A few anecdotes...

An inoffensive-looking man was busy talking to an old friend of his and completely forgot the time. Suddenly he looked at his watch and said, "Oh, dear, it is three o'clock, and I have an appointment with my psychiatrist at three and it will take at least fifteen minutes to get there."

His friend said, "Now take it easy. You will only be a few minutes late."

"You don't know him.  If I am not there on time he will start without me."

There is a danger of taking the dream to be the real. There is a danger of believing in your imagination too much. You can become so obsessed with your own inner fantasy dream world that you live in a fog. But even with the dangers it is very important to understand it and to pass through it. But remember, it is a bridge to be passed. When you have passed it, you will come across real time.

Chronological time corresponds to the body, psychological time to the mind, real time to your being. Chronological time is the extroverted mind, psychological time is the introverted mind, and real time is no-mind.

But one has to pass through the psychological. That territory has to be passed, fully alert. You should not make your abode there. It is a bridge to be passed; you should not make your abode there.

If you make your abode there you become mad. That's what has happened to many people who are in madhouses. They have forgotten chronological time, they have not reached real time, and they have started living on the bridge, the psychological time. That's why their reality has become personal and private. A madman lives in a private world, and the man you call sane lives in a public world. The public world is with people, the private world is just confined to yourself; but the real world is neither public nor private. It is universal, it is beyond both. And one has to go beyond both.

A man had a reputation as a road hog. He was lying in a hospital bed after an accident.

The doctor asked the nurse, "How is he this morning?"

She said, "Oh, he keeps putting his right hand out."

"Ah," said the doctor, "he is turning the corner."

A road hog - an automobile addict - even in his sleep goes on driving fast. Whatsoever you do in your dream reflects your desire, your goals, what you would like to have.

The primitive societies live in the psychological time. The East has lived in the psychological time; the West lives in the chronological time. If you move farther into the primitive societies hidden behind the hills and the forests, deep, you will see they live absolutely in psychological time. There are a few primitive societies in which dream is more important than reality, and the first thing a child has to do before breakfast is to relate his dream to his elders. The first thing is psychoanalysis. The dream has to be related to the elders before breakfast, and they all gather together and they analyze the dream. And then they tell the child to do something, because the dream is symbolic and it shows that something is needed to be done.

For example, a child dreams that he has been fighting with a friend, and in the morning he tells the dream to his elders. They will interpret it, and they will send the child with gifts and sweets and toys to the other's house, to the other child, to give him presents, and to tell him his dream. Because he has committed a crime.

In the West you cannot conceive of it. What have you done? You have not done anything, you have simply dreamt, but that particular primitive society says that you dreamt it because you wanted to do something like that, otherwise why? It must be a desire, hidden, repressed. As far as mind is concerned, you have committed it. Go and tell the child so no subtle anger goes on surrounding you. Tell the whole thing and ask his forgiveness and present these gifts to him - real gifts for a dreamed fight...

But a miracle has happened to that society. By and by as the child grows, he stops dreaming. Dreams disappear. A grown-up is one, according to that primitive society, who does not dream. This seems to be beautiful. Of course that society will not be appreciated by psychoanalysts because their whole profession will be gone.

A young girl went to see her psychiatrist and he asked her what she had dreamt on the previous night. She told him that she had not had any dreams at all that night, whereupon he got very angry and said, "Look, if you don't do your homework how can I help you?"

Dreaming is homework; and a psychoanalyst lives off your dreams. He goes on analyzing them. But this is something absurd. You cannot analyze your own dreams; how can somebody else do it? Because psychological time is personal, nobody can understand more than you yourself.  They are your dreams, how can someone else understand them? The interpretations are going to be falsifications. A psychoanalyst's interpretation is going to be his own interpretations. When a Freud analyzes your dream, his interpretation will be different.

When Jung analyzes the same dream, his interpretation is different. When Adler analyzes the same dream, his interpretation is different. So what has to be thought about it? You have dreamt one dream and three great psychoanalysts interpret it in three different ways.

Freud reduces everything to sex. Whatsoever you dream makes no difference. He will find a way and reduce it to sex. It seems he was obsessed with sex. He was a great pioneer, he has opened a great door, but he was phobic and he was afraid of sex; and he was afraid of other things also. He was so phobic that he could not cross the road; that was one of his great fears. Now you cannot think of Buddha being afraid? of crossing a road. This man himself is ill. He was so afraid of talking with people, that's why he created psychoanalysis. In psychoanalysis the psychoanalyst sits behind a screen and the patient lies down on a couch and goes on talking and the psychoanalyst simply listens - no communication. He was afraid to communicate. In personal encounters, person to person, he was always awkward. Now his whole mind has entered into his interpretation.

That's natural, that's how it should be.

Jung brings everything to religion, everything. Whatsoever you dream he will interpret in such a way that it becomes a religious dream. The same dream becomes sexual with Freud; with Jung it becomes religious. With Adler it becomes politics. Everything is ambition, and everybody is suffering with an inferiority complex, and everybody is trying to gain more power - "will to power." And now there are a thousand and one psychoanalysts all over the world, of different denominations. The denominations are as many as in Christianity. So many schools, and every psychoanalyst starts his own school.

And nobody is bothered with the patient, that it is their dream.

The problems of the psychoanalysts enter into their analysis, interpretation. This is not a way to help. In fact it is going to make things more complicated. A better society will teach you how to analyze your own dreams, how to psychoanalyze your own dreams.

Nobody can be more certain than you because nobody can be closer, only you.

The beautiful young lady went to see a psychiatrist. The doctor looked at her for a few seconds and then said, "Come over here, please." He then promptly put his arms around her and kissed her. As he finally released her, he commented casually, "That takes care of my problem. Now what is yours?"

They have their own problems. They have their minds, their own obsessions.

In the East there has never existed anything like a psychoanalyst. Not that we were not aware of the psychological world. We were aware more deeply than any society has ever been aware, but we created a totally different type of person to help. We call that person the guru, the Master.

Lao Tzu

What is the difference between a guru and a psychoanalyst? The difference is that the psychoanalyst still has his problems, unsolved, and the guru has no problems. When you don't have any problems, then your vision is clear. Then you can put yourself in the other's situation. When you don't have any problems, any obsessions, any complexes - nothing - you are completely clean of the mind, the mind has disappeared and you have attained to no-mind. Only then, can you can see clearly. Then you will not interpret in a personal way. Your interpretation will be universal, will become existential.