Musings: Still Trying to Figure Out What I Am

I might be some kind of otherkin, but I'm still trying to figure out what kind. I keep exploring dreams I've had or am having to see what themes keep coming up. Are there any that seem like real past-life memories? What am I consistently drawn to? (Nature, water, and especially the sea are some things.) What animals and symbols resonate for me? What do these symbolize? Are there things that used to scare me in dreams, that now attract me instead? Are the symbols and themes that resonate most strongly with me consistant with ones associated with some particular mythical being? Do I feel like my astral body could have wings or a tail or some other shape? Is this feeling consistent? or is it more likely just some idea I'm projecting at the moment? Are my usual thoughts, feelings or reactions consistent with those of a particular non-human being? Can these thoughts, feelings and reactions be explained with more mundane explanations? (The more unusual and more convoluted explanations are less likely to be real.)

The 2 posssible types of otherkin I keep thinking I could be are lamia and Anunnaki alien.

1. When I was in college and feeling frustrated about always dreaming of being a vampire, I asked a dream guide in a lucid dream, "Am I a human pretending to be a vampire or a vampire pretending to be a human pretending to be a vampire? Who am I? What am I? Who am I? What am I? Who am I? What am I?" The guide responded with "Inanna-lamia, Inanna-lamia, Inanna-lamia. " I woke and thought that was weird. I didn't know what it meant, and still don't, but it seemed significant.

2. I had a dream in college about Lamia being a sort of ancient muse who inspired Keats and Yeats.

3. I had a couple of dreams of being an alien who crashed on Earth with others of my kind. We looked human. In one of these I had a sister who said "I hate humans". In the other one, we were in ancient times and went into a coastal city that looked Minoan or possibly Sumerian.

4. I often have dreams of evil aliens trying to take over the Earth. But when I get close to them, they either treat me like I'm one of them or try to turn me into one of them. (I think dreaming of being an alien could just symbolize feeling like I'm not like other people.)

5. I had a couple of times last year when the word "Anunnaki" popped into my head. I looked it up online and found those alien conspiracy sites where people equate the Sumerian Anunnaki with Elohim, Watcher Angels and Nephalim. (After doing some online research, I think the Watcher Angel and Nephalim myths come from the earlier Sumerian myths.)

6. I once had a dream of sea serpents coming through into our world from another dimension in the ancient past. Last year I had a couple dreams about friendly, protective sea serpents. I also had dreams about sharks, and in one dream the shark seemed sort of like a guardian or symbol of spiritual transformation.

7. I have an affinity for nature, for water, and especially for the ocean. I recharge my "batteries" at the river or by the ocean.

8. I see my primary Goddess as having a strong ocean aspect. When I was a child, I thought of and talked to the Pacific Ocean as if it were a goddess. In my dreams, a great primal sea is one way that my Goddess manifests to me.

9. In the past, I used to be scared of the ocean in my dreams, but I'm not any more.

10. In the past, I used to be scared of pits full of snakes or swamps full of crocodiles/alligators in my dreams, but I'm not anymore. Ever since I dreamt last year of a friendly black snake that I equated with the goddess Persephone, I see snakes as being symbolic of personal transformation and wisdom.

11. Spiritually, the Mother Goddess I relate best to is one of the Primal Ocean. In ancient times this force was often represented as a sea serpent (such a Tiamat). The serpent is an almost universal symbol of the original creative force. The spiral of the serpent is the spiral of the great mystery of the cycle of Life, Death, Transformation and Rebirth. The double serpent (such as Dumballa and Aiyda Wedo in Voudou) is also the double helix of DNA, the natural source of Life and Evolution on our planet.

Lamia and lamiae are represented in various ways in myth an folklore.

1. The earliest aspect of Lamia in history was as a Lybian ocean goddess with a shark or sea monster aspect.

2. In myth and legend, she is a being who can change shape between that of a serpent and a beautiful woman, who can travel in her dreams, who creates illusions, seduces men and then "eats" them or drinks their blood. (Drinking blood is often a metaphore for taking life-force.)

3. Some early Greek representations of lamiae show them as winged bird-women akin to harpies or striges. A winged aspect often represents something that can "fly" or travel in spirit form. (Maria Gimbutas says the prehistoric Mother Goddess of the primal seas is represented with both bird and serpent forms.)

4. Most representations of Lamia and lamiae are of serpent-women. A serpent aspect often represents Underworl d associations, something subtle that can sneak into one's presense, ancient fertility cults, arcane wisdom, immortality, and transformation.

5. Sumerian lili, lilu and lilitu spirits are succubi and incubi associated with the older fertility goddess Lilitu and the later fertility goddess Inanna. They're sometimes called "wind-demons" because air, wind, breath, spirit and life-force are synonymous concepts in most older cultures. (In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Ardat Lili is a "handmaiden of Inanna" or sacred prostitute who seduces and civilizes the wildman Enkidu.)

6. Akkadian Ardat lili and Irdu lili were succubi and incubi who suduced men and women in their sleep and could take the form of serpents in order to slip unnoticed into a house. The lilitu were thought to drain men of their life-force until they would eventually die. These men who wasted away were called bridegrooms of the lilitu. (Hebrew beliefs about Lilith and her children the lilim come from these beliefs.)

7. The Greek lamiea were usually seen as non-human beings who would try to seduce unwary men and then eat them. In earlier legends they were also seen as the ghosts of young women who had recently died.

8. Keats and Yeats both wrote about spirit women who both inspired creativity and drained a man of his life-force. "Lamia" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" were two of Keats' poems with this theme. Keats died young of a wasting disease. Yeats resisted his "dark muse" and lived to an older age.

9. The Basque lamia/lamiak/ laminak are faerie beings who live near caves, rivers and lakes. The females are beautiful women who comb their hair with golden combs and have the feet of ducks or other water birds. (This symbolizes their connection to water.) The males are builders of bridges and castles. Neither are particularity dangerous or mischevious.

10. The first view of Lamia (the Lybian sea goddess) is probably of a primal Goddess of Life, Death, Transformation and Rebirth. The serpent Goddess of Minoan Crete is a similar representation, and from her come the Greek myths of Demeter and Persephone. I think it's clear the Minoan Goddess evolved in part from the Goddess of Catal Hayuk. She must also be connected to the Primal Serpent Creator, since Minoan priestess or goddess figurines are often shown with snakes wraped around thier arms and waists. In some myths and rituals surrounding the cult of Demeter-Persephone- Hades, Hades is represented as a serpent. Since Persephone weds him, she also has to have a serpent aspect. (This is from Joseph Campbell's "Occident al Mythology".)

- In my persona as Persephone I also have associations with the mystery of the cycle of Life, Sex, Death, Transformation, and Rebirth. When a psi-vamp friend did a tarot reading for me, I had the Death card in a prominant position. He said I'm fascinated by Death and see it as comforting. He laughed and said I was "such a freaking otherkin". When I recently had him do a birth chart reading for me, "Sex and Death" were in similar prominant positions. He says I understand my own psychological Underworld very well, and because of this I also understand other people's psychological Underworlds (the secrets that make them tick). I think there's a good bit of truth to this assesment.

What am I in terms of otherkin? Why is is so hard for me to know my core Self? I know my Self better than most people know theirs. I see into my past lives. I know which deity forms I relate to. Yet, I can't be sure if I have a true otherkin nature, and if I do, what it is. Water is part of it. The Primal Sea is part of it. Feeling alien or "not of this world" is part of it. I like the idea of being lamia-kin, but I'm not really sure what this would be. It's not a common kin-type, though it does seem to fit with my dreamwalking, my attraction to nature, water and the sea, my psi-feeding through sex and dreams, and my resonance with the mysteries of Life, Death, Transformation, and Rebirth.

In my tarot reading, my friend said that where I show up, I bring change (symbolized by Death). I think there's some truth in this assesment too. - P.

Feeling down today

I'm feeling down today. I've got so much stuff I need to do for mundane reality that I haven't been attending to doing. I realize that I do have an escapist mentality, that I procrastinate and avoid dealing with stuff when I don't want to deal with it.

This morning I tried to find an entry in one of my dream journals/diaries about a dream I remembered yesterday. It was partly about a crocodile trying to bite my dog (which I later took to be symbolic of the cancer she got) and partly about a polyamorous household. I vaguely recalled it and wondered if it might've been a premonition about my vamp and otherkin friends in Reno. I spent all day looking through and reading parts of old journals from the past 3 years, but I couldn't find it.

I ask myself what did I gain from this effort? Did I learn anything useful? It was a little interesting to review my attitude about vampires and my own prospect of being one from 2 years ago. I found the online vampire community in August 2005. The DDD board brought exciting ideas and a new spark to my life, but I fought for 2 years against the idea that I could actually be a vampire myself. I still don't embrace this idea fully. I keep doubting myself now and then.

I had many dreams from 2005 to 2007 of being a vampire or being told I was a vampire, but I kept telling myself it was all symbolic of power and freedom I wanted in my life. It's true that I did want to feel empowered, that I wished for the spark of hope I had when I was younger and believed I might someday meet the vampire from my dreams. I found the online vampire community in August 2005, was a little scared of it at first, then intrigued and fascinated. In Sept. 2005, the day after my birthday, I dreamt of dream guides telling me I had vampires in my bloodline, implying I was one myself. I still continued to fight this idea, even in the face of apparent blood/prana cravings. I avoided the DDD board for months at a time, because I felt it might encourage psychosomatic symptoms in me.

When I tried to psi-feed at a small psychic fair and had a woman sitting in front of me act uncomfortable and move to the other side of the room, this was my 1st external evidence that made me think I might really be vampiric. After I met Tony and started being more sensitve to subtle energy, I thought it might be possible, but still fought the idea. When Tony said a person is either a vampire or not, no such thing as sympathetic vampirism, I felt sick to my stomach because I didn't want to be a vampire. I had Black Dragon tell me I didn't feel like a vamp, but I didn't feel exactly like a normal human either. I had one psychic tell me I was "on the cusp" between being human and vampire. I had Rune tell me I didn't feel like a typical vampire, but there did seem to be a vampiric side to me. I had Roxy tell me I was one. I had Ithrill tell me he thought I was one. I had my roommate tell me she thought I might be one. Then I had Rune tell me I was one too. The vampire boards always say you shouldn't tell someone if you think they're a vampire or not, but people still imply whether they think someone is or isn't one. I even do it on Yahoo! Answers.

A group of my vamp + otherkinfriends came down last weekend to go to 6 Flags with me and Kathrin. It was nice having them here, and I was glad my roommate got to meet them. She saw how Rune charms people and gets them to do things for him. She saw how Kaylee liked Michelle. She saw how Mojo is very reserved and close with his emotions. And she saw that they are all nice, friendly, real people.

I pissed off someone from Yahoo! Answers yesterday. He/she had written me a private email saying he/she had met a few "ancients" and knew sangs who didn't always feed consensually. I called him/her a role-player and said I had better things to do with my time that to have long corespondance with him/her. He/she wrote back to tell me I was extremely rude, and ask how they could be a role-player when they never claimed to be a vampire in the first place. Oh, well, I shouldn't expect everyone to like me.

- P.

A Chronology of my Interests in Vampires

I was just reading a post from a vampire elist I'm on that made me wonder when did the ahkh first appear as a symbol of modern vampirism? I think it may have first appeared in Whitley Strieber's novel The Hunger, (1981). In the book, Miriame Blaylock had a tounge that could pierce flesh, but I think John Blaylock may have worn the ankh-shaped pendant. Both characters wore it in the 1983 movie.

The question on the list was why are vampires associated with ancient Egypt? Of course the Kheprians claim an ancient Egyptian heritage, as do a few other vampire groups, but in popular culture, I think the link between vampires and Egypt 1st takes shape with The Hunger (1981-83).

Then I started thinking about personal influences on my views about vampires. My musings don't seem important enough to post to the list, but they are important to me, so here they are on my semi-private blog.

c. 1970 - I'm 5-6 years old. My babysitters watch the original "Dark Shadows" and think Barnabas Collins is sexy. I don't realize it until I'm in my early 20's and the remake series shows, but this original show had an impact on my subconscious. I would often dream of a crypt in a cemetary and a wooden table in an entry hall. I also imagined a blond vampire woman named Caroline. All of these images are from the original TV series.

c. 1974? - I'm probably 9 or 10? The first vampire book I read is Camilla, by Sheridan LeFanu (1871), which I get from the book mobile at school. Around this same time I also read Black Magic, White Magic and A Wrinkle in Time. These 3 books probably play a big part in influencing my beliefs and interests: vampires, witchcraft, alternate dimensions, and maybe my bisexuality. Around this time I also became lucid in my dreams. At first when I would dream of witches or vampires, I held them off with the small gold cross I wore. Once I felt I could control them in my dreams, I no longer feared them.

1976 - Interview With a Vampire, by Anne Rice, comes out. I'm 12 years old. I don't recall when I read it, but I think I may have been maybe 13 or 14?

1978 - I read Hotel Transilvania, by Chelsia Quinn Yarbro. I'm 14. The character of the Compt de St. Germain greatly influences my view of vampires, especially the idea that he could've been a real vampire and vampires could be real, living people.

1980 - I'm 16. I begin dreaming of P. and begin believing that vampires are real. Soon after, I begin having lucid dreams of being a vampire myself. Around this time I also dream of kissing an unknown man over his solar plexus and him then crying as if this had released strong emotions in him. I didn't understand his reaction then, but now I know about chakra points.

1983? - I have what I call a "shared dream" with my biology teacher, Mr. Wulff. I dream of running into his classroom in wolf form, then turning back into human form to talk with him. He says he dreamt that I ran away from home. Around this time I think I also dream of "Green Eyes", the unknown woman from whom I drank deeply and then felt filled with energy after I woke. Months or years later, I see this woman in Weinstocks, and she looks scared of me. When I watch "The Hunger" at Tower Theater with Justin, I'm aroused by the blood-sharing scene of Miriam and Suzan. I occationally make and drink a "fake blood" mixture of hot water, crushed iron supplement, egg white and salt.

1983-1989 - While in college, I have the lucid dream in which a young vampire woman with short red-dyed hair telles me Sekhmet is a "patroness of vampires". I look up the caloric value and componants of blood. I have the lucid dream in which I ask a dream guide "Am I a human pretending to be a vampire or a vampire pretending to be a human pretending to be a vampire? Who am I? What am I? Who am I? What am I? Who am I? What am I?" The dream guide replies back, "Inanna-Lamia, Inanna-Lamia, Inanna-Lamia." At this time I theorize that real vampirism could be caused by a virus of the Herpes-Zoster family. I write as Persephone in the free ads in "The Ardvark". I get the phone call from a young woman who asks for P. by name. Toward the end of college, I dream of P. less and less.

1988 - I read Queen of the Damned while I'm on jury duty one summer. I'm taken by the name Akasha because it's so like the ones from my 2nd Lamia dream, which said 2 of the "orginal 13 witches of the world" were named "Ankh-ka" and "Ankh-con-ka" or maybe "An-Ankh-ka".

c. 1991-1992? - While working long hours alone at West Coast Laboratories, I "hear" a voice in my head that says, "The loneliness of the lighthouse". I reply mentally, "But I'm not a lighthouse." The "voice" replies back, "You will be." Around this time, I have several hypnogogic past life memories, interesting dreams, and the remote-contoled TV's turn themselves on when I walk alone into a room.

c. 1970-1990 - I usually choose to dress as a vampire-witch for Halloween. Originally it was either a vampire or a witch, but then I just wanted to be both at the same time.

c. 1992? - While working at the blood bank, I dress as a vampire-bride for Halloween, complete with bleeding "bite marks" on my neck. While working here, I dream of being offered a chance to stay with a vampire and his mother in a lucid dream. I decline, saying I have to go to work in the morning. Toward the end of my time working here, I also dream that I can sense life energy or the essense of The Goddess in vials of blood in a test tube rack.

c. 1995 - While working at Physicians Clinical Lab, I record and watch "Forever Knight" and start feeling vampiric. I dream of biting Jason and feeding a little from him. The next day he acts kind of weird toward me. I imagine he tells Maria about the dream, but I don't know for sure what he's talking about with her. Around this time, I write my poem "Trust Not Me" in honor of Jason and my "dark side". When my "blood cravings" get strong, I repress them and make them go away.

c. 1997? - I tell David about my dream vampire and explain why I avoid reading too much vampire fiction or vampire erotica. I tell him that doing this brings out a vampiric side in me that scares me. He acts like he doesn't think I'm crazy and says that when he was in the Temple of Set, they believed in a Vampire Archetype that could influence people. While I'm dating David the first time around, I sometimes feel and take in his released energy when he orgasms. I try repeatedly to dream to him and bite him in dream, but I'm never successful.

- While I'm dating Duncan, I dream of attacking and feeding from a wolfman-like monster. Duncan wakes and leaps out of bed, stares at me in horror and keeps saying, "What are you? What are you?" I get him to calm down and come back to bed. I don't tell him about my dream.

- While I'm dating David the 2nd time, I usually feel and take in his released energy when he orgasms. He says once that he's surprized I can arouse him a 2nd time so soon after he comes. I half-jokingly tell him it's because I'm a succubus.

2005 - I discover the online vampire community.

2007 - February - I take the Online Vampire and Energy-Workers Survey and decide I could actually be a vampire. I experiment with conscious psi-feeding and see a woman react uncomfortably and move to the other side of the room. July - I met my first real vampires in person. Shortly thereafter, I begin sensing energy pretty strongly and getting hunger cravings that make me feel crazy. I tell Ithril and Mojo that I think I could actually be vampiric, but I don't tell anyone else. September - Tony kicks me out of his meet-up group and I join Mojo's instead. October - I attend House Lost Haven's Blood Moon weekend and Twilight in L.A.

2007- July - I meet my first vampires in person.

2007- October - I attend House Lost Haven's Blood Moon and Twilight, LA.

2008 - May - I attend the House Rosa Beltain ritual, planning to dedicate eventually as Dusk.

- P.

Curiouser and Curiouser....

In the past year, every so often, I feel like my sense of Reality has just shifted. Probably most people will never know this feeling. The world seems pretty much the same for them day after day, year after year. When one's paradigme of reality begins to shift, though, it doesn't happen all at once. - Or at least it hasn't happened that way for me.

The first small shift came when I found there were vampire websites and forums on the Internet. The next one came after I met my first real vampires in person. The next one came when I started to think I might be one myself. The one I think I'm hitting now is from thinking on what sort of otherkin I might be and wondering if I might be nephilim or something like that.

The point I'm trying to make here isn't whether any of these things are true. It's that as I start to accept new possibilities for what can be real, my whole sense of reality is changed. It's sort of like being in your normal world one day, then waking up in an alternate reality the next day. It's sort of like being Alice in Wonderland, where nothing in this new world is quite like you'd expect it to be.

I also find that as I hit each of these new shifts in my perception of reality, the process goes in similar stages. First it's curiosity and excitement over new ideas and possibilities. Then it becomes an obsession, where I have to find out as much as I can about something. When it starts to make sense to me, I want to share what I've learned with other people. (This is a way of bringing my new, weird and wonderful knowlege into my seemingly more real world.) Then I start to get used to this new reality, so it starts to seem normal to me. Then I remember that I didn't used think this way. I get a period where I think, "Oh my God, this is real!"and I want to turn away from it to reclaim a sense of normalcy for a while. Then I accept that this new reality is just as much a part of my life as my old one was, and I intigrate it as a sort or new "normal" for me. And then, every once in a while, I have to remind myself that all of this stuff that seems normal to me now, still is not normal or accepted as real by almost everyone else.

I keep thinking I'd like to be a sort of dream-walking succubus, partly because feeding in dream can be one of the most exilerating feelings I have. Then I found that I couldn't dream-walk at will like I used to when I was in high school. I also felt a little guilty about even trying to get into the dreams of people I know. I kept trying, though.

Sunday night as I went to sleep, I tried to focus on a coworker as a target. Monday morning I had a brief dream with him in it. I told him at work that I'd dreamt of him. He said he'd dreamt of me too. That's pretty good evidence for me having dream-walked to him, I think, though his dream and mine were not quite the same. In my dream, he and I were standing inside a tent that was very much like a big four-poster bed. I don't recall the dream getting explicitly sexual, and I think that segment ended with me just shifting into another dream scene. In his dream, it was explictly sexual and ended with me falling asleep.

I think it's possible that when my consciousness leaves a dream or dream scene, this could sometimes be perceived by others in the dream as me falling asleep. I know that closing my eyes in the dream is one way that I consciously leave a scene and enter a new one. Also, one time when I seemed to terrify a woman I met in a dream and probably fed too deeply from her, she passed out in the dream and collapsed on the floor. I think I saw her in waking life later, and while she did look scared of me, she seemed otherwise fine. Maybe her passing out in the dream was her way of leaving her perceived nightmare of a vampire feeding on her?

Anyway, after talking with my coworker today and hearing his brief description of our possible shared dream, I think he wouldn't mind if I tried it again. He's already told me that I can energy-feed from him in waking life, as long as I give him candy bars as payment. I also know he's not getting as much sex as he'd like in waking life, so if I turn it into a sexual dream encounter, I could probably feed quite easily off him in dream as well. I don't think he'd mind, so I'm going to try it again, and I'm not going to let myself feel guilty about it.

Today at work he suggested I could be "one of those vampires that has sex with people in their sleep". I told him the word was "succubus". I thought that I might actually be able to do this, have the other person remember it, and thus prove to them that I can do it. This thought made me hit another one of those reality paradigme shifts. If I can do this, have another person experience it, and have them accept that it's real, then I won't just be the weird person who thinks she's a vampire or succubus. In effect, I'll really be a succubus.

Which, by the way, doesn't rule me out from being a nephilim as well. As far as I'm concerned, a succubus or incubus, dream-walking or in waking life, is just another flavor of psi-vamp. Also, at least some vampires or vampiric people are also some kind of otherkin.

- Persephone

Updates + Musings

Wow, it's been a really long time since I posted an entry here.

I'm still trying to figure out what I am, but I don't get those insanely intense bouts of "hunger" anymore. I realized that part of my problem probably comes from what an iradologist called "delicate blood glucose" levels. So, if I eat protein, eat regularly, and don't eat too many simple carbs, my symptoms of what seems to be pranna hunger don't get too bad.

On the other hand, I do think I energy feed, but probably not as frequently as a pure psychic vampire would. I had an aura photo taken at one of the psychic fairs and showed it to a few self-professed vampires who agreed with me that it doesn't look like the aura of a classic psychic vampire. Maybe I'm some kind of otherkin that has a vampiric side or maybe I'm just a human who has a vampiric side. I don't feel non-human, but some of my dreams of what could be an early incarnation on this Earth are a little unusual. I won't go into that because it's complicated and just speculation.

One of the ideas I keep turning around in my mind is that I might be some kind of succubus. This doesn't mean I'm some gorgeous seductress who has sex with every guy around or that I often and easily slip into other people's dreams to have metaphysical intercourse with them and drain them of life energy. (I only wish I could, because the few times I have dreamt of doing something like that, the energy rush was fantastic.) What being a succubus means to me is that I dreamwalk and feed in dreams sometimes, that I'm somewhat empathic and can probably turn that to a sort of "reverse empathy" where I turn up other people's emotions, that I can feed on sexually charged energy, and that when I do feed on sexually charged energy it dosn't seem to hurt the other person.

I had a dream back in college, where I was lucid and talking with a dream guide. At the time, I was getting frustrated with all my dreams of being a vampire and wanted to know why I kept dreaming of this. I asked him, "Am I a human pretending to be a vampire or a vampire pretending to be a human pretending to be a vampire? Who am I? What am I? Who am I? What am I? Who am I? What am I?"

The dream guide responded with "Inanna-Lamia-Inanna-Lamia-Inanna-Lamia".

I then woke and thought that was a very weird answer. I didn't know what I meant, but I remembered it.

I've never thought or felt I was a goddess. I've never thought or felt I was some kind of supernatural creature. I've tried to find links between the Sumerian goddess Inanna and the Greek and later English idea of the Lamia, though, and I've found some.

In another dream from around the same time, I dreamt that Lamia was a sort of immortal muse who inspired Keats and Yeats. Keats wrote "Lamia" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", both of which are about vampiric figures. In the letters at the end of my book on his poetry there are also references to discussions about strange, otherworldly beings. Yeats, who lived later, also wrote about this idea of a dark, vampiric muse. I don't think I knew this when I had this dream.

I look back at the ancient vampiric, succubus/incubus demons of Sumerian myth and see parallels with modern vampires and with the Leanana Sidhe. There are also linguistic and symbolic connections from the Sumerian/Akkadian "ki-sikil-lil-la-ke", "lili", "lilu", "lilitu", "ardat-lili" and "irdu-lili" to the Hebrew Lilith and lilim and then to the Greek "Lamia and lamiae. On a webpage I found today it says:

"Another Lilith-prototype, Lilitu, is a star actress, of first rate, in the corpus of Babylonian spells, where she appears as a lust demoness. The incurable patients, which get wasted with no remedy, are called in these spells the bridegrooms of Lilitu, and they recall to us the victims of vampyrism, which, under the stress of her parasitic kisses, languish slowly, until they join their lover in the bosom of death. "

This description sounds to me much like dark muses who were thought to both inspire and drain Romantic poets. From a cached page called "Angels and Daimons" comes this description:

"For the poet, the daimon is his or her Muse, who is at the very least a mixed blessing. Keats painted portraits of his Muse in Lamia and The Belle Dame sans Merci: white-skinned, cold, irresistibly alluring figures who seduce the poet, drain him like a vampire for their own purposes, and leave him "alone and palely loitering". For, once she is awakened, the Muse will drive relentlessly to become the centre of the personality, casting aside whatever we think of as ourselves. The rewards in terms of achievement can be enormous, but they are also dangerous; and everyday life, with its little comforts and satisfactions, can be a casualty. As the late Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, writes feelingly in Winter Pollen (1994), the Muse "from earliest times came to the poet as a god, took possession of him, delivered the poem, then left him." It was axiomatic, he says, that she lived her own life separate from the poet's everyday personality; that she was entirely outside his control; and that she was, above all, supernatural."

I read somewhere that the lilim of Jewish folklore are supposed to latch onto their human lovers so strongly that it takes a writ of divorce to be freed of them. That reminded me of how I felt I had a metaphysical link to and kept dreaming of my own ex-boyfriend long after we'd broken up. I felt like I still had a "right" to dreamwalk to him and feed off him if I could. It wasn't until after he told me he'd remarried, that my link to him finally seemed to be more or less severed. Was I feeding from him like a succubus when I dreamt of him? I don't know, but it seems possible.

I posted the following to my Meetup group's list. It's long, but it describes how I felt like I was energy feeding last Halloween day. It also shows why I think I might be something like a succubus.

The whole weekend at Blood Moon I barely slept and didn't eat that much, but I was still buzzing like I was on caffeine much of the time. I attribute this to the many otherkin in the house, as well as to the natural energy of the lake and surrounding environment. I didn't start to feel a normal food hunger level until the 2nd day I was in LA for the Twilight gathering. Then, after staying up most of the night with a bunch of vampires at the event, I was hungry again in the morning and went out and bought a juice drink for breakfast.

The driver of the van that took me back to the airport that day threw out my drink as I got into his van. I couldn't really blame him for wanting to protect the interior, but I had hoped a juice drink with protein in it would help control my other hunger. The driver and I talked pleasantly together for much of the trip, but after we picked up another passenger, the driver asked what kind of group the event I'd gone to had been for. I told him "Vampire". This didn't immediately end our conversation, but it did stop shortly thereafter.

I started to feel really hungry then. I ate some chocolate I had in my purse, but still felt hungry and felt like I was drawing energy off the driver. He got quiet and so did I. I tried not to pull energy off him, but I felt like I couldn't control it. My head felt weird, not quite a headache, but almost. Then I noticed the driver kept brushing the top of his head with his hand, like maybe his head felt weird too. Finally we got to the airport, I paid him his tip and left.

At the airport I still felt hungry, so I ate a double bacon cheeseburger and some orange juice. I still felt hungry after that.

On the plane I sat behind a young couple. I noticed the man lean into the woman's neck as he talked to her and I decided to try to sense his energy the way I'd sensed [the guy's] at Rune's energy perception meet-up. [That guy] had "tasted" to me of vanilla ice-cream. The man in front of me reminded me at first of strawberry whip cream, either strawberry and vanilla or cherry and vanilla. I focussed on the vanilla and this "scent" became stronger. Since I was still hungry and wanted to test if I might be some kind of succubus, I focussed my thoughts on the man and tried to arouse and intensify his amorous feelings toward his girlfriend. It seemed to work, though it's possible he and she would've behaved as they did whether I'd willed it or not.

I kept thinking toward him thoughts like: "She smells good. She's warm and soft. Think of how her skin smells. Think of the taste of her skin. Think of her kissing your neck. You want to kiss her skin. Think of how warm and soft her body feels against yours...." I did this for almost the whole flight back to Reno, including thoughts of them touching each other under the blanket across their laps. They never saw me looking at them and never noticed me, but I saw him nuzzle her neck repeatedly and both of them whisper into each other's ear. At the end of he flight he stood and raised his eyebrows at her to indicate amorous thoughts of more things he'd like to do with her when they were alone together. Both of them seemed happy.

For myself, I enjoyed the display and felt the spark of amorous feelings within myself as I obsevred the couple. I no longer felt hungry, tired or headachy when we landed. I also had plenty of energy to drive home to Sacramento and to stay up and watch a couple of scary TV shows before going to sleep.

Of course, I don't know if the couple would've behaved as they did had I not been trying to project amorous thoughts toward them. I don't know if the driver of the van was feeling weird because I was feeding off his energy. Two days later, while I was writing in my journal in the cafe at Borders, I don't know if I was the cause of one man falling asleep with his finger poised over the page of his book, then staring accusingly at me and following me out to my car when I left. I can't prove any of this, but to me it seems like more than just coincidence.

- Persephone

I'm still Fucking Hungry, but food doesn't help

I'm either Fucking crazy delusional or I'm a vampire that doesn't know how to feed.

I had cereal for breakfast, but I was still "hungry". I had cottage cheese and yogurt with live cultures, but I was still "hungry". I had a bottle of pomegranite juice, but I was still "hungry". I had a roast beef sandwich and a lemonade, but I was still "hungry. I hung out at the East/West Books Healing Arts Fair, but I was still "hungry". I took the dogs to the river for a couple of hours, but I was still "hungry". I ate a stir fry dinner of beef and vegitables, 2 small apples and some gummie bears, but I'm still Hungry!

It's not PMS because it's after my period. I keep thinking, "I'm hungry", but eating food doesn't make this feeling go away. In fact, when I got half-way through my sandwich, I wanted to put it away because I didn't want it anymore. But I made myself eat it anyway. Then I felt kind of sick to my stomach, but I still felt like I was sort of "hungry" too.

I'm irritable. I have a small headache that comes and goes. I feel like I want to scream. I thought that if I went to the river, I could pick up some ambient energy there that would make this damned distracting "hunger" go away. But it didn't go away.

It's been over 2 weeks this time around. I've lost track of exactly how long I've been feeling this way this time around. Maybe it's been almost a month? I think it started getting worse when I couldn't get my co-worker into sexually themed conversations, first because we had a new girl in the lab, then because he was on vacation for a week, and then because I just couldn't get the right time and setting to do that with him like I'm used to doing.

I wonder if taking St. John's Wort would help? I haven't wanted to take it because I'm not feeling depressed and I wanted to feel my authentic feelings, rather than muted ones. St. John's Wort isn't like perscription antidepressants and doesn't mute emotions as much as they do, but it's still got a traditional reputation for dispelling "evil spirits", so I was afraid it might mess with my psychic abilites or ability to sense energy.

Maybe drinking alcohol would mute this "hunger"? But I don't want to get into the habit of drinking every evening just so I won't feel like a hungry vampire. It might not even work. And it might keep me from being able to dream-walk if I need to do that.

I wish I could dream-walk at will and feed off someone of my choosing. When I dream of feeding off someone, that's usually when I seem to get the most energy and the hunger goes away for a couple of days at least, but usually longer. If I could choose who to feed off tonight, I think I'd try to feed off my ex-boyfriend. Maybe then he'd believe me about this vampire stuff, but probably he still wouldn't.

This is a pretty elaborate self-delusion, if that's what it is. Why would anyone want, even subconsciously, to feel irritable, headachy and weirdly "hungry" day after day with little relief. Then too, even feeling like this, I have to try to act normal. I don't get any positive reaction from telling my co-workers that I'm feeling hungry and irritable and distracted, or from "losing it" and snapping at one of them. I've only admitted to feeling like this to a couple of vampires online, and never to any of them in person.

I've actually been trying to maintain my status in the group and on the boards as a "normal human". I don't want to start calling myself a vampire. I don't want to call myself a vampire, but eventually I might have to.

- Persephone

"On the Cusp" ???

Some excepts from my diary this week:

Sept. 9, Sunday, 8:30 pm - 2 Readings about Vampires -

I went to the Holistic Living Expo today and ended up having readings by 2 women who believe in and aren't freaked out by vampires....

...when I asked the 1st woman why 2 vampires [who I've met recently] said I didn't feel like a vampire, but didn't exactly feel like a normal human either, she said that's because I'm "on the cusp" and I could go either way. But they'd all been "on the cusp" at one time too.

Sept. 12, Weds. 7:50 pm - Calling? -

I was hungry at work. When I came home, I took a shower and a nap. Just now and pretty much the whole time I was asleep, I felt like I was connected to others, especially to the people in my group and other vampires. I feel like there's this deep connection or wordless communication, maybe like I'm calling to whoever is meant to "hear" this call and respond to it. This is not something I'm doing consciously, but I feel it intensely, on a non-verbal, spiritual level. My dreams felt like there was this "calling" in them too. I feel like something is trying to communicate with me, but whatever I'm getting is not on the verbal or symbolic level that I'm used to getting.

Sept. 14, Friday, 5 pm - Hunger? -

My throat's been bothering me alot lately. I don't know if it's allegies of what. When I got those 2 Reiki sessions, the practitioner said it felt like a throbbing energy in my throat. It could be just from sinus drainage, but in the last month, I often feel like I have this weird hunger that's centered in my throat instead of in my stomach. Maybe it's not hunger at all, but it feels like a hunger that food does little to abate. I'm eating normally, but I still feel this "hunger" that makes me tense and irritable.

I don't really know how to energy-feed and I'm not going to blood-feed..., so I don't really know what to do about it, except try to eat healthy, get enough sleep, go out to the river once in a while, and just keep track of how I'm feeling and anything that seems to help.

I was so incredibly "hungry" and irritable yesterday that I had to go straight to the river after work and sit and lie there for an hour and a half. [I hadn't been to the river in over a month.] It was almost instinctual how I took a sheet from the back seat and headed straight to a quiet, secluded spot right next to the water. I sat there cross-legged with my eyes closed for a long time, then lay curled up on the sheet with my head on my purse for a while, sat cross-legged for a while longer, then walked a little on the paths, while eating wild rose hips and blackberries.

I won't call myself a vampire, but I feel more and more like I could be one sometimes. At one point while I was seated on the damp sheet on the wet sand, a heavy, middle-aged man in a red shirt was in his boat in front of me, trying to start his engine. I just wanted to suck in and feed on his energy if I could have. I felt like a hungry vampire, and I wondered if I felt like a hungry vampire to him.

I really don't try to feed on people energy unless it's ambient and maybe I can breathe in some of it. It's hard, because I don't see energy and usually I can't feel it much either. I sort of don't want to practice energy-feeding techniques, partly just because I'm lazy, partly because I don't want to start thinking I'm a vampire if I'm not one, and partly because I think that if I really needed to feed on energy my body (or energy body or whatever) would know how to do it instinctually. I don't know if I really have a need to energy-feed or if this is all a psychosomatic product of an over-active imagination. I'm still trying to figure out what's real and what's not....

The head organizer of my vampire meetup group posted another event to the board late last night. I read it at work today. It's for a blood-feeding gathering in January, and it sounds really freaky, scary and "deep", as my co-worker would say. My first impression on reading about it was that I want to go. My second thought was that I shouldn't want to go, that this is too intense and serious and it should scare me alot more than it does. I thought, I don't belong there, because this is an event for real blood-drinking vampires, not for currious and interested "normals". He posted that this event is usually just for vampires only, but he was going to allow otherkin and "normals" from our group, as long as they're very open-minded....

I'm intrigued and excited by the idea of going. A part of me fantasizes about it, but my rational side tells me I should rein that side in. Things could really get out of control in such an environment....What if I go to such an event, thinking I can stay in control of myself and find myself "vamping out" or virtually vamping out? By "Virtually vamping out", I mean that I might be so attracted by the sight, smell and idea of drinking blood that my heart rate goes up, my breathing gets fast and shallow, my eyes dialate, my senses get distorted and overly focused, and I think all of this is because I'm a real vampire, rather than just because I'm working myself up psychosomatically to feel like I'm one.

Another woman in the group and I both say we're not vampires, but we both get "blood cravings" occationally. She writes about it like it's perfectly normal to get blood cravings when she feels jealous or powerless in her life. I keep thinking my own weird hunger-like feelings, "blood cravings", thoughts that I want blood, or apparent symptoms are absolutely not normal. They don't really prove anything either, though, because they could all be psychosomatic.

- I bought a small black onyx pendant and black onyx ring today at East/West Books, because I read that onyx helps pull in energy for healing or for whatever one needs it for. I thought that I really seem to need energy and I don't seem to be able to pull it in on my own very well, so maybe the onyx stones will help me....

I stopped by to see Mom today and she pissed me off, which is another reason why I bought the jewelry. I'd told her I'd gone out to a nightclub with some friends. She said my going out to a nightclub was "garbage" and I shouldn't waste my money on going to a nightclub when I can't even pay my bills. However, she's wasting her money on sending me the local newspaper and some woman's magazine, neither of which I want. She says I need to read these things so I know what's going on in the world. I told her there are only so many hours in the day, and I've decided not to spend them on reading the newpaper and magazines right now. It's like every time I find some interest in my life that makes me happy, she has to knock it down and say it's a waste of my time, money or thoughts. She doesn't know anything about the vampire stuff. But she still wants to critisize and control me, even when she doesn't even know what I'm really doing.

- Persephone

I HATE this weird hunger!

I was not quite 16 when I first dreamt of a particular vampire who I've always felt was real. Not long ago I ask about him of a psychic I trust (without using the V-word). She said he was like a spirit guide, but also someone I knew in a past life and connected to someone I'd meet in this life. She said I'd recognize this person because he'd feel the same as the man in my dream, even though he wouldn't look the same.

I've always known the feel of vampires in my dreams. Rarely, I thought I could recognized them in waking life, but I'd always told myself I couldn't be sure and it was probably just my imagination. Now I know better. I've met self-professed vampires and they do have that feel to them sometimes. I seem to feel it from those who call themselves "sang", but not from those who call themselves "psi". Being able to sense vampires is sometimes called a beacon effect, especially when the person who's sensing them is an awakening or partially awakened vampire. (When a full vampire senses other vampires it's sometimes called vampdar, like vampire-radar.)

So anyway, I've had repeated periods in my life (when I was perhaps reading too much vampire fiction, watching too much vampire TV shows or reading and posting on real vampire forums), periods when I start to feel like I might be a vampire myself. I hate the weird and extremely uncomfortable hunger-like feelings that accompany these periods. It's like a cross between hunger and PMS, and it really makes you want to snap at people. You have no patience. Your muscles are tense. You try to eat as you normally would, but you either still feel hungry after you eat, or you take a few bites and then don't really want the food. In the past when I've started to feel like this, I've always been able to make it go away, to repress it perhaps and shove it back down into it's little box in my subconscious, to be forgotten until it decides to pop up again later.

Sometimes it's abated when I go out into nature for awhile, when I have a conversation with someone who's emotionally stirred up, or when I have a dream of vampirically feeding off someone. Last February, when I was feeling like this, I was sitting in a lecture at a small psychic fair and trying to breathe in energy from the people around me. A woman in front of me acted uncomfortable, moved her chair a few inches away from me, then got up and moved to the other side of the room. I wondered if I'd given her the sensation I call the "creepy-crawlies". I wondered if she's been able to tell that I was trying to feed off her energy, and had moved away from me in response. The next day, I asked a woman who was like a psychic why I'd been dreaming of being a vampire or being told I was a vampire. She gave me a vague answer that didn't really feel right to me, yet when she specifically said I was not a psychic vampire that feeds off people, I was satisfied with that part of her answer and the feeling that I might be one went away again for about a month.

Everytime I've felt like this, I convince myself that it's not real, it's all in my head, I have an overactive imagination and I'm creating psychosomatic symptoms.

Now I'm feeling like this again and I'm still trying to tell myself and my online vampire friends that it's probably just in my head, it's the heat, not getting enough sleep and not eating right that's doing this to me. Today I said in chat on a vampire board that it was just because my energy was low. But later, I thought that explanation didn't really explain it all away. Yeah, so my energy was low for whatever reason. But normal people don't feel like they're hungry for something besides food or get a prickly chill-like feeling along their skin when their energy is low. They don't feel like they want to snap at people or that every cell in their body is screaming when their energy is low. When normal people have low energy, they just get tired, then they eat food or sleep, and then they feel better.

All of this begs the question then, what am I? I know one vampire who says I'm a normal human, but two others who say I don't feel like a vampire and I don't exactly feel like a normal human either, and still another (who knows me only from online and in chat) who says he's always thought I did "feel" like a vampire. Meanwhile, I keep saying I'm not one, I don't want to be one, and the thought of actually being one makes me feel sick to my stomach.

The thing is, though, that sick-to-my-stomach feeling I had last week when I thought I might actually be a vampire is very much like the feeling I get just before I get fired from a job or a relationship falls apart. And it's a feeling that's almost always right.

My online vampire friend says I sound like I don't want to be labeled and that I shouldn't worry about the label, but just be what I am. That's very kind advice and I thank him for it, but it's not really that simple, is it? Right now I'm trying to say to myself and to the people on my vampire boards, that I'm not really a vampire, but there's some part of me that's like a vampire. There's still that part of me that senses energy sometimes and seems to feed off it sometimes. There's still that part of me the enjoys dreaming of feeding off people. There's still that part of me that is more attracted than I should be to someone's blood when they have a cut and show it to me. I've never "vamped-out", as the vampires call it, but I do still feel an abnormal attraction to blood.

The picture at the top of this page of a starving tiger symbolizes how this hunger feels inside me. That picture reminds me of a dream I had in which a starving cougar was trapped in the same kind of small cage. Since I consider Cougar to be one of my totem or power animals, it was significant that She was trapped and starving inside a cage. I knew she needed fresh meat and to be able to run and hunt freely. I thought She represented some side of myself that was being caged and repressed and was thus starving. I first dreamt of Courgar around the same time that I was first dreaming of being a vampire. Maybe, then, she represents a vampiric aspect of my nature, my vampire side even, and now She's demanding to be let loose.

- Persephone