenders.

Converts

There are also many legends according to which people deliberately made deals with demons and other monsters, exchanging their lives and blood for their help. Such deals usually had dire consequences for people. They became silent slaves of the entities, and were forced to carry out all their instructions.

It was also believed that witches and magicians became such vampires after their death.

Protection

Depending on the type and characteristic features vampire methods of fighting him differed in different beliefs. However, there are a few that are almost always mentioned.

These include:

Garlic. People believed that these creatures did not tolerate its scent well, and therefore it was often used in funeral rituals. Usually, garlic beads were hung around the neck of the deceased or placed in the mouth.
Aspen stake. It was believed that aspen had magical properties, and therefore a stake from this tree could put to rest the resurrected evil spirits.
Silver. Nails, stakes, chains and other things made of silver were also often used in burials. People believed that, like aspen, it had magical properties and would not allow the dead to escape from the grave.

In various literary sources you can also find references to the fact that sickles, scythes, or simply stones were placed in coffins. All this was done in order to prevent the vampire from leaving his coffin.

Human vampirism

Scientists were able to accurately answer the question about the existence of vampires in real life only in the middle of the 20th century. Until then, the opinions of even the most prominent scientists differed.

First mention

In the 18th century The first attempts were made to scientifically determine vampirism in humans.

According to the records found, landowner Peter Blagojevich was buried in 1725. However, less than a month later, his fellow villagers began to die one after another. Each of them said that they saw Peter's corpse, and a few days later, they themselves died. To establish the truth, local residents called a priest and the military. Having dug up the coffin with his calving, they discovered that traces of decomposition had hardly affected him, but his hair and fingernails had grown back significantly. There were also dried streaks of blood around the mouth.

The priest's report on the case was delivered to higher authorities and then published in major newspapers.

From now on, people, and especially villager, they began to dig up graves and pierce the hearts of the dead with stakes. Many burial rituals also emerged to avoid turning a dead person into a vampire.

Scientific background

Only after the transition of medicine to a higher level, scientists found that the vampire as a mythical monster does not exist, and all mystical manifestations of human vampirism can be explained from a scientific point of view.

Physical illnesses

A number of human diseases can cause symptoms that make them look like a vampire. In the Middle Ages, medicine was not so developed, and therefore it was impossible to determine that this was a physical deviation and not a manifestation of mystical power. Such people were not treated, but were immediately exterminated out of ignorance.

Thus, due to coma or narcolepsy, a person could fall into a vegetative state. In this case, the characteristic features of this condition are:

low pressure;
weak shallow breathing;
lack of response to external stimuli.

Medicine at that time could not determine that he was still alive and he was buried. Due to the vegetative state and air reserves in the coffin, death occurred within a few hours, or even days. Because of this, the expected degree of decomposition differed from the actual one.

It is easy to explain the “growth” of nails and hair. After death, the human body stops producing glucose, which makes the process of cell division unrealistic. However, along with this, moisture also leaves the body. This exposes more hair and makes your nails appear longer.

Psychological diseases

Sometimes the need to drink blood can be seen in psychologically unbalanced people. They also do not belong to dark creatures, but are simply sick.

Actions dictated by faith

Often ritual sacrifices, in particular the exchange of blood, were of a religious nature. When performing the ritual, believers used the blood and bodies of animals, and sometimes people. Outsiders could also find places for such ceremonies. The uninitiated could not explain their findings and attributed them to mythical forces.

Classification of types of human vampirism

Clinical cases of a person manifesting a desire for blood or acquiring characteristic external signs can be divided into the following groups:

Physiological disease.
Psychological deviation.
The need for emotional saturation.

Physiological diseases

Diseases in this group include the following:

Porphyria.
Coma.
Narcolepsy.
Rabies.

Porphyria

A hereditary genetic disease leading to disruption of pigment metabolism and an increase in the content of porphyrins in the blood and tissues. This disease affects internal organs and is reflected in a person’s appearance.

Symptoms include:

Pale skin due to lack of hemoglobin.
Photophobia. Under the influence of ultraviolet radiation, the skin is destroyed, causing suffering to the patient.
The structure of the cartilage tissue is destroyed: the fingers become crooked, the ears and nose become pointed.
The lips become thinner, exposing the incisors, and the gums bleed.
Teeth may take on a pinkish tint.

Porphyria can only be treated with a bone marrow transplant. However, even this does not give a 100% guarantee.

Coma

A life-threatening condition that is characterized by a sudden loss of consciousness, lack of response to external stimuli, shallow breathing and a slow pulse. The causes can be either injury or infection.

Patients experience a decrease in hemoglobin levels and, as a result, acquire a characteristic vampire appearance.

Narcolepsy

A physiological condition that manifests itself in slowness, lethargy, and fatigue. Patients experience irresistible daytime sleepiness and suffer from insomnia at night. Sometimes hallucinations occur immediately after waking up or falling asleep.

Our body cannot withstand disruption for long life cycle. Because of chronic fatigue Outbursts of aggression begin to appear, which are sharply replaced by apathy.

This disease is also characterized by a lack of appetite. As a result, hemoglobin levels decrease, which leads to changes in appearance.

Rabies

This is another disease that can lead to the manifestation of characteristic features appearance vampire

Symptoms include:

Depressed state, insomnia.
Increased sensitivity to external stimuli: bright light, loud sounds.
There is a fear of water, hallucinations, and obsessions.
Salivation increases. Sometimes the liquid turns from white to pinkish. This indicates the presence of blood in saliva.
An unhealthy appetite appears. The desire to consume something inedible or dangerous. Patients have a thirst for blood and increased aggressiveness.
Paralysis of the facial muscles and musculoskeletal system.

This disease is fatal.

Psychological abnormalities

The emergence of a tendency towards vampirism can also be explained from a psychological point of view. In 1992, Richard Noll first described a case of human vampirism, the cause of which was the mental disorder of his patient. This disease was later called Renfield syndrome.

It consists of the following stages:

A “chief incident” is a random action or circumstance that results in the patient tasting his own blood and finding it intriguing.
Autovampirism. A person inflicts wounds on himself in order to observe the bleeding process and again feel that unique taste. He learns how to properly open the major veins and arteries to gain more direct access.
In parallel with this, zoophagy develops - eating living creatures or drinking their blood.
The next stage in the development of the syndrome is the emergence of an obsession to drink the blood of another person.

According to statistics, predominantly men are affected by this disease.

Energy vampirism

Usually, the donor person himself loses some of his energy and, after communicating with this type of vampire, experiences fatigue and apathy.

People who tend to absorb another person's energy are sociable and easily strike up conversations with strangers. In the absence of the necessary nourishment, they fall into apathy and depression.

Vampires in the animal kingdom

Annelids

Among this species, leeches are hematophagous. They feed on the blood of vertebrates, mollusks, worms, etc. They are often used in folk medicine to cleanse wounds and thin the blood.

Nematodes

Arthropods

This type has several subtypes, which are also hematophagous.

Crustaceans

Arachnids

Many families of mites belong to the hematophagous species. In addition to the discomfort they cause when feeding, ticks are also carriers of various serious diseases.

Of the spiders, it is worth highlighting the species of jumping spiders. They prefer to feed on hematophagous insects.

Insects

This is the largest group of real vampires in nature. These include:

Diptera insects. Female mosquitoes, horseflies, midges.
Bedbugs. Bed bugs and the Predator family.
Fleas.
Some representatives of the order Lepidoptera and adults.

Vertebrates

This type has three subtypes, where representatives of hematophages can be found.

Fish

Birds

Mammals

Among mammals, hematophagous bats include vampire bats. There are 3 types in total:

ordinary vampire;
white-winged vampire;
hairy-legged vampire.

They all live in Central and South America. They feed only on fresh blood of mammals, and sometimes attack people. Their saliva has an anesthetic property and the victim does not feel anything during the bite.

Conclusion

The existence of the mythical monster vampire was first described in the mid-18th century, and at the beginning of the 19th century. scientists have refuted its mystical existence. IN modern world human vampirism can be found as one of the symptoms of a physical or psychological illness. This phenomenon is also common in the animal world. There's no evidence

Today, the vampire is one of the most trendy characters. TV series and gothic subcultures contribute a lot to the popularization of these beautifully dangerous entities. Admit it, have you ever wanted to meet a vampire in real life? Nothing is impossible.

American researcher John Edgar Browning claims that thousands of people regularly consume human blood. He devoted a lot of time and effort to studying this topic and even agreed to become a donor to one of his “experimental subjects” - something you wouldn’t do for the sake of science.

As it turned out, in our time, drinking someone else's blood is not a tribute to a fashionable trend and not a satanic rite. People with such unusual food addiction call themselves "medical vampires". They are forced to take a couple of tablespoons of blood about every few weeks.

This is the only remedy that helps them avoid extremely unpleasant and sometimes life-threatening symptoms: acute attacks of headache, weakness, stomach cramps. During an attack arterial pressure approaches the lower critical level, at the slightest motor activity, for example, when trying to stand up or at least rise, the pulse quickens to 160 beats per minute. Only a timely portion of blood can save you from another attack.

Where do they get it? No, they do not roam the streets at night in search of victims; donation is carried out exclusively on a voluntary basis. Agree, you cannot ask the first person you meet to donate some blood; you need to find a person whom the vampire could trust.

The procedure for obtaining blood resembles a medical one: the skin is wiped with alcohol, a small incision is made with a scalpel, then the wound is treated and bandaged - no fangs or bites on the neck. Browning was even a little disappointed when he learned that the vampire found it “unpalatable”: he preferred a pronounced metallic taste, apparently, such blood contains more iron.

Medical vampires do not suffer from mental disorders and do not find anything romantic in their peculiarity. They would be glad to get rid of their need, the search for donors, the need to hide their illness and especially the recipe from the public, but it seems they have no choice. Official medicine is not aware of this disease, and, therefore, no cure is provided.

The fact that today only American scientists give the problem of vampirism its due does not mean that the habitat of vampires is limited to the territory North America. Most likely, a certain percentage of such people are present in every country, including Russia. Let's try to take a break from everyday life in the US, make allowances for close and familiar realities and imagine how a Russian vampire lives.

You'll have to face it brutal truth: Many of them are forced to kill. Almost everyone sooner or later finds themselves outside of society due to their nocturnal lifestyle: It is problematic for a vampire to have a permanent job and re-issue lost or expired documents on time. Thus, vampires should be looked for in asocial circles.

The criminal environment with its rigid hierarchy and strict norms of behavior is alien to the vampire. However, he can act as a loner and mayhem. There is a version that serial killers, such as Chikatilo, could be a vampire. Knowledge of psychology helped to identify a performer with the necessary inclinations, such as low self-esteem, thirst for greatness, unstable psyche, suggestibility.

It is easy to convince such a person that clearing the city of prostitutes is a sacred matter, and if caught, he will with great joy try on the laurels of Jack the Ripper and take upon himself all the unsolved murders committed in the area. The series of murders in that same region did not stop after the arrest of the maniacs. It is quite possible that the reason for this is not the aggravation of the followers, but the systematic work of the vampire on the new performer.

Youth parties are an equally attractive environment for a vampire. He will not attract unnecessary attention among colorful role players, and deviations in behavior will be easily forgiven. There are also drugs and fights here, and, as a result, accidents. It doesn’t have to be fatal, just damage to the skin is enough. Who will then believe an informal person, who has not been seen sober for a long time, that one of his comrades drank his blood?

A vampire likes the profession or image of a free artist, because this is a reason to invite pretty girls to the studio as models. Then it’s a matter of technique: to charm, hypnotize, intimidate, in order to force you to give up your blood until completely exhausted. A similar incident occurred in St. Petersburg: another victim was saved by a guy in love with her by killing a vampire.

A vampire can find refuge among the gypsies, where they do not ask for documents, do not delve into the details of the biography, and in some families the ancient bloody cult is still alive Indian goddess Kali.

Modern vampires unite in closed groups. Unlike medieval secret societies, they resolve much more mundane and pressing issues: from exchanging donor coordinates to conducting independent research work.

In everyday life, members of the group try not to differ from ordinary people: among them there are lawyers, waiters, teachers and doctors, many of them are very successful. Almost none of them are interested in films about vampires, since they do not identify themselves with fictional characters.

They have to keep their peculiarity secret: no one wants to be branded a pervert or a monster. Many fear more serious consequences if it becomes known that they drink blood, such as losing their jobs or parental rights.

However, they prefer to act rather than sit idly by: collecting and, if possible, analyzing as much data as possible about their disease, in order to then provide information to scientific and medical centers. In this case, there will be a chance that an alternative treatment for their disease will be developed. At least the problem will receive an official name, and it will not have to be hidden from others.

The vampire community has already managed to achieve some results in America: scientific institutions in different states have become interested in some of them, and the first studies of an unusual disease are being conducted. One of the first patients was a 37-year-old resident of Atlanta, who, having become a “bloodsucker,” overcame asthma and generally began to feel much better.

Over the past few years, several publications about vampires have appeared in such authoritative publications and major media mass media, like Critical Social Work and BBC Future .

Publications are devoted to the existence of completely adequate people suffering from this peculiarity of the body. The articles present the results of so far few studies and comments from experts - researchers state universities states of Texas and Idaho, not indifferent to the problem of vampirism.

For example, it was possible to establish that this disease has a slightly different nature than that well known to doctors porphyria - a rare pathology leading to a deficiency of red blood cells and the breakdown of hemoglobin. External manifestations have much in common with the description of mythical vampires; perhaps they served as the prototype for numerous legends.

The most common myths that vampires are afraid of ultraviolet radiation and cannot stand garlic are quite justified: direct Sun rays burn thinned skin, and garlic aggravates the symptoms. In its advanced form, porphyria leads to deformation of the joints - characteristic crooked fingers, darkening of the skin and hair, redness of the eyes from conjunctivitis, atrophy of the lips and gums, visual elongation of the incisors - vampire fangs, which also sometimes change color, acquiring a reddish tint.

Among the symptoms, mental abnormalities were recorded, which are not observed in medical vampires. Fatal cases account for 20% of the total number of patients. Fortunately, this is a fairly rare disease: one such diagnosis per 100-200 thousand people (data vary). There is an opinion that Count Dracula himself, or more precisely, his prototype Vlad Tepes, was one of the carriers of the disease.

WITH light hand Bram Stoker's Dracula became the most famous vampire of all time. His prototype, Vlad III the Impaler, is still highly revered in Romania today as a governor and ruler. However, this name evokes two feelings: he was also famous for his incredible cruelty.

Tepes translated means “impaled” - eloquent evidence that his enemies knew no mercy, a slow, painful death awaited them. According to some reports, the ruler loved to eat near dying victims.

The name Dracul - “son of the dragon” - was inherited from his father Vlad II along with the title and throne., the pronunciation Dracula became widespread during his reign in the 15th century.

There were other frightening facts in his biography: Dracula kept countless treasures in the ground and under water; none of those who delivered the treasures to the burial site survived. This is what the warlocks did when they entered into an alliance with the devil.

Due to circumstances, Dracula converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism, in those days there was a belief that an apostate turns into a ghoul. The governor’s ominous reputation remained even after death: there were rumors that the body had disappeared from the grave without a trace.

Today it is difficult to say for sure where is the truth and where is fiction. It is known that incest - one of the causes of genetic pathology - was common among noble people. Dracula had virtually unlimited and uncontrolled access to blood, and it is possible that he also used it for magical rituals.

It should be noted that porphyria is also for a long time remained unrecognized, only in the middle of the last century scientists began to take it seriously.

The scientific world calls on society to be tolerant of modern vampires and draws attention to the conscious and ethical behavior of representatives of groups. Mutual trust will help research efforts to find a cure for this little-studied disease.

how to turn into a vampire

Where can you meet them?

I don’t understand the current world... Time flies quickly... We call those who own strange things vampires, sorcerers, etc.... So what is the difference between a vampire and a person with a strange disease. Sorcerer or magician. And can it be called magic that everything you say comes true? Or those suffering from that disease, vampires?

How can you become a vampire

I want to be a vampire

If only vampires really existed, I want to see their reaction to “Twilight” and “The Vampire Diaries”

I had no interest in vampires, but I recently started watching films about them. So I thought for a very long time, we know that witches exist and shamans existed once upon a time, I don’t know, they are not particularly interesting to me, yet we believe that they exist, so why not believe in the existence of vampires? our world is full of secrets... I believe that vampires exist. Although I have never met them and at the same time it’s a pity that I have not met them)

how to meet a vampire, and possibly become one) Vampires respond if you think such a thing about yourself...

I can't understand people who are looking for ways to become a vampire. So where did you get the idea that when you meet him, he will certainly convert you? Why doesn't he drink you? What will stop him?