Vampire Psychology: Love With A BITE

I have ALWAYS been fascinated by VAMPIRES.

Always.

I can recall seeing my first vampire movie as a young child, Love at First Bite (starring the deliciously cheesy George Hamilton & Lauren Hutton as the main vampires)

and being completely transfixed. Aroused. Frightened…and more than anything envious.

I wanted to be a vampire.

From that night on, I lay quiet in bed praying that the “Vampire-George” would come with stealth through my window, bite me, and welcome me into what promised to be a life of desire…and REALLY living…through death.

It may seem extreme and even macabre for a young girl to think in this manner and aside from my own personal issues (my father dying around that time)…when we consider the tremendous popularity of genre entertainment like Twilight, True Blood, Anne Rice…we cannot deny that we are in a moment of collective consciousness…glimpsing art imitating life…zeitgeist…whatever…there is a deep psychological need that vampiric-identity calls-to in many of us.

A review of the literature reveals “narcissistic rage” at the root of such id-like “evil”…

what the hell does that mean? Well in a word: selfishness (yes I am oversimplifying, but trust me this is the crux)…basically, the desire to be powerful, immortal, sensual, and yet a completely un-empathic (sociopathic) killing-machine is supposed to reflect our need to both possess and destroy love, the other…and ultimately the self…and I can buy that…but it’s just part of the story, as I see it…

The rest is the passion…the desire…the conflict…the pain…that I think many of these more modern-day vampire-tales relate; emotional experiences that most of us can understand…these are our own life-struggles, with a twist…

Death: whether it is the real death that necessitates the human-vampire transformation or the experienced loss of our sense of self…we all know what it feels like to become lost…empty…heartbroken…

Blood: The overwhelming desire that unleashes all of the vampire’s instincts, forcing behavior beyond his or her control…or rather the desire to share the life-force…with another. As a therapist, a friend…a person…I believe that true healing of the heart, the soul, can only occur when we reach out, accept and share our pain with another…when we offer our blood and accept theirs…it’s not pretty, it’s messy and hurts…but this transfusion seems a necessary part to being healthy…and even human.

Power: Every vampire possesses it to differing degrees…they are strong, they are nearly immortal, they can influence humans with a glance…they are like gods…and yet too dark and shadowy to be anything other than the incarnate of earthbound evil. This is the ultimate illustration of the downfall of power…its limits, its boundaries actually become its own destruction…one only has to look to religion for parallels…world history…even our own relationships…possession is not equal to satisfaction…our conquests won through power are as fleetingly satisfying as the vampire’s…drink fast…the hunger for more power will only rage on…what a beautifully frightening metaphor for life.

Sex: The vampire…such an interesting dicotomy…sex is danger…sex means death of the desired other…and for some sex is not even possible…yet, these iconic creatures are the epitome of a sex symbol…They are SEX! What does this say about us? Well physically, that today we live in an age of dangerous sex, of AIDS and HPV…STIs abound, essentially, sex (can) = DEATH (physically). Psychologically, this creates another type of struggle…sex is our life-force, it is part of our main drive and is intimately bound to our will to survive…as a species this is a deep, animalistic need…so what happens when you mix that evolutionary necessity with death? You act out…extreme and what might be considered deviant sexual practices become more acceptable…no one can deny that threesomes, bi-sexuality, homosexuality, BDSM…(things once considered “mental illnesses”)…are now present and even acceptable for a growing number of (mainstream) people today…perhaps it’s our battle-cry…our ferocious attempt to overcome these fears of sex=death through an extreme expression of living, really living…owning and trying to master that which threatens us. There can be no doubt that sexuality in general has become the marker of our popular culture…turn on the tv, read a book, go on the internet…we are a sex obsessed people. Is that wrong? No…absoultely not…I just think that it’s important to understand why…and how it effects us.

Like the VAMPIRE…I think you and I are set in a conflict…between good and bad…desire and loss…power and boundaries…life and death and SEX.

AND like the VAMPIRE…our road to resolution is unpromised…however we can always fantasize…(but that is for the NEXT blog…part II coming this week! xx c)