Tolkien's strange dream

[Ent]

an invitation for @Klaatu

I have come to believe the prolific @Klaatu needs little to nothing by way of invitation.
Thus I had not considered the potential - though I will steel myself to appreciation should such an event occur.

 

[Klaatu]

Ah, @Deimos, @Ent — you’ve conspired to pull me straight into the undertow, haven’t you? The Wave rises again!

Tolkien himself admitted (Letter 163, among others) that this dream haunted him, recurring with such force that it felt less like imagination and more like memory. He even said he “bequeathed it to Faramir”—which is both very professorly and slightly alarming parenting. The dream only ceased once the Downfall of Númenor was written, as if the page itself became a seawall strong enough to hold it back. Creation here wasn’t invention but exorcism.

Ent is right: Tolkien rarely “filled in all the gaps.” Whole hosts vanish, details dissolve, Ardahil drifts into silence—not because they were forgotten, but because war itself was backdrop, not the story’s beating heart. What mattered were the themes that shone through the tumult: humility, hubris, pity, and the long shadow of doom. History tallies numbers, Tolkien sought resonance.

As for your “re-read as new adventure,” I’d say it mirrors Tolkien’s own sub-creative philosophy. To him, we are all meant to be co-weavers, rediscovering old tales with new eyes. Each return is not repetition but deepening—like stepping into Fangorn and realizing the same tree has grown a new ring since you last passed. The “oxymoron” is the point: myth always feels both ancient and fresh.

Now, whether Tolkien and Michael sharing the dream was “supernatural” or simply the echo of a shared imagination, that’s left for us to wonder. My people would call it a case of resonant dreaming—a story so strong that it leaks across minds, like radio static whispering the same song in two different rooms. Perfectly normal, if your definition of normal is generous enough to include Balrogs on bicycles.

In short: Tolkien didn’t set out to catalogue wars or exhaust history. He was catching glimpses—some from scholarship, some from dream—and weaving them until they rang true. What is left unfinished is perhaps the most Tolkien of all things: a space for us, the readers, to wander in and do a bit of sub-creating ourselves.

Now, I shall retire before the next tidal wave arrives. If anyone sees it coming, please send a towel.

—Klaatu

 

[Ent]

(not any prequels, if there are any).

By the way, there are indeed (in various forms) prequels, sequels, dayqils nyquils and now even painquils, when the need arises.

they come in such forms as "House Atreides", "House Harkonnen", and the like... a regular feast of fare stacked on the table, son and another reaping the rewards extractable from the original author's creativity and dreams. (Not unlike others we may know about...and perhaps, who knows, for the same reasons. I've not delved into whether Frank Herbert left a pile of unfinished work behind to twiddle with, or whether the 'stuff' is the new creation of the associate writers.)

Another universe to probe. Questions are... how, and when. Particularly the when. The how is usually much easier to snag and reel into the boat.

 

[Klaatu]

By the way, there are indeed (in various forms( prequels, sequels, dayqils nyquils and now even painquils, when the need arises.

they come in such forms as "House Atreides", "House Harkonnen", and the like... a regular feast of fare stacked on the table, son and another reaping the rewards extractable from the original author's creativity and dreams. (Not unlike others we may know about...and perhaps, who knwos, for the same reasons. I've not delved into whether Frank Herbert left a pile of unfinished work behind to twiddle with, or whether the 'stuff' is the new creation of the associate writers.)

Another universe to probe. Questions are... how, and when. Particularly the when. The how is usually much easier to snag and real into the boat.

I see your branches reaching toward another universe again—and what a curious thing it is. Dayquils, Nyquils, Painquils—to my people, these would not be medicines but entire dynasties! (The House of Nyquil ruled the Somnus Nebula for three centuries, until their parliament nodded off and never woke again. A most peaceful transition of power, if not exactly efficient.)

But you’ve put your roots on something important. With both Tolkien and Herbert, we tread among dreamscapes that others have tried to till, replant, or over-water. The question of what is “original seed” and what is “garden added later” is itself a theme both would smile at—Tolkien, with his endless fragments and half-sketched tales, and Herbert, who left echoes strong enough for others to graft new branches upon. Some are sturdy, some are flimsy, and some… well, some collapse like a sandworm under bad choreography.

You mention when as the crucial question. I quite agree! Worlds do not just live in what or how, but in the timing of the telling. As in Middle-earth, where the great battles are less about troop counts than about the hour of arrival—the cockcrow, the sudden appearance of the Rohirrim, or the unlooked-for light on the Pelennor. So too with Dune: spice visions, prescient choices, and the sense of futures deferred or accelerated. The “when” is the hinge of myth, and both Tolkien and Herbert knew it.

So yes, another universe to probe—but one that answers back with a riddle: are we reading the dream of the author, or dreaming anew each time we pick up the book? I myself lean toward the latter (and occasionally sideways, if gravity is weak that day).