Check out the books of Robert Moss. He does workshops on dreams. A good friend of mine told me about his dreaming guidelines. He said (second hand) to name your dream. Re-dream the dream by taking on the role of each character of the dream - Moss says that the people you dream about are aspects of you.

In my encounters with dreams there are three classifications: 1. ordinary dreams with symbols as you have described (along with Jung's archetypes). 2. precognitive dreams - they seem like ordinary dreams until you visit the place weeks or sometimes years later in "real" life; and the 3rd category is dreamtime dreams.

Dreamtime dreams may occur in dreams within dreams, or be repetitive dreams that are NOT nightmares that seem real - sometimes I communicate with animals in those dreams who tell me secrets of the the natural world.

Many ordinary dreams pick up an aspect of daily life and fit them into the dreamscape, whereas dreamtime dreams usually don't do this and they seem crisp and more"real" than ordinary dreams. Also they are not as fragmented as ordinary dreams, I've found.

Loved your dream.

What do you suppose the river meant?