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The movie rocks,

but yeah,

basically it's all based on the stories of the Baron of the same name, that the people themselves bloated up into some huge super hero fable. Kind of like what they did to Prince Vlad (Dracula, Prince VIGO!, Vlad the Impaler and so on and so on and so on)

Kind of like playing historical broken telephone.

The syndrome basically causes a patient to exaggerate any medical condition, fictional or real in order to be the center of attention.

Think of it as a kind of narcissism overflowing into an election campaign for one's self.

The "Baron von Münchhausen" was a real baron in 18th century Germany who always told the most outrageous stories about his adventures (e.g. how he rode on a cannonball). But none of them were true. He did so to be the center of attention.

Therefore, somebody with Münchhausen Syndrome is basically a liar who will simulate being sick to get attention, sympathy and care from others. Today we just call somebody like that an attention whore ;) The difference between such a patient and a hypochondriac is that the hypochondriac is convinced he/she is really seriously ill even when they're perfectly healthy.

It is a mental illness that causes the person to go to extreme lengths in order to recieve attention. the more sever cases would be of a mother poisesing or even killing her baby to make it seem like she is a poor grieving mother, another is when the person does things to hur themselves. People with this illness are compulsive liars. ( i am sorry it sound bad and i am not trying to be rude) they will make up any random story such as my car got stolen my boyfriend beats me i was raped anything they crave teh attention of others. This is not always conciously done most people with this illness dont understand what they are really doing.

Try looking it up on you tube they have a special i believe it was on either history channel or discovery health where they shows people who had the illness and what they did.

I hope this helps :)

There are really a few variations of it. I know of 2:

1) It refers to a parent who is in constant need of attention and wil generally continuiously take their child to the dr or hospital for non-existent illnesses; in worse cases the parent physically harms the child in order to get the attention.

2) Same thing but no child is involved and the individual him/herself is the "victim" in order for the person to gain attention.

Im not sure how it came about but it is derived from people with a disorder or addiction to the response they receive from family/friends/caregivers.

if you go to great lengths to make yourself sick, or appear sick for the purpose of sympathy, then yes you have muenchausen syndrome