Vampiric Abilties: Fact or Fiction

From the newly awakened to the seasoned mentor, most Vampires are fascinated with what abilities they might possibly be able to learn and/or master. For those that are just at the beginning stages of learning, this can be one of the most exciting parts of the process. When I first stumbled across the Vampire Community, I actually didn't believe that Real Vampires existed, despite the fact that I had awakened a little over a decade beforehand. One of the things that kept me progressing in my efforts to learn more was the fact that in continuing to read the words of other's experiences, I began to notice certain similarities between their stories and my own. The largest portion of these similarities lay within the subject of the abilities that they had noticed having. So in keeping with the effort to aid in the furthering of accurate and reliable knowledge within this group, I felt it would perhaps be beneficial to begin this thread as a place to discuss the various abilities that we as Vampires are capable of. I will address a few in the following paragraphs but please come forward to add your own questions and comments on the subject. There is no way I could possibly cover all viable abilities in this one post, but perhaps by discussing some of them it will spark some inner reflection in which you, the reader, will be spurred on to think of others.

First, let's dispel a few myths regarding Vampiric Abilities.

There are two separate varieties that these myths often take form as. First there is the outright fictional type of myths. These are the ones that we could not accomplish by any stretch of the imagination. Such as the ability to change our form to that of a bat or the ability to fly. Real Vampires can do neither unfortunately (though I admit it would be pretty cool if we could). The second type of myth are those that serve as an exaggeration of real abilities. A couple examples of this would be the myth that states that we have "superhuman" strength and speed and could easily outrun a speeding car or even lift a bus as if it weighed nothing. These are the tricky sort of myths because, although we may have slightly quicker reactions or may be stronger then one would expect for someone of our stature, we still remain within the range of human possibility. For instance, we could not lift a car on a whim but much as it has been known that a mother can find the strength to lift a vehicle off of her toddler by the strength of her will and adrenaline alone, many of us are also capable of such feats of strength in the event of an emergency. In a non-emergency situation however, we are only capable of slightly increased strength. Though we cannot outrun a speeding car, we can often at will put on a burst of speed as we run that is slightly faster then one would imagine to be possible. In other words, upon taking notice of our abilities an outside observer might say something like, "Wow...that person is stronger then they look!" or "That person has great reflexes!". However you should not expect to hear anyone refer to you as being "faster then a speeding bullet" anytime soon because if you do, you will surely be disappointed.

So what types of abilities are possible?

There are some that are physical in nature such as having a more sensitive sense of smell, acute hearing or highly developed night vision. These are common. There are also those that are more mental or psychic in nature such as Empathy which, although they not exclusively vampiric abilities, they do occur in higher percentages within the Vampire population then they do within the Mundane (mainstream human) population. Below I will list some of these abilities.

Empathy - the ability to transmit emotions over a distance or experience someone else's emotions as one's own

Telepathy - the ability to transmit thoughts over a distance or read someone's mind

Clairvoyance - the ability to see things that are outside the normal range of perception

Clairaudience - the ability to hear things outside the normal range of perception

Precognition - having knowledge of an event before it occurs by means of extrasensory perception

Astral Projection - the ability to seperate one's soul from their physical body and leave the physical body for a limited time to roam the astral plane or travel to other locations within the physical world and/or interact with other people.

Divination - the ability to foretell future events or reveal truth with unusual insight by means of occult practices such as the reading of tarot cards, tea leaves, crystal balls, astrological charts, numerology, palm reading, etc, etc.

Retrocognition - the ability to see objects or events in the past that one has no way of having had previous knowledge of

Psychokinesis (PK) - the ability to move objects or affect physical processes outside the body through mental effort alone. This is also often referred to as Telekinesis.

Aura reading - learning about people by perceiving the colored aura that surrounds them

Dreamwalking - entering another person's dream while you also are in a unconsious state or calling another into your own dream.

Pyrokinesis (one of several forms of elemental manipulation) - being able to manipulated fire by sheer will of thought.