Dream-weaver spiders

**Dream-weaver spiders** are clear, often "see-through" entities that are observed in the groggy transition period between sleep and wakefulness (hypnopompia), such as when waking up. They have been reported by every culture from young and old alike, and most often take the form of a translucent insect that crawls on the walls or ceiling near the sleeper, who observes them crawling, usually in a straight line and in a random direction.

The more alert one is the less likely they are to see a dream-weaver spider. Multiple spiders may be seen at once, but they do not appear to cluster together, instead going in their own direction.

## Appearance

Because dream-weaver spiders are non-physical, they do not really have a physical form, but only appear in passing fragments of groggy wakefulness. They are mostly described as translucent or an off-white color akin to ivory, with some rare spiders appearing a very light blue or red. They range in size from about two to ten centimetres, with the larger ones being described as "ambling glass tubes which walk in a shuffling motion", while the smaller ones have more elegant and quick gait.

None of these spiders have ever been reported to possess mandibles, with their bodies being diminutive and usually not exceeding a centimetre or so in relation to their legs.

## Behavior

Upon encountering a sleeping human host, the dream-weaver spider will feed off a thought that is latent within the sleeper's mind, growing a little larger as it does so. This may keep occurring multiple days in a row by the same spider, which favors REM sleep due to due the vividness and intensity of mental thought during this time.

After a period of about three weeks the spider has grown to it's mature size and will seed "eggs" within the mind of the dreamer, though, to call them "eggs" requires a looser definition of the word egg. Again, dream-weaver spiders are non-physical and thusly these 'eggs' take the form of ideas which the dreamer feels an urge to propagate or share with others upon awakening. Though many of these ideas may be spread, only some will take root in people's mind, such that the majority of these 'eggs' simply die off. For the successful egg portion however, these ideas will soon grow into tiny thoughtforms which manifest as "floaters" in their embryonic state, eventually stripping themselves away from the mind of their host so they can feed on and lay their eggs in other minds.

## Prevelance

Dream-weaver spiders have been documented sporadically throughout history, but there have only been a few instances in which they were recognized explicitly for the alien lifeforms that they were. Reports spurred by consumption of hallucinogenics have been omitted due to their unreliability and inclusion of other lifeforms which are unlikely to exist.

In 1486, Italian poet Giovanni Ricci wrote a short poem which seems to describe the lifeform:

"Seething bugs which pervade the walls of those perched against sleep's door,
They walk aimless about on every tile, mirror, and floor,
When in sleepless nights I did find my head heavy but with wide eye,
I myself saw many pass by, hue of electrum, color-wise"
Despite the dream-weaver's appearance as passing mention in various works regarding sleep, it's been passed off as a hypnopompic hallucination, where it remains, obfuscated and put into a strictly naturalistic framework by contemporary psychological discourse.

It is of interest that since a dream-weaver spider will feed off thoughts which later contribute to the formation of the baby spiders, some thoughts can be transferred and magnified through reflective propagation, in which a group of individuals become fixated on a central idea. In the case of dream-weaver spiders, individuals under their influence have been known to spend time divested in creating odd clockwork devices with an unknown function.

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