My Anima had a consistent dream world representation for decades and has only recently morphed into other manifestations.
My experience has some similarity to this.
After I began studying Jung, it took me a while to develop an interest in trying to recall my dreams. Eventually, when I committed to recording them, a figure showed up twice that resonated strongly with me as an anima image. I saw her in active imagination for some time.
But then I began to recognize other anima images—many, really—both in dreams and in active imagination.
Later, I saw the first figure again, but she had aged.
When looking at any man’s dream through a Jungian lens, it is natural to ask whether any female figure is an anima image.
Jung had a relatively fixed anima image in The Red Book, I think. Other Jungian writers, like Marion Woodman, have reported that in many of the dreams of their male analysands, the anima often grows up as their psychological work progresses.
James Hillman opposes Jung’s view. He sees it more as the psychodynamic energy of the Feminine—much more similar to @aeon’s view.
Modern psychology says the anima archetype—along with all the other archetypes—is hogwash, of course.
She is both a conceptualized psychodynamic energy and an agency possessing entity. Both an introjection and an enchanted being.
This is the view that comes closest to my own as well.
