Frodos Dream

[ForthDauntless3]

Upon listening to last week's discussion of Frodo's dream in Bombadil's house, something occurred to me that I'd never noticed before. This dream has a time signifier! We're told that Frodo sees a "young Moon". This doesn't mean much to us—Tolkien doesn't tell us the current phase of the Moon—but it would certainly mean something to Frodo.

This idea of time sequencing also led me to what I think is going to be a controversial interpretation of Frodo's dream. I suspect that Frodo's possession of the Ring combined with his long familiarity with Gandalf and his fear for what has happened to the wizard has allowed Frodo to reach out and briefly touch Gandalf's mind, possibly aided by Gandalf's own mind reaching out and searching for Frodo.

Here's what leads me to this conclusion:
1) I absolutely agree with your interpretation that the sound of rushing wind and hoof beats is Shadowfax. I've been reading it that way since I became familiar enough with the text to remember that this dream came to Frodo after the events that he saw.
2) Given that Gandalf has already escaped and is on his way north, he will almost certainly be dwelling on the events of his escape, fearing for the damage that Saruman's treachery might do and hoping against hope that he might reach Frodo before the Nazgul do.
3) This interpretation also allows us to understand why Frodo wakes up fearing Black Riders. It's because Gandalf fears Black Riders! Gandalf's fear has bled over into Frodo through the dream.

This interpretation seems to make sense given the facts we have, but it makes me very uncomfortable because it also suggests that Frodo's connection to the Ring is much stronger than we otherwise have reason to suspect. In fact, Galadriel later tells Frodo that he has not trained his mind to the domination of others, implying that he would be incapable of touching Gandalf's thoughts like this.

So, does this interpretation make sense? What have I missed?

 

[Bruce N H]

Interesting. A couple of additional random thoughts:

-Using your mind to dominate others is not the same thing as using your mind to understand others, so Frodo might be doing the latter (unconsciously) without doing the former.
-Galadriel says she "perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind", presumably through the ring connection. Hmm, maybe the connection with Gandalf has to do with being a fellow ring-bearer. OTOH she also looks into the mind of all of the company at their first meeting.
-On the seat of Amon Hen, we'll get Gandalf's mind reaching out to Frodo. So maybe the connection is from Gandalf mentally reaching towards Frodo, not a two-way one.
-There's a passage on the road home after the fall of Sauron about Galadriel, Celeborn, Elrond and Gandalf communicating "from mind to mind" "as their thoughts went to and fro". So another example of mental communication, though here three of the four are ring-bearers, so maybe that scraps my suggestion above.

Bruce

-Editing - hmm, I have no idea why this text is all crossed out. I tried to use brackets to change the quoted "perceive" and "know" to "perceives" and "knows" by putting in bracket s close-bracket. I'm guessing that this forum uses brackets to insert rich-text commands and I somehow screwed it up. I tried to go back and put in bracket slash s close-bracket to undo whatever it is I did but to no avail. Oh well, I hope this isn't too illegible.

 

[Tungol]

Upon listening to last week's discussion of Frodo's dream in Bombadil's house, something occurred to me that I'd never noticed before. This dream has a time signifier! We're told that Frodo sees a "young Moon". This doesn't mean much to us—Tolkien doesn't tell us the current phase of the Moon—but it would certainly mean something to Frodo.

This idea of time sequencing also led me to what I think is going to be a controversial interpretation of Frodo's dream. I suspect that Frodo's possession of the Ring combined with his long familiarity with Gandalf and his fear for what has happened to the wizard has allowed Frodo to reach out and briefly touch Gandalf's mind, possibly aided by Gandalf's own mind reaching out and searching for Frodo.

Here's what leads me to this conclusion:
1) I absolutely agree with your interpretation that the sound of rushing wind and hoof beats is Shadowfax. I've been reading it that way since I became familiar enough with the text to remember that this dream came to Frodo after the events that he saw.
2) Given that Gandalf has already escaped and is on his way north, he will almost certainly be dwelling on the events of his escape, fearing for the damage that Saruman's treachery might do and hoping against hope that he might reach Frodo before the Nazgul do.
3) This interpretation also allows us to understand why Frodo wakes up fearing Black Riders. It's because Gandalf fears Black Riders! Gandalf's fear has bled over into Frodo through the dream.

This interpretation seems to make sense given the facts we have, but it makes me very uncomfortable because it also suggests that Frodo's connection to the Ring is much stronger than we otherwise have reason to suspect. In fact, Galadriel later tells Frodo that he has not trained his mind to the domination of others, implying that he would be incapable of touching Gandalf's thoughts like this.

So, does this interpretation make sense? What have I missed?

I like some of these ideas. One thing that goes against this interpretation though is that the whole dream is in third person. We never get Gandalf's point of view, which you might expect from a mind connection.

I also can believe that Gandalf fears Black Riders, but more than Frodo himself? I think it fits better that this idea originates through Frodo's fears, which are a misinterpretation of Shadowfax's galloping. Gandalf himself would also know that the hoofbeats belong to Shadowfax, and not to Black Riders.