Recurring river dream

I’ve been having this dream since I was a kid. I’m drawn to hike by the river for days in a sort of fugue, just walking and walking like I’m being pulled by a string. I camp by the river every night under the stars, and one night there’s a storm upstream- the sky gets dark and the river rises, and I try to run but instead I step into it. I’m carried by the current and dragged under, where it’s like the river runs its hands through my body, and my body becomes the river. I sort of drown, sort of dissolve, then wake up when the sun rises, tangled in cattails and weeds. I look at myself, and my body is completely different. I’m tall and thin and male, with a flat chest, and it feels so correct.

I’ve been having the same dream for years and years, and it never fails to make me feel so much yearning and grief on waking up. Just thought I’d share, I don’t talk about it a lot.