Dreamy Dreamy Dracula

The exploration of dreaming and sleep is a conventional feature of the Gothic. The metaphorical link between sleep, death and the supposed afterlife comes into Stoker's use of vulnerability of the sleeper.
Many of Stolker's characters have difficulty sleeping, and unusually this inability to sleep is especially prominent at times where Dracula is near. With Lucy's attacks by Dracula comes along not only the inability to sleep, but the fear of sleep itself. From the sleepwalking and disturbed sleep initially, when Dracula is merely hovering outside her window, to a "presage of horror" which comes with sleep. Sleep becomes something to be feared, Lucy describes her "pain of the fear of sleep, with such unknown horrors as it has for me"; this "unknown horror" referring to Dracula.

This fear of sleep around Dracula is reinforced when Harker adopts a "nocturnal existence" whilst he stays at Dracula's castle. He is unable to sleep at night when Dracula is at his most powerful, suggesting he is unconsciously aware of Dracula's power and it's relation to sleep. His unconsciousness links to Freudian idea's which constantly appear throughout the novel, including the theory that ones true desires emerge through their unconsciousness. This may relate to the incident with the three brides. Harker believes he is dreaming the incident of the sexual encounter with three beautiful women, where maybe his guilty fantasies are projected.

This encounter arouses the idea of the mixing of dreams and reality, a thread which Stolker weaves into the narrative. Harker is confused as to whether he was asleep or not; "I suppose I must have fallen asleep; I hope so... for all that followed was startlingly real". This merging of dreams and reality, revolves around the power of vampires. Dracula and his brides are elements of the supernatural, and are considered by readers, imaginary. Yet if the characters are dreaming the vampires, it reiterates the idea of verisimilitude, that it could actually be happening.

However, it is more likely that the dream like state the characters adopt when in the face of vampires is purely illuminating the connection between sleep and vampires. When Mina is running to save Lucy from Dracula she says how she "Must have gone fast, and yet is seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with lead". This dreamlike imagery is familiar; wanting to run but not being able to, illustrating vampires connection to sleep.

Distinguishing between sleep and death is another theme running throughout the novel. When Harker finds Dracula lying in his coffin, he cannot tell whether he is dead or asleep; "He was either dead or asleep, I could not say which- for the eyes were open and stoney, but without the glassiness of death". The "Un-Dead" are said to be sleeping in their tombs, and as vampires are neither dead, nor alive, sleep tends to bring out their true forms.

"We thought her dying whilst she slept
And sleeping when she died"

This reinforces the connection of vampires to sleep and death. Lucy, as a beautiful corpse, looks more alive and appears to be sleeping. This quote finally establishes the link between vampires "sleeping in their tombs", never dead even in sleep.