It should be a crime to say, “I had a weird dream last night.”  First off, when someone mentions having a weird dream it always means they’re going to tell you about said dream.  I hate this because stories should be either entertaining or informative and a dream recounting is neither.  Secondly, people love classifying their dreams as “crazy” or “weird” which is really unnecessary because everyone’s dreams are bizarre by our real life standards.  I think a truly weird dream would be one in which the dreamer simply drinks coffee and perhaps does a crossword puzzle in their actual kitchen versus an amalgamation of school hallways and/or castle interiors.  Lastly, people will tell me about appearances I make in their “weird” dreams and, though they have been described by the dreamer as “weird” and thus presumably are not realistic, they actually become angry because of the actions of Dream Josh.  “You punched me in the face,” “You turned me in to the FBI for a crime I didn’t commit,” “You wouldn’t help me cheat on the test for the class I hadn’t attended in like two months,” and so on and so forth.  I have no control over Dream Josh.

Chuck Klosterman wrote a series of hypothetical questions to be used on one’s friends.  This is one of my favorites:

 At long last, someone invents “the dream VCR.”  This machine allows you to tape an entire evening’s worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure.  However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device of you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room.  They get to watch your dreams along with you.  And if you don’t agree to this, you can’t use the dream VCR.  Would you still do this?

 I think Klosterman uses his “hypertheticals” to come to better understand his friends and because they make great conversation starters.  Personally, however, I feel like I should use the above question in particular not only to filter out potential friends who incessantly want to tell me about their dreams, but to also identify the crazies who actually want to make me watch them.  Once again Chuck, I applaud your genius.