For long, I have been interested in something that I was not even aware of till recently (which I owe to my non-literary background). But due to life circumstances, my understanding of the world and the intricate way it works through thoughts, actions have taken me to the root of raw facts or in other words surrealism. I came across a manifesto over surrealism by Andre Breton where he defines it as:
SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -- verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner -- the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.
Breton begins his manifesto with a question that had kept philosophers thinking for centuries and still, physicists are working on it and the question is about “reality”. What is the reality of life? And the issues that concern a mundane life of an adult which was no issue at all when he/she was a child. This is true, to a child, the world is either flower or thorn, it lacks the variety of shades or judgments one makes as an adult. Then he mentions constraints over imaginations that society puts over an adult. He talks about the unsparing attribute of imagination.
“Beloved imagination, what I most like in you is your unsparing quality.”
Then he moves on to discuss the way our society views imaginations/thoughts not confirming to it which in other words society likes to group as madness or insanity. This madness is locked up inside everybody that seldom one dares to unfurl. This madness is the result of our own imaginations which know no rules but, our species/society feel threatened by it and hence, put control over it. He compares realistic attitude to materialistic attitude, both seem to have flaws but, he would still put materialistic attitude above realistic one as realistic attitude (according to him) is made up of “mediocrity, hate and dull conceit”.
"The absolute rationalism that is still in vogue allows us to consider only facts relating directly to our experience. Logical ends, on the contrary, escape us."
He then critiques the logical methods of solving problems which he considers to be of secondary nature. The primary to him is “the mental world” which for the most part is being ignored by the mainstream as fancy or superstitions. He thanks Sigmund Freud for his works over psyche and he sees a lot of exploration there.
"It was, apparently, by pure chance that a part of our mental world which we pretended not to be concerned with any longer -- and, in my opinion by far the most important part -- has been brought back to light. For this we must give thanks to the discoveries of Sigmund Freud."
He discusses Freudian study and importance of dreams and even moves on to speak of “sleeping philosophers”. He compares dream state to waking state and considers dream state to be of equal importance to waking state, in dreams, one is more closer to one’s raw thoughts or psyche. And then he discusses using subconscious to create art. Before wrapping it up, he defines surrealism for once and for all. Then moves on to the nature of surrealism and what it leads to. He sees surrealism as a means to explore the real life, which as per him is closest to the experiences one gets in childhood. He talks about nonconformism of raw thoughts and ends it beautifully with following lines:
"Surrealism is the "invisible ray" which will one day enable us to win out over our opponents. "You are no longer trembling, carcass." This summer the roses are blue; the wood is of glass. The earth, draped in its verdant cloak, makes as little impression upon me as a ghost. It is living and ceasing to live which are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere."
Source: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil330/MANIFESTO%20OF%20SURREALISM.pdf
