Dracula Lucy Sleeping Analysis

Lucy is repeatedly attacked during her sleep in Dracula. Lucy, someone prone to sleep walking, is affected by Dracula’s pull. She actually gets up in her sleep and talks outside to meet with Dracula. This is the opposite of Johnathon’s situation where he experienced sleep paralysis. Since Johnathon was practically paralyzed, he couldn’t act out his desires. Since Lucy is still able to move in her sleep, she is easily able to act out any unconscious desires she has. In this case, Lucy’s desire is to find Dracula and allow him to feed on her. Once Lucy has transitioned into a vampire she does not cease acting out her desires in her sleep. Instead, Lucy goes after a group of children. Even the children appeared to be acting out their own desires

“It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a “bloofer lady” had asked him to come for a walk, the others picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served”(675). However, the children seem aware of this while Lucy appeared oblivious to her own sleepwalking. The children also make this into a game where they try to lure each other away by wiles: “This is the more natural as the favorite game of the little ones at present in luring each other away by wiles”(675). The children do not seem alarmed over the fact that they have been attacked but think of it as a fun game. In psychology, young children have no yet developed the part of their brain that deals with logic. Since the children cannot use logic to realize what Lucy did was not pleasant, they only talk about her in a positive sense. Like he adults that have been attacked, the children enjoyed being fed on. The children just do not have the same sense of logic to stay quiet or realize the horror behind the

However, Mina does not recount her own story. Dr. Seward is the one the recalling the events and Mina’s explanation of the event in his diary. So a separation exists between the act and Dr. Seward’s tale of the events. Like the rest of the victims, Mina is attacked while asleep. This happens on a few occasions. Mina’s intelligence has been a key theme and tool throughout the novel. So Mina being fed on a few times and not realizing it is rather particular and definitely out of character for someone as clever as her. It is highly probable that Mina was at least subconsciously aware of her being fed on but repressed the information because some pat of her mind desired to be fed on and possibly tuned. This becomes even more suspicious when Dracula decides to turn Mina into a vampire. Mina is not the only person in the bed; Johnathon is there too. Johnathon could have easily been awakened by this final attack but was not having experienced a similar situation and after Lucy had gone through the same experience, Johnathon should have been able to comprehend that Mina was constantly being fed on and that Dracula might attack again. However, Johnathon had not been opposed to the female vampires who tried feeding on him and he refuses to stay away from Mina after she started transitioning. It is likely that like Mina, he repressed these thoughts because he was subconsciously okay with Dracula attacking and feeding on his wife.