Queen Hillary? In Your Dreams!

Silva, 41, had been leaning toward Obama about 80/20. "When I woke up from the dream," she says, "It was more like 65/35."

Not every dream is as rich with meaning, but to witness the true power of the subconscious, look no further than Joey Gavronsky, a Georgetown University junior from Florida who was straddling the Clinton/Obama fence until he dreamed that Obama showed up at his dorm room to drink coffee with his friends. That, plus the real-life fact that the Grateful Dead had recently pledged to support the candidate, was enough to put Gavronsky firmly in Obama's camp.

It might not be the best reason to vote for someone, Gavronsky says.

But then again, it's hard not to trust our dream personas, which often seem so much wittier, so much smarter, so much more informed than we are in our waking lives.

They tell us nothing about the candidates and everything about ourselves, our brains breast-stroking through the sludge we encounter during the day, processing the information overload in a way that makes total sense, if only in dreams.

It's not unusual for someone to dream of "being thrust into an intimate situation with a powerful figure," says Gillian Holloway, a psychologist who incorporates dream therapy into her patient sessions. It might mean that in waking life, you're considering a life-changing opportunity -- one that does not actually involve Hillary Clinton.

The race is even invading the sleep cycles of foreigners.

Allison Trottier is a Canadian living in Ontario -- the U.S. presidential race has no business dropping in on her sleep. And yet, almost every week, there's Mitt Romney, swooping in to hijack the nomination from McCain. There's Obama, eluding a group of sinister hippies who pursue him in a stolen bus.

When asked if she thought her dreams meant anything, Trottier hesitates before answering: "Maybe that I should stop watching so much CNN?"