I know little about Artificial Intelligence. I have never used ChatGPT, and have no plans to, although if I did, maybe my blog posts would be more interesting and better written. But many that I know have been using ChatGPT, or other similar programs, for research or for first drafts of documents they continue to massage, either my their own editing, or by refining their AI questions (which I understand to be an art in and of itself).

But there is one way I would use AI. I don’t think it is able yet to do what I need it to do. If I am incorrect, please let me know.

I want AI to take my dreams and turn them into real images that can be streamed or printed out and shared. If AI could do this, I’d be sold.

You see, my most interesting dreams are often architectural dreams, or (and this is closely related) cityscape dreams, and I would like to have them recorded.

Take last night. We (I am not sure who the “we” in “we” is) were driving from place to place last night. I don’t know exactly where we were. It was in this country and I now think we were in the South, maybe Mississippi, but I don’t know if this is what I thought (or knew) during the dream. We decided to take an “old” road, one that would have been used in the past, rather than a modern paved road.

The land was very flat and mainly forested (the kind of forest that’s a jumble, not one you can see through). The road itself was not paved (I remarked on that), but was something more improved than I dirt road (although I remarked on how it must have been in years past to drive down this road when it was only a dirt road, especially after a rain, or something). I don’t think the road was graveled either. I can’t tell you exactly how it was constructed, but an AI representation could, I am sure Because at the time, I knew exactly.

Because the land was so flat, you could see far down the road. And the road was as straight as it could be. You could see miles. We passed at least one perpendicular cross road. Perfectly perpendicular to the road we were on. Equally straight, equally flat.

We passed on house on our right. It was an old house, hard to tell if it was one or two stories. It had eaves and things, so probably a story and a half or something like that. Made of a yellowish, or yellowed, cut stone blocks. Not particularly attractive. Was it occupied? Couldn’t tell.

Then, all of a sudden, and to our surprise, we were pulling into what looked like an old town. We weren’t on the main commercial street of the town, but were driving parallel to it, just a block off. So, looking out of the car on the driver’s side (I was the driver), you could see the back of what we knew were adjoining buildings containing stores at street level and probably apartments above. The buildings seemed to be for the most part two or three stories. There were back doors, steps in back leading to the upper floors, full size balconies, etc.

What was unique about these buildings is that they were not only very old (that was apparent), but they were all constructed on what appeared to be unpainted wood, and they seemed in disrepair.

We drove to a cross street, turned left, and then turned left again to see the front of these buildings. There were probably three or four long blocks of them. They were falling apart. Completely abandoned. None of them seem to be occupied; the stores were clearly empty. Yet, there were a few cars parked on the street in front of the stores. The cars were old (not Model Ts, but old), and I would like AI to be able to capture these cars as well, just to see what kind of an engineering designer I was, in addition to an architectural designer.

It was eerie driving down this street. We wondered where we were, what this town was, how long it had been like this, whose cars were these. We went back to the cross street we had used before, but rather than continue our journey (or maybe we couldn’t have continued, because our road ended at a T, now that I’m thinking about it)), we stayed on the cross street. To the left, again the driver’s side, there was, on a very large lot, a large building, also made of wood, very, very ornate, also in a state of disintegration. We didn’t know what this building was. We thought maybe it had been an old resort hotel. It was too big for a house. It had been beautiful.

We continued. Now we came to a more active scene. More old buildings on our left. These might have been brick or stone. They were in the process of being demolished. There was a lot of demolition equipment there, but we didn’t see any people. But I think some of the equipment was moving about, tearing down buildings. Maybe an old factory or something.

The road we were on then seemed to come to its end. At the end of the road were two stone columns. Fancy ones. There should have been a gate between them, but there wasn’t. It was like you were entering private grounds, and we kept going. There were some yellow brick buildings up ahead of us. Again we saw no people, but we decided this was a boarding school for high school students (probably). Our assumption was that the school was functioning, although we weren’t positive. But we were almost positive. How, we thought, could parents send their children to such an isolated place? How could the school even function here?

That was it for the dream, as far as I can remember. But going to strange towns, seeing unusual buildings…..I do that all the time when I am asleep. Why can’t the images be preserved? (Of course, if I had any artistic talent, I could perhaps put them on paper myself.)

One more thing. Music. I don’t compose as often as I design in my dreams. But sometimes I do. And I write very good music. Classical. Jazz. A combination of the two. Very detailed – notes and rhythm both. I’d like AI to be able to preserve these as well.

If anyone has any ideas for me…..let me know.