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Something that confuses me is that more and more people keep asking about becoming a vampire or claiming they are one so just wanted to say what vampirism really is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyria
Vampires- Are not like the hollywood movies or teen pop sensation Edward Cullen or anything like that but is a disease called Porphyria. Porphyrias are a group of inherited or acquired disorders of certain enzymes in the heme bio-synthetic pathway (also called porphyrin pathway). They manifest with either neurological complications or skin problems (or occasionally both). So yes vampires exist but not the kind that you can just become or the glamorous sparkly ones. In other words its a phsycological and physical disease causing one to crave blood I guess?

Vampyres- psychic vampYres or hybrid, not vampIres. From what I've read, they can eat garlic, touch crosses, and they wont turn to ash in the sun (obviously), though I also heard that if its bright enough or maybe even in general the sun sort of disorients them. Also you CANT become one rather you have to be born one.

Also...

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire)
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in many cultures and in spite of speculation by literary historian Brian Frost that the "belief in vampires and bloodsucking demons is as old as man himself", and may go back to "prehistoric times",the term vampire was not popularized until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.