what is your favourite flavour of family feud? the al from home improvement one? the j. peterman one? for my money, it is and always has been the louie anderson version.
let’s roleplay. let us suppose that you are a fairly attractive girl-nextdoor type from a fairly typical american family and i am louie anderson, a comedic giant. i saddle up to you like a disoriented bear just reëmerging from hibernation—a tide of titillation washes over your supple flesh. with the irresistible breath of yesterday’s cheese curds and in the voice of fran drescher, i ask you, “what do college students in 1958 dream about while asleep?” i have rocked your world. take a moment to compose yourself and respond.
here are the answers:
20. killing someone
19. seeing oneself as dead
18. failing an examination
17. fire
16. being nude in public
15. being smothered
14. being inappropriately dressed
13. snakes
12. swimming
11. finding money
10. being locked up
9. a loved one is dead
8. being frozen with fright
7. eating
6. arriving too late
5. sexual experiences
4. school, teachers, and studying
3. trying repeatedly to do something
2. being attacked or pursued
1. fallingwe are done roleplaying (for now) so i will point out—if you haven’t already pieced it together—that the dreams dreamt in 1958 are the same dreams dreamt by you, me² and louie anderson today—and will probably be the exact same dreams dreamt in the future by our great great cyborg grandchildren.
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1. from “the universality of typical dreams” by griffith, miyagi, and tago (1958).
2. conspicuously absent from this list is my reöccurring dream where i assassinate muammar al-gaddafi by sneezing my tooth fillings into his carotid artery.
the 20 most common dreams among college students in 1958