Here is last night’s dream. Out of the blue. I have not spoken with any of the people in it for ~ twenty years!!

The dream starts in a small seminar room. It has a London, Imperial College feel. The décor is bland with diffuse bright overhead lighting. There are multipurpose tables at which are set two people, each. The tables are arranged in a U-shape and I am at a table by myself at the focus of the U-shape.

Sat around the tables are various ex-colleagues from Imperial College. They are all professors and some are now “big-cheeses”. They are all from the age cohort slightly younger than me. My direct age equivalent ex-colleagues are noticeable by their absence. The “job” has been handed to the younger incumbents. They are mostly male, with a few women. I had no “problem” with any of them historically. They have the brief to find a solution and make amends. Something has been cobbled together, some suggestions. This they have just presented to me. I cannot recall what.

I say to them that I am in no way interested in what they have just suggested. That they have the wrong idea about where I am coming from and what I might want. Which is close to nothing. That they are looking at things solely from their perspective. I am not like them and do not share their motivations.

There is a faint ripple of unease. I say that I am leaving and walk slowly, relaxed, out of the door, which is behind me.

The scene changes to a London airport terminal. I have been booked along with others for a big high profile visit to Japan which includes some technology and some cultural things. I am not keen from the get-go. I notice that my chest is wheezy and take a Ventolin inhaler. It remains a bit wheezy. I decide that it would be mad for me to travel to Japan for a long high profile visit. I know that the tour organiser will be at the airport well before all the others might arrive. Implicit is some of my age equivalent academic peer group. I make my way there.

I approach the woman who is young and smartly dressed with dark hair. I explain that she had better cancel my flight and all the other things associated with the trips in order to get as much as a refund as possible. She is unconvinced. I wheeze for her. She says that for the insurance she will need a medical opinion. A doctor is summoned and they concur that is it is unwise for me to travel. She cancels my ticket. She asks me to try to buy a ticket to find out what the going rate is. I go to the British Airways desk and inquire. The price is multiple thousands of pounds because it is cherry blossom season. I go back to the woman with this information. She is in a video call with a Japanese restaurant chain cancelling my meal plan for the week, which amount to tens of thousands of Yen. She cancels my suite at the hotel in central Tokyo. I say that I made a private reservation at Langham’s restaurant where I have been before and ask her to cancel this. She does.

There is some time before all the others get there. She tells me to buy a ticket to London which I do. I do not know where the airport is now. I sit down at a computer terminal and start doing a Japanese language quiz. One of her colleagues comes over to me and is surprised that I am doing so well on the Japanese. I explain to him that I have been many times before and spent time with a man and his family in Sendai. He suggests that the man was gay. I say not because I have been around quite a few gay men and understand them well. He is upset that I am not going on their carefully organised trip. I say that I am too unwell to travel and that in general my health is very poor. People do not understand how bad it is.

The dream ends.