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Does anyone know how and why some people have Renfields Syndrom? How does a person get mentally sick like that? What are the usual steps leading to Renfields Syndrom, from start to finish?

According to Richard Noll, the person who named the disorder "RenField Syndrome", obviously after Dracula's assistant who ate insects and was quite obsessed with eating insects and the want to eat other animals in hopes of obtaining their life-force, those with the disorder usually experienced something in their childhood that tied blood and blood injuries to something exciting.

There are actually quite few cases of this disorder, most cases in this matter are usually classified instead as Schizophrenia or a type of paraphilia.


A few links:

Wikipedia's page on Renfield's syndrome
More on the character R. M. Renfield
More on the Disorder as well as some stories

Thanks for the links Morrigon. This is actually a fascinating subject and I hadn't realized how wide spread it really is.

I never even knew it was a disorder. Thanks for posting the links

Based on what I know and read, Renfields Syndrom can actually be contagious...

If anyone has anything else on this topic, please share with us. Also please try and keep this one Thread crap-free. It started good and I want to keep it that way.

How could Renfield's Syndrome be contagious? It's a mental disorder. Mental disorders aren't contagious. They can be inherited, like schizophrenia is at times. But if you stand too close to a bipolar person, you can't catch bipolar so you shouldn't be able to catch Renfield's Syndrome.

i had never even heard of this before but visiting the links found it to be a subject i want to read up on more. Thanks for the links they were helpful to get me started.

Depression can be very contagious, and it is also a mental condition. Renfields Syndrom is much like Depression, only with an attacking output instead of a defensive one as in most of the Depression cases.

Here are some of the steps leading to Renfielsa Syndrome:

1] A pivotal event often leads to the development of vampirism (blood drinking). This usually occurs in childhood, and the experience of bleeding or the taste of blood is found to be "exciting." After puberty, this excitement associated with blood is experienced as sexual arousal.

2] The progression of Renfield's syndrome follows a typical course in many cases:

Autovampirism is generally developed first, usually in childhood, by initially self-inducing scrapes or cuts in the skin to produce blood, which is then ingested, to later learning how to open major blood vessels (veins, arteries) in order to drink a steady stream of warm blood more directly. The blood may then be ingested at the time of the opening, or may be saved in jars or other containers for later imbibing or for other reasons. Masturbation often accompanies autovampiristic practices.

Zoophagia (literally the eating of living creatures, but more specifically the drinking of their blood) may develop prior to autovampirism in some cases, but usually is the next to develop. Persons with Renfield's syndrome may themselves catch and eat or drink the blood of living creatures such as insects, cats, dogs, or birds. The blood of other species may be obtained at places such as slaughter houses and then ingested. Sexual activity may or may not accompany these functions.

Vampirism in its true form is the next stage to develop - procuring and drinking the blood of living human beings. This may be done by stealing blood from hospitals, laboratories, and so forth, or by attempting to drink the blood directly from others. Usually this involves some sort of consensual sexual activity, but in lust-murder type cases and in other nonlethal violent crimes, the sexual activity and vampirism may not be consensual.

3] The compulsion to drink blood almost always has a strong sexual component associated with it.

4] Blood will sometimes take on an almost mystical significance as a sexualized symbol of life or power, and, as such, an experience of well-being or empowerment will be reported by those with Renfield's syndrome following such activities.

5] Persons with Renfield's syndrome are primarily male.

6] The defining characteristics of Renfield's syndrome is the blood-drinking compulsion. Other related activities such as necrophilia and necrophagia that do not have as their goal drinking of blood are not to be considered aspects of this disorder.


http://www.angelfire.com/home/darkrealms/ren.html

So most people outside of VR and the like would probably suggest that the modern living vampire community suffers from Renfield's Syndrom. Transversely, does that mean that the vampire community doesn't believe in this as a mental disorder? For a modern living vampire to accept the reality of Renfield's Syndrome would be to accept the possibility that they might be afflicted with it - yes?

The only differences in symptoms or lifestyle appears to be the zoophagia phase which few in the living vampire community have shared (at least to my knowledge and experience). However the rest of it rather neatly describes the average sanguinarian.

here is another link vamprica .. dont no if its much help but im trying ..

Renfields Syndrom

I can't see how Renfield's syndrome could be catching...based on the above literature it seems to be a mental health issue and I don't know of ANY mental illnesses that are contagious...

well no mental disorder is contagious if so we all would be in bad shape.. cause look how many people deal with mental patients and people who have mental disorders.

this is an excerp -

Psychologist Richard Noll, author of Bizarre Diseases of the Mind, says that the clinical cases have a lot in common with the behavior of a character from Dracula named Renfield. He's a mental patient who eats spiders and flies because he craves their life force. He suggests the clinical vampirism be renamed Renfield's Syndrome. Noting that people who suffer from this condition are primarily male, he identifies a specific set of stages.

"The first stage," Noll explains, "is some event that happens before puberty where the child is excited in a sexual way by some event that involves blood injury or the ingestion of blood. At puberty it becomes fused with sexual fantasies, and the typical person with Renfield Syndrome begins with autovampirism. That is, they begin to drink their own blood and then move on to other living creatures. That's what we know from the few cases we have on record. It has fetishistic and compulsive components."

Renfield's Syndrome: This is a disorder named after the fictional character in Dracula who ate flies, spiders, etc. Richard Noll first developed the syndrome. He believes that it is triggered by an experience after a childhood injury when the young person finds bleeding or tasting blood to be exciting, Noll wrote that the syndrome progresses to include intentional scrapes or skin cuts to allow the collection of blood for drinking. This leads to eating or drinking the blood of insects, small animals, birds, etc. Finally, the person will exhibit sanguinarian vampyrism by obtaining and consuming blood from other humans.

This syndrome is a neat theory, but is not widely accepted by mental health professionals. It does not appear in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). That manual contains descriptions of generally accepted mental illnesses.

Contagiousness could be in many shapes, forms, and sizes. Has anyone heard of "contagious yawns"? The same concept is there for some mental sicknesses.

they made us eat bugs in the army for survival didnt know it was a sickness

What the hell does eating bugs in the army for survival have anything to do with this? Rotflmao!

contagious yawns are from a visual response not from a mental disorder here is a portion of an article I found....

Cover your mouth if you want to, but it won't keep the next guy from "catching" your yawn.

Contagious yawning is real, scientists say, and it's "probably programmed into us," according to Dr. William Broughton, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the University of South Alabama Knollwood Hospital.

The action of a mouth opening is not what compels others to yawn, Broughton said. Studies have demonstrated that showing someone a photo of a wide-open mouth does not induce a yawn.

Conversely, holding a hand over the mouth while yawning doesn't prevent it from being contagious, Broughton said.

Contagious yawns appear "basically to be a visual response," Broughton said.

Between 40 and 60 percent of people who watch videos or hear talk about yawning also end up doing the deed, according to Nature News Service.

Researchers from the State University of New York in Albany tested people to find out why some are susceptible to contagious yawning and deduced that self-aware or empathetic people are more likely to catch yawns, according to the news service.

"Identifying with another's state of mind while they yawn may trigger an unconscious impersonation....The findings also explain why schizophrenics, who have particular difficulty in doing this, rarely catch yawns," Nature News Service reported.

Broughton said contagious yawning may be a social phenomenon, allowing groups of humans to coordinate their times of sleep.

Ronald Baenninger, a professor in the psychology department at Temple University in Pennsylvania, has studied yawning and said that the contagiousness is the part we know the least about.

One hypothesis is that the phenomenon came about when ancestral humans lived in troops, and it was important for them to wake up at the same time. Yawning may have been a way for them to communicate the level of alertness among different group members, Baenninger said.

Today, contagious yawning is just the result of evolution, an instinctive action, Baenninger said.

Link

I don't believe it to be a mental illness at all, because i have met a person who suffers from it and other then the need for blood this person is as normal as any one can be.

ive never heard of this but i see a link that i can look at.. thanks guys im curios