Anne Rice

In almost all cases, fledglings are created when a master vampire chooses a successor or 'child' and drains him or her almost to the point of death. The victim then, if possible, drinks some of the old one's blood in return. This is necessarily an act of will and trust as well as a physical exchange. One unusual characteristic is that after the transformation, the fledgling and the master can no longer psychically hear one another (see Gabrielle and Lestat, in 'The Vampire Lestat').

Psychiatrists are aware that there exists a behavior known as "clinical vampirism," which is a syndrome involving the delusion of actually being a vampire and feeling the need for blood. This arises not from fiction and film but from the erotic attraction to blood and the idea that it conveys certain powers, although the actual manifestation of the fantasy may be influenced by fiction. It develops through fantasies involving sexual excitement.

With the third movie installment of the "Twilight" movies, "Twilight Saga: Eclipse," based on Stephenie Meyer's best-selling vampire-romance novels, slated to arrive in theaters on June 30, vampires have once again crept into pop culture's collective consciousness.  While true, undead vampires do not exist, some diseases and disorders show themselves in ways that are similar to vampiric characteristics. From sunlight intolerance to an aversion to garlic and mirrors, below are six illnesses that, to some extent, cause people to act like vampires:

Our traditional image of the vampire, though born from literature, is based on this folkloric vampire, which dates back as early as the eleventh century, and was (until the 1700's) found exclusively in the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe.

They swept across the Bosphorus and into Eastern Europe with a vengeance, conquering the squabbling Slavs with ease. With them, they brought their middle eastern civilization, and some of their beliefs, but mostly they brought suffering. Suffering in the form of syphilis, leprosy, smallpox, tuberculosis... and God Himself seemed to turn against them, sending flood, earthquakes, and plague.