nominal clauses

[Boadicea]

Hi! I'm a new member of the forum. I'm having trouble identifying the funcion of this nominal clause in the sentence. Could you help me?

"It was like having very special dream come tru, she thought < to be going to the Opening of the Suez Canal, which in France had occupied the minds of everybody for so long? >"

This is what I've done so far:

1) I've been working with the cannonical order of the sentence (I think it's simpler)

She thought < that to be going to the Opening of the Suez Canal, ...for so long > was like having very special dream come true.

So I think that the clause is functioning as Od to the verb 'thought', right?

2) Then, I've substituted the clause for the pronoun IT:

She thought IT was like having a special dream come true, <to be going .... for so long>.

Is IT an Anticipatory Subject or Object? Then, the clause would be an Extraposed Subject or Object.

I hope you can help me.

Thanks a lot

[the writing on the wall]

here is an example for you:

The sun set and we went home.
It can be rewritten as:

The sun having set,we went home.

[svartnik]

"It was like having very special dream come tru, she thought < to be going to the Opening of the Suez Canal, which in France had occupied the minds of everybody for so long? >"

to be going to the Opening of the Suez Canal = It
the prop 'it' is the grammatical subject and the notional subject is the nominal clause (anaphoric reference).

[Boadicea]

Thanks! You've really helped me.