In Soviet Russia particularly, they are trying hard to teach the unconscious. And unfortunately they are succeeding. They are teaching people while they are asleep. When you are asleep your conscious is no longer functioning; your unconscious functions. Now, in Russia particularly, they are doing great experiments in teaching people while they are asleep. It can be done, it is being done.

This is one of the great dangers that future generations will have to face. If the politicians have gadgets with them which can teach people while they are asleep, then there will never be any possibility of rebellion.

While he is asleep, you can make a person a communist, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Mohammedan, and because it will be in his unconscious he will be absolutely unable to go beyond it. He will not be able to get rid of it, because the unconscious is nine times more powerful than the conscious. The conscious is only the tip of the iceberg: one tenth of your mind is conscious, nine tenths is unconscious. If the politician can reach the unconscious, then humanity is doomed. Then children will be taught while they are asleep. Even sleep will not be your own and private; even sleep will not be a personal thing, it will be owned by the state. You will not even be allowed to dream private dreams; the state will decide what dreams you can dream – because you may be dreaming some anti-state dreams, and the state cannot afford them. Your dreams can be manipulated, your unconscious can be manipulated, but fortunately it has not happened yet.

You may be the last generation which has the possibility to rebel. And if you don’t rebel, there may be no more chances: humanity can be reduced to a “robotlike” existence. So rebel while there is still time! I don’t think there is much time left, maybe just this last part of the century, these coming twenty or twenty-five years. If humanity can rebel in these next twenty-five years, this is the last opportunity; otherwise people will be utterly unable to, their unconscious will dominate them. Up to now, the society has only been able to pollute your conscious mind – through education, through the church, through propaganda – but only your conscious mind; your unconscious is still free.

It happens more often that you are closer to the truth, closer to reality, when you are deeply asleep. It is very strange, it should not be so; you should be closer to reality while you are awake. But your wakefulness is no longer yours; it is Hindu, it is Christian, it is Mohammedan, it is no longer yours; society has already impinged upon it, interfered with it, distorted it. But the unconscious is still yours.

Hence psychoanalysis became so interested in your dreams, because in your dreams you are truer. In your dreams you are less false, in your dreams all the censors of the society disappear. In your dreams you are saying things as they are, seeing things as they are, seeing yourself as you are. The moment you are awake, you start pretending. Your wakefulness is a long, long pretension.