Dreams as a Language

     During our conversations on the aesthetic value of a language, numerous qualities were listed that can make a language 'favorable'. Whether the qualities were uniqueness, sonic quality, or its association with an alphabet, the favorable qualities had to deal with the process of what it means to participate in that language. What it means to participate in a language is a hard concept to grasp, but placing one language in relation to another makes ranking languages easier. We can look at vocal qualities, alphabetic qualities, or particular words in a language that are unique in a way that are differentiating. Perhaps it is the use of rolling words in Spanish, pictorial kanji in Japanese, or the use of 'on' in French. I don't want to try to claim what Tolkien's favorite language was, but I do think Tolkien offers another facet to analyze in judging a language - translatability.
     In The Notion Club Papers, Tolkien particularly looks at understanding dreams as a language. In describing his concept for time-travel through dreams, Ramer says,

 "I couldn't remember much about such inspections, although I was now becoming pretty good at remembering large passages of more vivid and pictorial dreams.  And that means I suppose also, that my mind was not able (at least not without more practice) to translate the notes into the terms of the sense which I can handle when awake (HME 9, 176)".

Ramer analyzes his dreams specifically in order to translate them for a story. By translating his dreams through taking their physical characteristics such that they can be communicable in the form of a story, Ramer treats dreams in the same way that Tolkien translates Beowulf. Ramer does not simply try to find meaning in the dreams in the same way that one might analyze a painting, but rather Ramer sees dreams as something translatable with a singular depiction of a story.
    Ramer translating dreams is by no means unique given psychoanalysts treating dreams as a way of translating the subconscious. However, Ramer does not translate dreams in order to understand the subconscious of an individual, but rather he sees dreams as a language unbounded by time for the pursuit of time-travel. While dreams still might serve the purpose of translating the subconscious, Ramer is more interested in the stories that dreams can reveal through a thorough process of translation. In this sense, the language of dreams becomes not just communicative, but also revelatory. Unlike a prophesy, Ramer's dreams go in any direction in Time, and there is no real way to judge whether the translated past is true, whereas eventually a prophesy can become either true or false.
     Although this idea of dreams as a revelatory form of language does not carry Tolkien very far for The Notion Club Papers, I believe that Tolkien applies a similar concept of dreams as language to The Lord of the Rings. Throughout The Lord of the Rings, numerous characters dream, varying between a language of the subconscious to pure prophecy. While none of the characters seek to translate their dreams into a communicable language for the sake of story-telling like Ramer, Tolkien's use of dreams reveals more to the story, or perhaps a story that operates in the background as the characters seek to translate the revelations of their dreams.
     One clear example of dreams being a language into the past is Faramir's conversation with Eowyn. While waiting for "the stroke of doom" before the battle, Faramir mentions that he's reminded of Numenor, recalling "the land of Westernesse that foundered, and of the great dark wave climbing over the green lands and above the hills, and coming on, darkness inescapable. I often dream of it" (LOTR, Bk VI, Ch V). Just as Tolkien mentions a recurring dream of a giant wave, Faramir dreams of the giant wave which sunk Numenor. However, contrary to a psychoanalytic reading of a dream as a view into the subconscious or the future, Faramir insists, and rightly so, that his visions of the doom of Numenor in his dreams does not translate to the doom of Gondor, as Eowyn seems to suggest. Similar to Ramer, Faramir takes this dream as a way to understand the past. In effect, Faramir is able to correctly translate his dream to recognize the consequences of the past errors of Numenor, and not to translate the dreams as a message about his own or Gondor's doom.
     While Faramir receives visions of the past, Frodo receives dreams signaling events that are not yet known to him. At first, Frodo's dreams are seemingly untranslatable. For example, when the hobbits are all in the house of Tom Bombadil, Frodo dreams of Gandalf being rescued from Orthanc. To the reader, there is no way of knowing what occurs in this dream until Gandalf recounts it himself at the council of Elrond. While perhaps seemingly prophetic, there is no indication that the escape of Gandalf was in the in the past,, present, or future relative to Frodo's dream. Interestingly, Frodo does translate the sound of hooves coming from East as the Black Riders. While it is unclear at what point Gandalf escapes relative to Frodo's dream, it is known that the Riders would be to the West of the hobbits, on their tail after leaving the Shire. This points to Frodo also receiving dreams received from the past, and not just as a prophetic power.
      Perhaps one way of looking at the language of dreaming as refined in The Lord of the Rings since The Notion Club Papers is the concept that one cannot choose the dream. While Ramer touches objects to try to receive dreams to translate, the dreams of The Lord of the Rings are more like Faerie, in the sense that they have to be stumbled upon, or at least not chosen on purpose. At no point does any character look forward to their dreams, hoping to receive some insightful premonition. For the most part, dreams are seen as something nightmarish, as in compelling Boromir to travel all the way to Elrond to have his dream read, or forcing Tom Bombadil to comfort Merry and Pippin back to sleep. Unlike Ramer, the characters cannot really 'speak' in the language of dreams, they can only listen when the dream presents itself. But I do not think that the fact that the characters cannot speak in dreams, and can often hardly translate dreams, disqualifies dreams as being a language. Rather, the language of dreams is like a 'foreign' language, requiring a thorough process of translation. The fact that numerous dreams could not have come from the subconscious suggests that the dreams are communicated through an outside force. What that outside force is that compels some of the characters to dream in such a way is unclear, but what is clear is that this exterior force causes these revelatory dreams. Whether the force takes the form of divine intervention such as in the cases of dreams in the Bible, or through some other form of mysticism like Galadriel's mirror, the dreams in The Lord of the Rings function as a language, revealing crucial detail, decipherable only through a proper translation.

-FK