The alien is the utterly other — intelligence from outside every familiar category. Dream-aliens carry what is foreign to your current self: perspectives, changes, or parts of you so new they arrive as extraterrestrial. Contact is the meeting with the unassimilated.
Positive Resonance
The genuinely new contacted, perspective from outside all categories
Shadow Aspect
The invasion of the unfamiliar, abduction from the known life
Nuances
First contact: the utterly new arriving
Abduction: taken from the familiar by the foreign
The alien message: meaning from outside your categories