Bowen Marsh

In a wonderful piece of psychological writing, George RR Martin also weaves in many of the throwaway comments and thoughts of the previous day into this dream.

Bowen Marsh talks of standing atop the wall and fighting wildlings, and that's what John does in this dream.

Bowen Marsh also mentions spiders freezing, and later in the dream, which we'll get onto in a moment, John sees people scuttling up ice like spiders.

John thinks of the wall as looking like rivers of black ice, and in the dream he is dressed in black ice.

He thinks about his family, and he dreams of Rob.

John's wounds smoke in the cold air.

One of his attackers is the castle steward Bowen Marsh who cries as they attack him, possibly out of guilt or regret that things came to this.

So that's the salt and smoke.

As for the star? Well, just before they stabbed John in the book, one of Stannis' men left behind at the castle was killed by one one.