[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Ok, but leaving aside how the account got in there, what is the relationship between Frodo's 'dream' in the House of Bombadil & his 'real' experience of Tol Eressea?

Originally Posted by FotR

That night they heard no noises. But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.

Originally Posted by RotK

And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.

Perhaps Frodo has this 'vision' (and it seems to be heard rather than seen) because of Tom? Tom is the 'Eldest' - and he does make the point that he was there before the way to the West was closed - and so he may have known himself what the approaches to the Undying Lands might be like. Or maybe he simply awakens in Frodo a vision of what may (or may not) be to come. What Frodo experiences in Tom's house may be a kind of epiphany, a moment of realisation (revelation?) of what might happen or might be possible for some?

I don't think it was a vision in the sense of a premonition of what would happen, but of what might happen. That might have been at the centre of Frodo's personal sense of hope through all his troubles. If so, and Sam did indeed choose the words based on what Frodo may have set down in writing already, then this too is as touching as if the words were about what truly happened to Frodo, as those words would have been about Frodo's belief.