Bram Stoker uses sensory details to create a sense of fear and foreboding as Count Dracula and his army of the undead gain strength and move to make a bid for world domination.

This sense of dread is established early in the novel as Jonathan Harking visits Dracula's castle. As he comes closer to the castle in the remote Carpathian mountains, the details of the weather become foreboding:

dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder...all was dark

As the carriage comes even nearer, the sensory detail become more fearful. The wind is "keen" and Harking hears the ominous howling of wolves all around.

The terror intensifies as the come to Dracula's "ruined" castle without a "ray of light." Stoker uses auditory description again to good effect as he describes:

the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back.

Dracula himself is a creepy figure, described using tactile sensations: his hand is "cold as ice," as if, Harking thinks, he is dead.

Stoker heightens the dread around Dracula and his army of the undead by constantly associating them with images of animals we tend to dread: not only wolves, but rats and bats. Back in London, as the men enter the chapel where Dracula and his undead lay in coffins, we are first met with the sensory description of an odor:

But as to the odour itself, how shall I describe it? .... the pungent, acrid smell of blood.

Following this, the room is filled rats:

But even in the minute that had elapsed the number of the rats had vastly increased. They seemed to swarm over the place all at once

Stoker uses a multitude of senses, including sight, sound, touch, and smell, to convey the horror of Dracula and the threat that his army of the undead poses for humanity.