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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday October 28 2015, @01:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the fluid-sucking dept.

Postdoctoral fellow John Edgar Browning, who has spent his entire academic life studying the depiction of vampires in film and literature, originally thought that there must be something deranged about real people who identify with the characters that seem more suited to horror movies than a historic district in Louisiana.

"Until 2009, the only area of vampire studies that I hadn't approached was real vampires, said Browning, who is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. I think I subconsciously saved it for last because I just thought what a lot of people think: that they must be crazy and have read too much fictional work about vampires.

The vampires whom Browning spoke with claim they can't control their urges, which amount to a need for around two or three feedings [ note: "feeding" is one of many specific terms the vampire community uses ] a week. If ample blood is on offer, they might refrigerate it and later combine it with other ingredients, like tea.

According to Browning, symptoms of vampirism start to manifest around puberty, when those who later become reliant on ingesting blood find themselves physically "drained" for no discernible reason. They usually discover accidentally that blood offers a remedy: They might bite their lip, for instance, and realize that swallowing the metallic liquid between their teeth gives them an instant burst of energy.

When Browning started his research, he was most surprised to discover that most of the community members didn't have an extensive knowledge of how vampires are portrayed in popular culture. Once, when he mentioned an episode of "True Blood," he said, "no one knew what I was talking about."

This lack of awareness indicated to him that the vampires weren't super-fans who had simply taken their obsession with fantasy narratives to an extreme. Rather, they were normal people with routines no different from everyone else.

No different, that is, with the exception of one grisly drinking habit.


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 28 2015, @03:03AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday October 28 2015, @03:03AM (#255409) Journal

    This was your article, huh? I won't deny that it is a slow news day.

    Apple is going to sell $76 billion of stuff over the Christmas quarter. Woohoo.

    Someone might become a donor for a number of reasons, from being a close friend of the vampire’s to doing it for financial compensation and sometimes even sexual favors.

    Liters of blood, just swirling around in our bodies, waiting to be traded for sex. Ironically, the sex is what could give you AIDS.

    Members of the New Orleans real vampire community hand out food to the homeless on Easter in 2013. (New Orleans Vampire Association)

    Feeding homeless during the day, the ultimate outreach for political bloodsuckers.

    Tomas Ganz, a medical doctor and professor at UCLA, told the BBC that the “cure” offered by blood in these cases may very well be psychological. “There is likely a strong placebo effect, akin to ingesting bitter powders, brightly colored liquids or other substances that do not look or taste like conventional foods,” he said. “This effect can be further enhanced if there is a ritual component associated with the ingestion, and if the individual feels a sense of some kind of exclusivity (such as drinking a very expensive and rare wine).”

    What ever happened to good old drugs? Get a Catholic priest to give these vampires a hit of LSD and I bet they'll be "cured" of vampirism.

    It's rather good that "vampires" exist. It demonstrates the extreme adaptability of the human mind.

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  • (Score: 2) by lentilla on Wednesday October 28 2015, @07:13AM

    by lentilla (1770) on Wednesday October 28 2015, @07:13AM (#255467)

    Get a Catholic priest to give these vampires a hit of LSD and I bet they'll be "cured" of vampirism.

    Now that has given me a truly evil thought. You know those wafers used in the Catholic communion service? They are a perfect delivery vehicle for a metered dose of LSD. You'll have everyone in the congregation mildly tripping out. Do it with a small enough dose and there's a good chance nobody will work out it's a psychedelic drug rather than the Hand of the Almighty.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2015, @03:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2015, @03:34PM (#255631)

      Well, Catholicism is clearly the best religion for vampires: They just have to become priests. and then they can drink the blood of Christ at every mass. ;-)