Multiple Personality in “Dracula” by Bram Stoker (post 6): Dracula and Van Helsing apply hypnosis in the battle between Mina’s alternate personalities.

The pervasiveness of multiple personality in Dracula ranges from Renfield’s mental illness (see prior post) to the climactic struggle between Mina’s regular and vampire personalities.

Stoker could have written this novel under the premise that a chemical from Dracula’s blood was transforming Mina into a vampire, but neither of Stoker’s two doctors (Seward and Van Helsing) even considers treating Mina with a medicine or chemical antidote.

Instead, they treat her with the psychological modality, hypnosis (commonly used in the treatment of multiple personality). Indeed, the novel’s concluding chapters involve a competition between Dracula and Van Helsing in their hypnosis of Mina (Dracula’s hypnosis is applied telepathically from a distance).

Dracula is psychologically more advanced than Jekyll and Hyde in that the switch between alternate personalities involves hypnosis rather than a chemical potion. But readers are so distracted by the vampire fantasy that they overlook the multiple personality.