Academic study generally highlights the work of consciousness, which operates in terms of a few variables, simple causal relations, and coherent stories. A course on "Big Books of American Literature" brought to the foreground the activities of the more generally neglected unconscious: an extraordinarily rich repertoire of behavior that operates in terms of complex multidimensional values, and so is more likely to provide grist for interesting, productive, open-ended conversations. This article describes the design and implementation of this course, and the structure of this article mimics the interactive nature of the classroom. Each section begins with the speaking of a student or colleague, which the teacher (and author of this paper) responds to either by theorizing about the usefulness of play or with commentary from the "Big Books" themselves--before offering another question that these reflections have generated. The article starts with a testimony to the importance of, and reasons for, taking "I" seriously. It moves to an exploration of how an invitation into a playground might facilitate that process, and then to observations about why such classroom games are both generative and disturbing. Particular attention is given to the muck and monstrosity that they are liable to dig up, as well as the complicated social dimensions that both fuel our thinking and need negotiation. The author ends with a few further reflections on why the whole process can be so generative, both in the college classroom and beyond.