That looks like cold damage to me.

Planto

Hi,
I'm not an expert on dracaenas, but I got one from Lowe's for $1 a couple of months ago in similar condition, maybe just a bit better, and nursed it back to health. There are many factors that might have affected your plant. Where was it located? What plant food was it given? Was it watered properly? Was it exposed to cold, air drafts (hot and/or cold) etc, etcâ¦
The first thing that I would do is repot it to a larger container with good potting mix. This one seems way too small. While you repot you can also examine the roots.
Then just water it once a week and keep checking on it - hopefully it comes back to health from terrible stress it has suffered.

Good luck!

Ditto on the cold damage.

Thanks for the quick replies!
I'll go ahead with the repotting & inquire about its history of care.
Given that it is cold damage, is there anything to be done about it? Should I prune the leaves or just wait for them to die on their own & hope for new growth?

I think the cold damage came in transport, that's a very common problem in the north....

You know, I would wait cutting down those leaves that are still alive. On some websites they recommend cutting off the brown part. Mine had the same thing - leaves had brown sides, but were still alive. After repotting I just put it into a nice medium light spot in my bedroom, and it is recovering on it's own - the leaves look much greener now. Plants have a lot of self-healing wisdom - so I would just try to give it the best conditions possible without cutting down too much. Just from looking at this plant I would guess that it was probably in too dry air, not watered properly and exposed to cold/hot drafts, which is not the worst thing to happen. That cold damage couldn't appear instantly from just a short trip.
But check for bugs - that might be something you would need to address right away!

This is the damaged plant I got about a 1.5 months ago - look, almost all the brown is gone from the leaves and they turned nice green color again. So I hope yours is gonna be fine. (dunno why the image is upside down) :(

Yeah, the cold is pretty bad here. I just didn't expect a relatively brief exposure to make for so much trouble.

Thanks veimar, that's pretty encouraging (and the pic looks right side up once you click the image :) ). I've nursed back a peace lily & a rubber plant back to good health after significant cold damage, and hopefully this guy will recover too. I'll give an update in a while once there is considerable change in its state.

Plant getting spots I don't know

Changed soil