I had a couple of dreams, but the point of interest is more the concept than the dreams themselves.

  The first dream involved an alien species of a sort of parasite-like creature.  At least they start out that way.

  What happens is that the creatures start out very tiny, like a worm 2 or 3 inches long.  One enters a human, and then works its way to the spine.

  The creature attaches to the spine, and as it grows, it works tendrils into the spinal chord.  At full growth, the creature is about the same length of the spine of the host.

  Its general shape is like a walking cane (not a hook shaped one) with small tendrils coming from various points of the shaft, and the "head" is an eyeball.

  At first, the creature is a parasite, until it first attaches to the spine.  At that point, it begins to gradually tap into the host brain functions.

  The creature becomes slightly symbiotic in that although it does begin to influence the thoughts and actions of the host, the creature does so in a manner that benefits the host, health wise.

  Because the creature lives in the host, it wants the host to be as alive and healthy as it can be.  For instance, if the host were a smoker, the creature would "make" the host stop smoking.  If the host were overweight, the creature would change the host's eating and physical activity habits.

  The host would not be the same person they were.  The person would not undergo any immensely drastic personality changes, unless they involved improving the health of the host.

  When I woke up from the dream, still half lucid, I thought about how it sounded like something you see on The Outer Limits.  I was thinking about how I might be able to use the idea in a story, and I thought of the title, Synapsenigma.

  I wasn't really able to come up with a good story, and I eventually went back to sleep.  Understand that I never really fully awakened.

  Anyway, I then had another dream of a similar concept, however, in this dream, the creature was a biotechnological thing created by scientists, and there was only one.  It was inside a willing host, and instead of influencing the thoughts and actions of the host, it increased the host physical and mental abilities.

  In the dream, the host was a man being escorted through an airport, or something, by two scientists and some guards.  Suddenly, some asian, ninja-like people dropped in and were going to try to kidnap him.

  The thieves dropped in some distance away, but still surrounding them, so the people still had time to try to think of some way to escape.

  Suddenly, the female scientist started making suggestions that would have him behaving like Spider-Man.  I then woke up.

  In this dream, the "creature" didn't make him super strong, or anything like that, but it did allow for some physical improvement.  Mainly the device enhanced the host's brain functions, allowing things like telekinesis.  But he was still new to it, so he had not yet developed any terribly significant abilities.