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Mystery Dream #6 "White all around us!"

Running the top of the Shavers Fork of the Cheat
River in WV in the dead of winter. Not squirting,
just boating, multi-day with gear in a T-Canyon.
The water is higher and pushier than I've seen,
but fun.

Boof a pourover (hundred pound boat?It's a dream) into
a meltdown.

In the meltdown, the tcanyon turns into a squirtboat, I loose
all my clothes except a skirt. (No pfd).

The roar of the river gently goes away and the
squirtboat settles to the bottom of the riverbed, about
20 ft down. The cold settles into my bones.
The boat won't move. I pop the skirt, no air,
get out and stand on the riverbed as if on land,
naked with paddle, immense cold. I look up
through the gin-clear, cold water to
the moon overhead, which illuminates everything
in a painfully bright snowy winter light.
"It's white all around us" I think.

& & &

Mystery Dream #13 "I'll never get home"

Spikey vulcan like boat, with a convoluted
cockpit, flat black and fast as a downriver
boat.

Smash into a mush move going really fast on a
real steep offside charc where the dream river
comes down a steepcreek like slide curving to the
right and forcefeeding an eddy in a sheltered
deep pool under an overhanging cliff.

The boat noses down and mushes deep and just starts
going *down*, the wet-whitenoise of the powerful eddy
line just fades out as the boat peels deeper and deeper.
No up button. Boat is moving down too fast to be able
to lever the bow up. Can't bring the stern around.
Gets real dark, boat screaming down. I pop the skirt and
bail and watch the boat tear down spiraling out of sight.
I drop my paddle, it starts drifting down, I think I'm
rising though I don't have a pfd. but no, I'm just not
sinking as fast as the paddle, I can feel the water
slipping by from below, I try to swim but I just
accelerate my rate of descent, the filtered sunlight
from under the overhang is getting very indistinct. It's
getting darker, going down. "Oh no, now I'll never
get home" sinking sinking, I am sad.

& & &


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