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DREAM AND FANTASY
A Dream, and Writing Tips from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy
I’ve been reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy this past couple weeks. I’m currently halfway through Book Two: The Two Towers.
This morning I woke with the following strange dream. After recording it here I will share a couple writing tips I’ve gleaned from reading Tolkien’s masterpiece.
This morning I woke and recorded this dream. In my dream, the four hobbits — Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin — were trying to find a hiding place that would be safe from the evil Eye of Sauron. Somehow they accidentally exit Middle Earth and end up in our reality. I find them and agree to try to help them.
It’s after dark and Susie has gone out. My kids have gone to bed and I must find a place to hide these four hobbits, which I’m at a loss to do. While we’re talking I keep looking out the window toward Susie’s garage. There is a 3,000 page book lying on a bench at the corner of the garage but no car yet.
For some reason it is exceedingly important that the hobbits not be seen by anyone in our realm. I go about searching for a hiding place for them. In my garage I discover a hollow piece of chrome piping, about two feet long, with a couple slight bends in it so it looks like a small tailpipe from a miniature car. It has a straw-sized chrome dowel welded cross-wise on the hollow part so that the whole apparatus looks like a crucifix of sorts.
While talking to the hobbits I ask them if this would work as a hiding place until we can figure out how to get them to Middle Earth. They all agree it would make a good hiding place. They turn their bodies into mist and enter the hollow chrome pipe. I plug both ends and now wonder how to get them back to their homeland. I awake.
Tolkien’s massive Lord of the Rings is a truly remarkable achievement of the first order. He’s created a world and populated it with memorable characters. The future of that world is at stake in this battle…
