Sleep is a physically and mentally vulnerable state; the body is unconscious, unaware, and the mind is often visited by a series of distorted images called dreams. Only diabolical and cruel predators hunt sleeping prey, when the fight is less viable and victory is guaranteed. The vampire, perhaps the cruelest predator in English literature, often victimizes his prey in a dreamlike state; any suspicion of their presence can be mistaken for a strange dream, for weeks, while the vampire feeds, draining the victim of his blood, of his life. The vampire is also known to stalk his victim telepathically, through dreams, luring the victim ever closer to his fate. In Le Fanu's Carmilla and E.F. Benson's "The Room in the Tower," dream victimization has two distinct methods, adding to the intricate caricature of the vampire. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The history of the vampire in English literature has shown that vampires who victimize their prey through dreams or dream states are the vampires who have searched for their victim for several years, even decades. Carmilla first victimizes Laura when Laura is six years old, coming to her, as Laura recalls, in a dream state that Laura describes as an accident (Williams Le Fanu 90). More than a decade passes before Carmilla can victimize Laura once again (Williams, Le Fanu 90-1). Like Le Fanu, Benson plays with a boring and suspenseful vampire hunt. The vampire may take years to obtain his prized prey, perhaps because his victim must be developed to some degree. The vampire's lust and almost sexual emotions for the blood of his victim, the same blood that will flow in his veins, presuppose that the pleasure of hunting is similar to the pleasure of killing. Carmilla's seduction of Laura is not a quick process, but a long-term effort. As for Carmilla the vampire, it suggests the idea that draining enough blood to live the vampire lifestyle requires a great deal of effort on the part of the vampire. The friendship between Carmilla and Laura is quite romantic and there are definitely lesbian undertones; Sucking blood is a pleasurable and almost sexual experience for a vampire. Carmilla has a desire for Laura that Laura feels uncomfortable with; after one of Carmilla's episodes of affection, Laura describes Carmilla's bouts of strange behavior as infatuations, which embarrass and frighten Laura (Williams, Le Fanu 113). Carmilla possesses a love for Laura that is not human; their friendship seems to go beyond earthly boundaries, Carmilla not only wants to feed on Laura's blood but to have her as a companion in the afterlife. As with the nature of Carmilla’s hunt, Julia has been waiting for the unnamed narrator for a long time as when they finally meet in the tower room she says, “I knew you would come to the tower room. . . I've been waiting for you for a long time. You have finally arrived. Tonight I will feast; before long we will feast together” (Ryan, Benson 223). Perhaps the unnamed narrator is Julia's first hunt; the use of the word "feast" suggests that Julia still hasn't fed at all since becoming a vampire and her hunt has been a long, sort of amateur-style victimization of the unnamed narrator through dreams. Julia's confession is an answer to the cause of the narrator's dreams, but it is not a consolation as to why she chose him and there is not even an answer to the question "why?" to Carmilla. It's not as obvious on Carmilla's part that she's been chasing Laura all this time and wants her as a mate, but it's implied plenty. Although the reason for the dreams is in thenovel Carmilla that in the short story "The Room in the Tower", it is Carmilla who enters Laura's life while he is the unnamed narrator who was apparently prophetically destined to come to Julia. victimization E.F. BensonThe unnamed narrator appears not to imply any bloodsucking, but over the course of twenty years she has contacted the narrator in recurring dreams. It's unclear whether Julia is feeding telepathically or luring the kill to drain him of blood, the fact that the narrator wakes up from his dreams with no bite marks on his neck is a telltale sign that he hasn't been visited by a bloodsucking vampire in the night before, but the reader cannot rule out that vampires can sometimes drain the life from the victim through other methods such as energy draining and telepathic efforts. Although, since the narrator does not experience any fatigue due to the dreams, it is more likely that Julia has indeed been waiting this long for the opportunity to physically victimize the unnamed narrator. Carmilla appears to be more successful and less boring in the hunt than Julia, while Carmilla begins to victimize Laura frequently over the course of many nights. During the victims' dream state or strange dream, both Carmilla and Julia Stone manifest themselves in their eyes. victims in alternative forms. Secrets, deception, and stealth are key to keeping Carmilla's true identity unrevealed, while the narrator of "The Room in the Tower" experiences prophetic dreams that are quite dark in themselves and whose severity no mortal could have predicted. Benson's story, in particular, supports the common belief that dreams can connect the mind to supernatural and divine entities, visions that the supernatural can use to torment the mind. Perhaps the unnamed narrator experiences these dreams as a prophetic vision, which will inevitably lead him to the tower room. Julia appears in the narrator's surreal dream simply as the mother of a boy the narrator went to school with, and the dream's evil is initially connected to the tower, a tall three-story tower modeled after the late medieval period. It is obvious to the later reader that the vampire was always meant to be Julia Stone, as her line "Jack will show you your room: I gave you the room in the tower" is the only precise repetition of the dream over the course of twenty minutes. years (Benson, Ryan, 215). Carmilla appears to Laura in a different physical form than the young, charming, and beautiful women the reader sees during the day. Laura describes a dream that initiates “a very strange agony” that the reader knows is the result of Laura's victimization. Carmilla takes the form of a “sooty black animal that resembled a monstrous cat. . . four or five feet long” (Williams, Le Fanu 115). It is never explained why Carmilla appears to Laura this way. Vampires are characterized by having relatives or the ability to transform into dark creatures that are usually associated with hunting or evil, such as the wolf, big cat, mouse, etc. The image of the big cat can be associated with the sensuality of the hunt and the female is often compared to the feline, with a long and graceful body. After seeing the large puma-like creature, Laura feels "a stinging pain as if two large needles had stuck, an inch or two apart, deep into (her) breast" and then wakes up with a scream, hinting that she was awakened from a dream. (Williams, Le Fanu 116). Carmilla's powers and the extent of her powers are never specified. Perhaps Carmilla put Laura into a state of stupor that paralleled Carmilla's bloodsucking reality with this terrifying creature in disguise, this argument can be used because when Laura "wakes up" she sees a "female figure standing at the foot of the.