I initially thought that this was impossible to beat, then read comments here and realized the spirits only came from defeating enemies and when you returned you were in the spot you died at. Therefore, the most optimal way to play was not to attack at all, and then you'd never risk losing in the spirit loop and you could just run through the whole game. If you continue development on this after the jam, you may want to consider finding a way to force the player to actually attack things.
Viewing post in A Hunters Dream jam comments
thank you for playing, and for the feedback! Yes, it is very unclear how the mechanics work unfortunately... I will try to fix all the issues and republish after the jam for sure. I wanted to make it possible to beat it without killing anything, but extremely challenging to do so. I want the player to balance killing as many as necessary to make it to camp, but not too many or they will be overwhelmed in the dream if they go down. hopefully I can get that loop feeling better with some more development.