Throughout the novel, Ed references sleeping and dreaming. He describes waking up from sleep on the morning of the canoe trip as coming out of a deeply submerged place, suggesting that sleep for him is a kind of death. The association between sleep and death has a long literary history and recurs throughout the novel to varying effects. For example, when Ed and Lewis set out on their trip, Lewis references their journey as leaving the “sleep of the mild people” to experience a more dynamic existence on the river (31). The remark suggests that the urban, comfortable lives that the men have been leading are not really lives at all. The trip does in fact wake them up, as it necessitates that they fight for survival. During the critical hunting scene, for instance, Ed’s half-waking state brings him near to death.

At the same time, sleep and dreams (through their association with the unconscious) are also connected to the mysterious and primal power of nature. Like other authors of the Southern Gothic, Dickey takes readers on a journey into a wild land that is often enshrouded in darkness or twilight. The river in particular is linked to sleep; Ed says that its force gives him the feeling he has when drifting off to sleep—one of dropping deeper into something.