4 May 2026

 I asked AI to create an image that resembled what came to me in a dream last night. Of course it doesn't really look like the dream image I saw, only a vague and unsatisfactory approximation of it.

Most unsatisfactorily, in the dream my father was one of the old men in the minibus, but I could not recreate him here. (No doubt this is possible by inserting an old photo of him, but that is certainly beyond my technical capability). 

In the dream, all the old men were, like my father, long dead. Yet they had all gathered, formally dressed in suits, in a minibus. Was it an outing? To where? 

They were talking quietly amongst themselves, but my ears were selectively focused on my father's voice which I could hear unmistakably. I strained hard to try to understand what he was saying, but before I could make anything out, I woke up. 

I lay very still, hoping that I might be able to somehow slip back into that alternate consciousness which felt so real, but as dreams do, it had gone. My first semi-awake thought was if only I can learn to make my wild and over-active mind still and quiet enough, I could hear the conversations of the dead, and how interesting they might be.