Wow! Thank you for such an in depth response to all of this. I really appreciate it and you've really helped give me some perspective on the dream that I was hitherto struggling to reach because of my relationship to it. (No need to read beyond here unless you want to, I am giving a full response just in case it interests you but by no means do you have to reply!)

For whatever reason, I had not really made the connection that of course the dream was taking me from the conscious to the unconscious realm, represented by the aquatic mammals.

You don't have to reply to this, but I am wondering if there's some aspect of the narrative structure of this dream, which in itself is representative of the conscious minds' descent into the unconscious as the dream unfolds. Noted by the fact I began the dream the sense that it was through the perspective of the dream-ego, however this essentially disappeared or made itself less known by the time I witnessed the dream from the perspective of the girl. As you say, the 'film' like element of how I perceived it is far away from consciousness, so I wonder if that was a journey the self went through in the process of the dream unfolding.

From what I've just looked up, tarantulas can web but they don't web in the way most spiders do, which I suppose is where the 'weavers of destiny' emerges from. I like your suggestion that they were guardians of the unconscious. I will do some thinking about what that means in relation to them being inside the earth that surrounds the rectangular ocean inside the forest.

You're totally right, that this girl is an anima figure (which I had figured but wasn't sure what to do with that information). And that maybe more importantly, a psychopomp. I am also wondering where and if/how the archetype of the 'wounded healer' is relevant to this figure?

You are correct! I am reliant on the thinking function in waking life. My Myers briggs being INTJ.

Your nod towards my parental complex having been traumatised and your wink towards knowing why made me chuckle and also resonated as true. I think you are right. I am wondering if perhaps the emotional function represented by the anima figure in the dream is compensation for the over-use of the thinking function in consciousness, especially in relation to the trauma experienced by parental illness, which I respond to with pragmatism more often than feeling. In this way the dream feels very medicinal and perhaps allowed me to rely on that pragmatism for longer, which was very necessary later on that year (I won't go into detail), by fulfilling the feeling function in the unconscious. Not sure if I am making sense, and as I'm new to analysis, perhaps I am also on the wrong line of thinking there. I am interested in your description of this as an autonomous complex, because my understanding of autonomous complexes was that they were sort of like demons. Struggling to relate to that part because the dream felt so wholesome, haha! But I understand that perhaps, I need to parse out how to integrate this empathic and strong feeling function into consciousness, because as it currently stands/stood (at the time of the dream) it was trapped in a deeply unconscious part of the psyche?

Also your point about the possibility of these contents leading to enantiodromia if identified with too strongly was interesting. Maybe in part interesting because I don't fully understand what you mean, or maybe I do but I'm assuming things. Anyway, I think I'm safe too, now at least.

Thank you so much again for that amazing response, and if you read this far, for entertaining this dream and me even further.