Vampires are not bound by the same natural laws as humans; they are supernatural beings and possess supernatural abilities, but they have their own laws to obey and their own limitations. Accoring to Anne Rice the human senses are far inferior to those of vampires - Louis"; ?> uses the phraze "in a glass darkly" when he tries to describe how limited the human senses are. In a way, it relates to the old beliefs that the dead know more than the living, because they have crossed the line to the other side and they have seen all the secrets of life and death revealed.
But there are some limitations for vampires that don't affect humans. Fear of daylight is common for almost all vampires. Some vampires like Dracula"; ?> are able to walk in broad daylight but even he loses most of his supernatural abilites in daylight and has to shield himself from the sun. Vampires are at their weakest during the day, and they are unable to defend themselves if they are discovered sleeping. The sleep of vampires seems to be more like a deep trance. Sunlight can also directly kill some vampires. View source"; ?>
Vampires are nightly predators, and their senses are adapted to silent hunting in the cover of darkness. Their eyesight is far better than human, and the same applies to their hearing that is much more acute than humans. In Dracula"; ?>, Lucy Westenra says to Mina that she can hear rats stomping in the attic after being bitten. Most vampires seem to possess at least some psychic abilities, some vampires can hear thoughts, like Lestat"; ?>, some are able to hypnotise their victims, cast a spell on the victim who feels both loathing, fear and fascination and becomes unable to resist the vampire's attack.
As predators vampires have to be swift and more clever than their prey in order to survive. Louis"; ?> shows the boy who interviews him in Interview With a Vampire"; ?> that he can move so swiftly that the human eye cannot perceive the movement at all. Summers claims that vampires float like mist into houses but Louis denies this. He says he cannot pass through keyholes. It may be that their speed of movement may give the impression that they dissolve to mist. Dracula certainly was able to transform his body into mist or a rat pack, and Lucy, after her death, was able to float through a small crack in the door to her vault.
Vampires also have some command of animals, most bats and rats, but Saint-German and Lestat"; ?> can control also horses. More ofte, horses as sensible animals, were afraid of vampires. One typical method of locating a vampire's grave was to lead a horse in a cemetery, and if it balked over going a grave, the vampire was found. Most vampires have the gift of shapeshifting. Dracula"; ?> is able to transform himself to mist or to a pack of rats or a wolf. Jules Duchon"; ?> transforms himself to a dog and a bat but as he himself is heavily overweight, his bat form is so heavy that it can't fly. Even the primitive Balkan vampires must have been able to transfom themselves into mist to be able to leave their graves through small holes that can be found on a vampire's grave. The Wallachian vampires were said to be able to assume a variety of shapes, among them cat, dog, flea or spider. View source"; ?>
Most vampires are in some way bound to their homeground. Both Dracula"; ?> and Saint-Germain need their homeland's soil, Dracula to sleep in it, but for Saint-Germain it is enough to carry it inside his shoe heels. The Balkan vampires were more strictly bound to their homes: they had to return to their graves every morning and they were unable to leave them at all on Saturdays, which naturally became the traditional vampire hunting day. In spite of these recorded limitations Peter Plogojowitz"; ?> asked his widow for shoes to be able to walk to the neighbour village but it is not known if he would have made it, whereas the Greek Vrykolokas often left their homes to start a new life elsewhere. Presumably they were not missed. In Roumania, in the town of Perlepe, lived a number of families who were regarded as offspring of vrykolakas. They were shunned by all the other inhabitants. View source"; ?>
Vampires cannot cross salt water or running water save at the slack of flood, which may be a metaphor for the undead unable to cross the river of Styx, thus remaining in a state between life and death. Dracula"; ?> himself has to be carried across the water in a coffin, as a package to England. This was also the way Louis"; ?> and Claudia travelled to Europe. Most vampires can not enter into a house uninvited, This is why the Balkan vampires plague their families, and the Greek Vrykolakas knock on neighbours' doors in the hope of gaining admittance. The Mykonos vampire"; ?> seemed to be able to get into houses uninvited, but he did not try to drink blood or suffocate the inhabitants. He behaved more like a poltergeist.
It is said that vampires cast no reflection. This comes from the belief that the image in the mirror is the soul. If you have no soul you have no reflection. When a person dies, mirrors are turned against the wall so that they don't capture the departing soul. Dracula"; ?> and Saint-Germain are not visible in a mirror, nor in a window. A mirror can steal also a living soul which may explain why young people have been scolded for admiring their own image in a mirror: it is plainly dangerous. Eyes mirror too, and they can likewise capture souls. That is why the eyes of the deceased are closed, and sometimes covered with coins so that he may not be able to take the living with him. This may be an explanation for the vampire's claimed hypnotic stare. Lestat"; ?> has no problems with mirrors, whereas Saint-Germain has learned be wary of windows at dark and mirrors. Maureen and Jules"; ?> avoid mirrors too, but Maureens aversion comes from the fact that she doesn't want to see herself for a very human reason: she is obese.View source"; ?>
A preoccupation for mirrors is according to Jaffe and DiCataldo"; ?> a symptom for identity disturbance in humans, and in this way, it mirrors the lack of soul in a vampire. A vampire is not a personality in the traditional sense. It seems that they are themselves aware of it.
It is usually believed that vampires fear Christian symbols, but this does not apply to all vampires. The vampires of Armand's vampire coven fear the cross and the rosary and do not dare to enter a church, because they were Christians when alive, and when they wake up as undead, they only have the Church's teachings as guidance to their new existence. They believe that they are doomed outcasts, cursed and rejected by God. Dracula"; ?>, despite his strength and power, fears the cross. Saint-German just remarks wryly that most vampires sleep under crosses in consecrated ground. It does not affect him at all.Lestat"; ?> and Louis"; ?>, children of the Era of Enlightenment are not believers during their life and do not feel anything special for holy symbols after becoming vampires. View source"; ?>