automatic writing
Michael Voytinsky
to time. Nik has been arguing that truly automatic writing is not
possible - given that things like "a lesbian llama called George W. Bush on
the telephone made of strawberries" are a lot more likely then "Bob's pizza
arrived, and he paid the pizza driver $20, which included a $2 tip. He took
the pizza into the kitchen and ate it".
However, I recently had an experience that may be of relevance.
I spent most of last week doing a three day, three city tour where I had to
make presentations about a new product. The first two were on the West
Coast - which is three hours ahead of Ottawa. Anyway, after the first
presentation on the first day I decided to summarize the various comments
and questions we had about the product - which I started doing in the hotel
room around midnight. This was in San Jose so according to my internal
clock it was 3 a.m. so I was rather tired. I started typing - and when I
next looked at my typing I realized that I typed in word salad. I do not
mean the words "word salad", but actual word salad.
The words were real words, arranged in a gramatically proper way, but it was
gibberish. What came out contained words that vaguelly pertained to subject
matter at hand, but did not actually mean anything - things like "The sales
appliance does not mean the cryptographic version. In general, the airplane
did not use secure communications." Or something like that. Unfortunately
I was too tired to realize the significance of what I saw, so I replaced it
with something that made more sense (I hope) and emailed it. (Should I find
that I did email some gibberish that escaped my attention, I will post it
it.)
What does this mean? Well, it means that Nik was wrong in that automatic
writing is possible. I did it. It also means that Nik was right - in that
the output was not especially interesting.
And one more thing. If someone has a chemical imbalance in the brain, and
as a result think they are getting telepathic messages from outer space,
that person will be locked up as a nutcase, or at least regarded as a
nutcase and urged to get treatement.
But if someone has an identical chemical imbalance, but instead of getting
telepathic messages from outer space, get marketing analysis from outer
space - marketing analysis that bears just as little relationship to
reality - that person gets to wear a suit and work for marketing in the
rapidly growing high tech sector. Does this sound like a reasonable model?
Bleah.
Cheers,
Michael
--
Michael Voytinsky
Ottawa Ontario Canada
http://voytinsky.freeservers.com
"When entering a health club, make sure there are people leaving.
Otherwise it could be an alien meat processing plant in disguise."
Nikolaus Maack
> What does this mean? Well, it means that Nik was wrong in that automatic
> writing is possible. I did it. It also means that Nik was right - in that
> the output was not especially interesting.
I suspect that if you did post the original automatic writing you wrote
(before you editted it) most of the people in this newsgroup would tell
you it's not automatic writing. Why? Because the real criteria for
automatic writing isn't how automatic it is -- it's how close to the
"socially accepted model" of automatic writing it is.
"The walrus bathes his feces in a pool of rancid milk on the surface of
the moon."
Fine. It's odd enough to be considered "automatic".
"The business meeting will be held at 4pm in the conference room and
donuts will be served."
Not fine. It's not odd enough. Despite the fact that I wrote the sucker
"automatically".
But I think you describe this yourself when you write:
> And one more thing. If someone has a chemical imbalance in the brain, and
> as a result think they are getting telepathic messages from outer space,
> that person will be locked up as a nutcase, or at least regarded as a
> nutcase and urged to get treatement.
>
> But if someone has an identical chemical imbalance, but instead of getting
> telepathic messages from outer space, get marketing analysis from outer
> space - marketing analysis that bears just as little relationship to
> reality - that person gets to wear a suit and work for marketing in the
> rapidly growing high tech sector. Does this sound like a reasonable model?
Both people are "crazy", but only one person is manifesting the "proper
form" of insanity. It's interesting to note that what madness is, how it
manifests, and how people deal with it is not just a biological phenomena,
but a culturally defined one.
We know that, when we go crazy, we are supposed to hear voices, dress
poorly, and do strange things. There even seem to be insanity "fashions".
Right now, for example, paranoid schizophrenia is the predominant form of
schizophrenia you will see. Catatonic schizophrenia, which used to be
extremely popular, has slowly gone the way of spats and bowler hats.
Sexually aggressive behavior in schizophrenics was a rarity in the 50s.
In the 70s, such behavior became more and more common.
(Ref: "Interpretation of Schizophrenia", second edition, 1974.)
Why? What changed? The chemical shape of the the human mind in twenty
years? I don't think so.
The reason this issue of automatic writing is important to me is it
reveals the artificiality of "spontaneous behavior". Liberate your mind,
act in an automatic way, and you'll find the real you -- or so the
surrealists would have you believe. What actually happens is (if you're
going to be accepted into the group) you "pretend" to let go, and produce
the socially acceptable form of "surrealist randomness".
I'm not saying people are faking it. I'm saying that letting go isn't
actually letting go. If surrealism teaches us anything, it's that so few
of us actually had a firm grasp of the controls in the first place.
So how free are you, really? Does being spontaneous actually set you
free? Is it really that easy? No. And that's why I feel that an
over-emphasis on spontaneous behavior, making it the main criteria of
surrealist activity, is misguided.
Nik
--
Licking clouds while my toes
touch the centre of the earth.
Dale Houstman
"Nikolaus Maack" <ac...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:966d6l$o8n$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
>
> "The walrus bathes his feces in a pool of rancid milk on the surface of
> the moon."
>
> Fine. It's odd enough to be considered "automatic".
Actually as an example - even of oddity - it is pretty lame. But I consider
the source and am not surprised.
>
> "The business meeting will be held at 4pm in the conference room and
> donuts will be served."
>
> Not fine. It's not odd enough. Despite the fact that I wrote the sucker
> "automatically".
No you didn't: you think you did, but (as is obvious from your general
"output") your imagination is a crimped and dying adolescence of murk, so
its intuitive powers are - to be blunt - corrupted and weak. Writing
something "off the cuff" isn't the same as automatic writing: for instance,
I am writing this response rapidly and without undue forethought, but it is
not automatic writing, due to the fact that it is essentially directed by
intent, as your second example obviously was also (with the intent to make a
point about oddity). While it is true that most automatic texts are - as you
say - "odd" this isn't because there is a "rule" sanctioning the bizarre,
but because the nature of automatic writing creates disjunctures.
dmh
>
Brandon Freels
> "The business meeting will be held at 4pm in the conference room and
> donuts will be served."
There is a possibility that this sentence was/can be conceived during
automatic writing, but this possibility is very slim. If this sentence were
to appear in the middle of an automatic text in which the other sentences
accompanying it did not share the same connection to the rational and the
contrived as this sentence does than I would admit that it was automatically
produced. But if it was produced in the middle of a text in which the
surrounding sentences shared the same constraint I would have to object to
it being considered contrived from an automatic technique.
> The reason this issue of automatic writing is important to me is it
> reveals the artificiality of "spontaneous behavior" ...What actually
happens is (if you're
> going to be accepted into the group) you "pretend" to let go ...
Are you implying that "all" individuals who participate in "spontaneous
behavior" are doing so to be considered a canidate for a position within the
Surrealist Movement? I am sure there are some who "fake" it, but the irony
is that most people discover this so-called artificially "spontaneous
behavior" (I am speaking of automatic writing) outside of any knowledge of
"surrealism". The knowledge of surrealism is not important for the results
are the same across the board.
I guess a good paralell question to ask is: When intoxicated are people just
"pretending" to be drunk (that is are they unconsciously "playing" the part
of the drunk) or are they truely impared?
PS
At this point I question if you understand the difference between
"automatic" writing and "stream-of-consciousness" writing. Even more so I
question if you understand the difference between "pure psychic" automatism
and basic "physical" automatism. Which are you objecting to?
Dale Houstman
"Brandon Freels" <b.j.f...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:j5Ih6.5128$t52.3...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> At this point I question if you understand the difference between
> "automatic" writing and "stream-of-consciousness" writing. Even more so I
> question if you understand the difference between "pure psychic"
automatism
> and basic "physical" automatism. Which are you objecting to?
It seems rather obvious to me that he is not "objecting" to anything, but
merely playing the contrarian because it is his only available role. He
has - at times - taken quite opposite views on the same subject simply to be
an asshole. At any rate he has made it very clear that he doesn't believe in
anything - that is he thinks definition is a trap - so how could he object
to anything, unless that objection is just a matter of adolescent politics?
dmh
>
>
Michael Voytinsky
news:966d6l$o8n$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
> We know that, when we go crazy, we are supposed to hear voices, dress
> poorly, and do strange things.
The impression I got from "Girl, Interrupted" (both the book and the movie)
is that part of the reason the way people in a nuthouse act like a bunch of
nuts is because it is how they are expected to act. They are aware that
they are "nuts", and act out that social role.
I remember reading about a nuthouse in Bosnia, which was abandoned by
doctors and nurses on account of the gunfire and the shelling. The less
crazy nuts, finding themselves without a source of care, went foraging for
food, fed the really crazy nuts, and in general were able to function
surprising well for a bunch of nuts in a war zone.
> So how free are you, really? Does being spontaneous actually set you
> free? Is it really that easy? No. And that's why I feel that an
> over-emphasis on spontaneous behavior, making it the main criteria of
> surrealist activity, is misguided.
Buddha has no Buddha nature. Spontaneity is like being cool - or
enlightened. If you are trying, you are are neither cool nor enlightened
nor spontaneous.
scot...@uswest.net
<b.j.f...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
I
>... the difference between "pure psychic" automatism
>and basic "physical" automatism.
Is there really a clear difference? I think to argue that there is
falsely tears the human being apart, and does not acknowledge
the dynamic relationships at play as the mind/body interacts with
itself and its environment.
ps
Thanks for the FAQs. It's an excellent start. I think it will
stimulate thought and relevant discussion. It will also be
interesting to see how it grows and fills out.
-----
Brandon Freels
> Is there really a clear difference? I think to argue that there is
> falsely tears the human being apart, and does not acknowledge
> the dynamic relationships at play as the mind/body interacts with
> itself and its environment.
By "physical" automatism I am spacifically refering to the methods of
automatic writing, drawing, and so on. By "pure psychic" automatism I am
refering to the freedom of the mind. You can see the difference: one is a
method, the other is a state of mind. As I understand it, when the mind in
its "pure psychic" state interacts with the physical world (via methods of
physical automatism, or Forced Inspiration, etc), when the free mind
interacts with its environment, that is when we have a surreality.
Basically, what I should be trying to say is that the mind in its free state
(pure psychic automatism) is not dependent on the automatic methods, but the
automatic methods are dependent on the free mind.
Nikolaus Maack
> Are you implying that "all" individuals who participate in "spontaneous
> behavior" are doing so to be considered a canidate for a position within the
> Surrealist Movement?
It's more insidious than that. When we sit down to create "automatic
writing", we know what the result is "supposed to" look like, so we create
a product that looks "proper". The person isn't consciously trying to do
this. It just happens.
> I guess a good paralell question to ask is: When intoxicated are people just
> "pretending" to be drunk (that is are they unconsciously "playing" the part
> of the drunk) or are they truely impared?
They're both pretending to be drunk and getting drunk. Have you ever seen
someone who after two beers is laughing loudly and threatening to take off
their clothes? Do a blood-test and you'll find out that they aren't
drunk. They think they are, and they're behaving in the "proper" drunken
manner. Are they consciously deceiving the world? No. They're taking on
a role, quite unconsciously.
There's actually a psych experiment where a bartender served fake drinks.
They were designed to taste like booze, but were actually alcohol free.
The result? Everyone got "drunk" and acted giddy and loud and crazy.
When it was admitted that none of them were drunk, that the drinks were
fake, and they were offered their money back -- the people refused to take
their money. They were, after all, "drunk".
Another phenomena along these lines is "needle-freaks". Some heroin
addicts aren't actually addicts at all. The stuff they're getting on the
street has been cut so much that there is no actual drug in the drugs. If
you give them something you claim is heroin (but has no actual heroin in
it) they will get a rush just from shooting up.
What this says about the human mind is fascinating. It seems that people
will often behave in the way they feel they are expected to behave, and
they do this without any conscious awareness that they are doing so.
Some studies say that hypnosis is bunk. Why? Because in some cases you
don't have to go through all the ritual to "hypnotize" a person. Just
drag them up on stage, tell them they're "hypnotized" and get them to do
stuff. In other words, we're all going through life already hypnotized.
> At this point I question if you understand the difference between
> "automatic" writing and "stream-of-consciousness" writing. Even more so I
> question if you understand the difference between "pure psychic" automatism
> and basic "physical" automatism. Which are you objecting to?
It's quite possible I don't know the difference between automatic writing
and stream-of-consciousness. Please explain the difference. But I don't
think it particularly matters. I would argue that both
stream-of-consciousness and automatic writing are guided by expectation.
Andrea Chen
>
> On Mon, 12 Feb 2001 02:43:27 GMT, "Brandon Freels"
> <b.j.f...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> I
> >... the difference between "pure psychic" automatism
> >and basic "physical" automatism.
>
> Is there really a clear difference? I think to argue that there is
> falsely tears the human being apart, and does not acknowledge
> the dynamic relationships at play as the mind/body interacts with
> itself and its environment.
>
Not necessarily. I would like to see Brandon more fully clarify the
differences he feels are there, but *if* they do indeed roughly model
real events the separation of the human being is only temporary, the 2
can be reunited through a (or multiple) larger context.
For example Brandon has a point in distinguishing autoism and stream of
consciousness. The later is a word associated with William James and
his pyschological work though valuable is different than that which
motivated early surrealism, namely that of Freud.
It's easy to reject Freud on many points, but backtracking to later
surrealist concepts, his was an example of the "paranoic critical
method." In other words he took aspects of his inner topology and made
them external, greatly effecting and acting (to a degree) as a
liberating force in society.
Breton was certainly influenced. The Freudian methods of free
association, letting things pour out was the basis of the first
definition of surrealism (pure autoism.)
The goal being here to "liberate the unconscious," to bring it out and
to let it form the shape of the piece. In this it differs from
traditional "inspiration" which while sharing certain features tends to
channel the flow into existing formats and themes.
Breton was quite aware that many results of these methods were (as Nik
points out) repetitive and boring. He felt at a personal level that
these could be far more interesting and enlightening than they seemed,
but most Surrealist work was edited, at a minimum selected and in some
cases reworked. A bit like Pollack(*) selecting fragments of randomly
created paintings. The difference in final work was not an abandonment
(prgmatically) of aesthetic values (though it did like John Cage seek to
extend them into what was considered noise and argued that in a
theoretical context they were fictions,) but a greater freeing in the
act of creation in terms of both content and form.
"Greater freeing" I think is a term that dispells much of Nik's
critique. The issue isn't whether or not complete automatic writing is
possible, but whether or not such methods *can* liberate art to the
extent that things are said which wouldn't otherwise be said in ways
which didn't previously exist. On this I think there is no question.
The counter reality is that left to themselves many people will spout
cliches, the word viri implanted, will repeat and engage in banality.
Another part of surrealism (less stressed) resembles Elags recent
experience in which various "rule" inhibit even ordinary freedoms
forcing the creator to struggle and to dig, a way of digging into the
depths of brain in unexpected ways. Forms (such as a Sonnet technique)
do direct the result.
The Freudian model does remain important in other aspects of possible
surrealistic development. This isn't necessarily clearly marked in it's
history since Breton shifted (for a while) to such things as the party,
but it does have relevance to the larger surrealist vision (better
definied in the thirties) of shifting society by the method of paranoic
criticism, of taking what's within and making it a common place as Dali
did until his visions became "safe," less subversive.
Freud's model of the healthy psychology and society was fundamentally
different than that of surrealism. Freud was in certain fundamental
respects a conservative, believing in the necessity of neurosis and
social conventions to control "natural desires."
In theory (less in practice by conventional standards many were prudes)
the surrealists took an opposite extent, arguing for the smashing of
these. There is a whole line of thought starting with Reich and
continuing with those who Rozak claimed (The Making of a Counterculture)
who took these themes in very different directions than freud believed.
They argued for the breaking down of the socially imposed inhibitions
(Reich even believed these were physically programme into the body,) in
extreme terms to a return to the Freudian hypothesis of a plymorphic
sexuality in which not simply the mouth, anus or genitals were exually
charged but all the senses of the body, a blurring of sensuality and
sexuality, of homo, hetero and all other attractions. An ending of
distinctions.
This is *one* possible development of "surrealist human" and because the
repression is multileveled it requires stages of analysis, technique and
action. One simply does not make a statement and become "free."
Various actions and choices become necessary and at times one must focus
and develop specific manifestations (as Brandon does.) For example if
body "armor" is *one* of the factors that holds the artificial repressed
being in place various techniques of massage (eg. Rolfing,) dance etc
become useful. Also the entering into situations found to be physically
disturbing. This *does* not mean that the repression isn't part of a
complex and that other methods (eg. the verbal or musical exprerssion of
usually repressed forms) aren't necessary or useful. But in examining
them individually it's possible to see how they connect. There is a
false dichotmy between holism and reductionism. It's true that many
individuals and disciplines focus too much on one or the other.
For example many individuals claiming to see the totality will "grok" a
forest typically (in our scoiety) with notions based on Disney while
others will look at the concepts of hydrogen and oxegen and have
difficulty ecven putting them together into photosynthesis. Total unity
is impossible in an infinite universe faced by finite minds. Illusions
of complete understanding are possible. By breaking events into pieces
Bradnon provides ways in which people can recombine them. I have
sketched *one* of my approaches, others will have things alien to me,
there is in fact a huge number of percepual wholes possible. Surrealism
is a yin and yang, states in which distinctions vanish, alternating with
new separate perceptions, reunited.
(*) Pollack is an example of one possible "physical automism," things
radnomy arranged not by mind but by varying degrees of external
influence (one can't assume that Pollacks creations were purely
random.) Many early surrealists concentrated on these, including a
fascination with occult methods (repressed by Breton) but later
increasingly embraced at least in purer musical form (sush as the Lao
Tzu) in the late forties. Tarot decks, oija boards and other methods
were used to find some underlying patterns. One does not need to go
into the supernatural to find uses for this. Various "chaos theories"
including that of strange attractors find that apparently random
patterns (such as water dripping from a faucet) do in fact take forms
besides that of the pure random (noise.) The connection of these with
that of the mind is a promising, poorly developed subject. A number of
surraealist projects involved this and other experiments such as the
group formation of art in which people were only partially aware of the
other pieces. This might be called "social autoism."
Brandon Freels
> They're both pretending to be drunk and getting drunk. Have you ever seen
> someone who after two beers is laughing loudly and threatening to take off
> their clothes?
Medication can sometimes enhance the effects of alcohol.
> Do a blood-test and you'll find out that they aren't drunk ...
> Another phenomena along these lines is "needle-freaks" ...
> It seems that people will often behave in the way they feel
> they are expected to behave ...
The problem, Nik, is that there are real "addicts" and real "drunks" out
there. They aren't all "faking it." Who would they be copying? Where was the
standard, the standard that these people are copying, for being "drunk" set?
In my opinion, automatic writing, like being drunk, has its authentic
version and its "fake" version. In fact, since I can only compare it to
"being drunk."
> It's quite possible I don't know the difference between automatic writing
> and stream-of-consciousness. Please explain the difference. But I don't
> think it particularly matters. I would argue that both
> stream-of-consciousness and automatic writing are guided by expectation.
Even if you argue that they are guided by expectation, you have to admit
that they are still conceptually different. Automatic writing is done so at
the dictation of the interior necessities (i.e. the unconscious). For the
best, lucid, results its done so over a long period of time to weed out any
conscious manipulation that might sneak in. Stream-of-consciousness, as is
self evident, is done so at the dictation of the "conscious". It is an
imitation of what the conscious is "saying" and includes those forms of
censorship that automatic writing seeks to overcome.
Nikolaus Maack
> The problem, Nik, is that there are real "addicts" and real "drunks" out
> there. They aren't all "faking it." Who would they be copying? Where was the
> standard, the standard that these people are copying, for being "drunk" set?
I'm not sure. It's an interesting question. For example, who "decided"
that proper business attire for men requires the wearing of a tie? Who
decided that being drunk is supposed to be an exciting, loud, yelling kind
of activity? Who decides that the proper behavior in an elevator is to
stare straight ahead, without talking to any of the people around you?
(I think, by the way, that it's the responsibility of all good surrealists
to fight such conventions. Talk to people in elevators. Wear your tie as
a belt. Be a silent, stoic drunk who never yells "Woo!")
I am told that when the telephone was first invented, people didn't know
what to say when they answered it. What often happened was you'd get a
call, pick up the phone, and not say anything. The person on the other
end, uncertain that they'd reach anyone, would sometimes hang up.
A cultural standard had to be invented, to make the telephone work. That
standard is saying, "Hello?"
(All good surrealists should answer the phone in some less conventional
way.)
You seem to be arguing that some people aren't faking it. Surely someone
out there has to be genuinely following their impulses and not giving in
to social conventions. They write automatically, without catering to some
preconceived notion of what automatic writing is. You say:
> In my opinion, automatic writing, like being drunk, has its authentic
> version and its "fake" version.
Well, consider the following horrifying question -- not just in regards to
automatic writing, but in regards to all human behavior. Consider the
existential terror it invokes. Consider how true it rings, in the depths
of the dark late at night, when you're trying to sleep but are all too
aware that you're made of flesh and some day will die.
What if EVERYONE is just FAKING it?
After all, almost everything we do is based on social conventions. what
created them? Why are they established "rules"?
Three meals a day. Work during the day at an office. Sleep at night in a
bed. Eat with a fork and knife, unless it's pizza. Live in a house or an
apartment with a member of the opposite sex. Bathe daily. Wear a
shirt and pants.
None of these things are carved in stone, but for most of us it's
extremely difficult NOT to live this way. We are creatures of habit, and
the habits we pick up seemingly come from nowhere.
Can we truly become "automatic" -- free from social pressures -- just
by deciding we're going to be that way?
My friend Andrew, who I have mentioned quite a few times recently, says he
can hear a sound all the time, all around him, utterly overpowering,
constantly trying to break him. "Conform, conform, conform!" it says,
like the pounding of a drum. I can hear it. Can you?
Perhaps the only person who is truly free from social impulses is
locked up in an insane asylum. But as Michael Voytinksy recently pointed
out, even in the nut house social forces are at work.
What a depressing notion, but how very true it seems -- there is a
socially acceptable definition of automatism and rebellion.
john adams
Thanks to the most recent take over (google buying out deja.com)
in the usenet domain, I shall probably find it exceedingly difficult
to follow the ng, atleast for now.
As for the discussion on automatism I find it a little inept.
What kind of repressed line of thought is it that states in going about
(through automatism) throwing off convention, everyday thought processes, and
expectation of results one is doing exactly what they had aimed to circumvent?
It's an argument with the merit of a thousand empty barrels of hearty rum.
And It's the same old story, remember the one: the snail who
chose to cling to his own aquatic fern, and in doing so resisted new experience
and ideas, despite the wise old barnacles advice otherwise?
Yes, its exactly the same and the dogma speaks for it. But what to expect with
those more interested in control than automatic concepts or creating simply for
the sake of the joy and beauty in creation. It's depressing on many levels.
Down with your decrepit ship, old snail friend!
Glad to see the FAQ material making its way to light though
and incidentally, if anyone's interested, the new 45 houses link
is http://ca.geocities.com/starfishsurrealists.
john
Michael Voytinsky
> The problem, Nik, is that there are real "addicts" and real "drunks" out
> there. They aren't all "faking it."
I am not so sure about it. There are "multi-drug" addicts out there - who
will go into withdrawal symptoms if they do not get drugs - any drugs. They
do not care if it is heroin, cocaine, pot, LSD, whatever.
This is contrary to every known model of drug addiction. If you have
physical addiction to heroin, there is simply no way LSD will do the trick.
It does not attack to the right synaptic receptors. Yet it does the trick.
Could it be that the addicts are responding to a self image of "addict"?
> Who would they be copying? Where was the
> standard, the standard that these people are copying, for being "drunk"
set?
The other drunks who have gone before you?
The question can be just as easily asked abou the behaviour in the corporate
boardroom. What standards are being copied? The CEO is just as much
subject to these standard as the lowly techies.
Nikolaus Maack
> As for the discussion on automatism I find it a little inept.
> What kind of repressed line of thought is it that states in going about
> (through automatism) throwing off convention, everyday thought processes, and
> expectation of results one is doing exactly what they had aimed to circumvent?
> It's an argument with the merit of a thousand empty barrels of hearty rum.
If I buy a leather jacket and a motorcycle, and start riding up and down
busy thouroughfares, does that make me a rebel?
If I start worshipping the automatic, deliberately throwing off
"convention" and "every day thought processes", does that make me free?
Can you simply shrug off society and conformity so easilly?
I am not protesting the leather jacket and the motorcycle, so much the
simplistic attitude that that's all you need. Slipping out of your tweed
jacket and into one of leather ain't liberty.
> And It's the same old story, remember the one: the snail who chose to
>cling to his own aquatic fern, and in doing so resisted new experience and
>ideas, despite the wise old barnacles advice otherwise?
"What'sa matter? Too chickenshit to wear leather and ride a chopper like
the rest of us rebels? You conforming scum! Why can'tcha be like the
rest of us?"
I am reminded of the film "The Truman Show". When Truman finally reaches
that wall of sky and begins throwing himself at it, beating it with his
fists, sobbing hysterically, and the music swells... I always choke up
inside. If only it were so easy to find that wall, that barrier that
keeps me from "real reality", locked in the phony reality we all
occasionally indulge in. That grinning, product-placement artificial world
of cameras and facades.
I doubt very much that that wall is found by not thinking, letting my
brain run automatically, and scribbling down the results. Sure, that
might help, but that's not the KEY to freedom.
I've been finding solace in big books on psychotherapy. Surrealism's
roots. Various psychoanalysts describe the repeating patterns of human
behavior. What we learned on mother's and father's knee becomes the
reality we face until the day we die. Every significant person we
encounter takes on aspects of our parents.
The patterns that form in our conscious and unconscious minds are
incredibly intricate and beautiful. Literature, art, and freedom
originate in this stuff -- the soul. I read a description of
"prepsychotic panic" in one text that gave me chills.
The model goes like this:
The primary process mind is the one we start with -- non-verbal,
mythology-based, dream-based, childhood-based, intangible, and unconscious
mind. The secondary process mind develops later, over top the primary
process. The seconary system is one of words, concepts, conciousness,
and tangibilitiy.
One day, your secondary process mind stumbles across material that causes
repressed traumatic primary process information to burst forward.
Suddenly you LOSE your conscious, verbal mind. It disintegrates as a
barage of secondary material surges forward. Dream, unconsciousness,
intangibility, inexpressibility take control. You can only express
yourself in crazy dream-logic and mythological visions.
Repressed traumatic material could include such things as secretly
despising your parents, despising yourself, homosexual longings,
heterosexual longings, oedipal material, etc, etc. It's like the
repressed, free, hungry, naked you punched through the polite, conforming,
society-based you, insisting on being in control.
This model makes so much sense to me, and has such power. I remember
years ago waking from a particularly terrifying nightmare to feel my mind
fluttering inside my skull. In a panic, I rushed into the other room and
turned on the radio, needing contact with another human being, needing
assurance that the world still existed.
A tiny, insignificant taste of a psychotic episode?
Can material of such power, of such awe, of such devestation -- all that
stuff you've repressed, all that wild, chaotic, magic, madness that is you
without clothes on -- be retrieved through something as simply and silly
as behaving automatically? You might get ghosts of the raw energy.
Nothing more.
So how do you tap into that stuff without going totally mad? I don't
know. I have no idea. But I've gotten some interesting tastes of it,
just by reading up on psychoanalytic theory and schizophrenia.
john adams
>> As for the discussion on automatism I find it a little inept.
>> What kind of repressed line of thought is it that states in going about
>> (through automatism) throwing off convention, everyday thought processes,
>and
>> expectation of results one is doing exactly what they had aimed to
>circumvent?
>> It's an argument with the merit of a thousand empty barrels of hearty rum.
>
>If I buy a leather jacket and a motorcycle, and start riding up and down
>busy thouroughfares, does that make me a rebel?
Sure, why not? I suppose it would be dependent upon the circumstance
and the definition you hold of rebel. But no one is speaking of rebels.
>If I start worshipping the automatic, deliberately throwing off
>"convention" and "every day thought processes", does that make me free?
>Can you simply shrug off society and conformity so easilly?
Now, how do you arrive at worshipping 'the automatic'?
And, are you arguing to embrace conformity? The important
point I believe is to follow inner desire and intuition. Each person
is unique with their own set of desires, motivation, and background.
If you prefer the idea of conforming to the mass structure of
society and to view individuals as helpless in such a structure
then go right ahead. But it is neither surrealist nor realist.
>I am not protesting the leather jacket and the motorcycle, so much the
>simplistic attitude that that's all you need. Slipping out of your tweed
>jacket and into one of leather ain't liberty.
>
>> And It's the same old story, remember the one: the snail who chose to
>>cling to his own aquatic fern, and in doing so resisted new experience and
>>ideas, despite the wise old barnacles advice otherwise?
>
>"What'sa matter? Too chickenshit to wear leather and ride a chopper like
>the rest of us rebels? You conforming scum! Why can'tcha be like the
>rest of us?"
Wrong idea altogether.
>I am reminded of the film "The Truman Show". When Truman finally reaches
>that wall of sky and begins throwing himself at it, beating it with his
>fists, sobbing hysterically, and the music swells... I always choke up
>inside. If only it were so easy to find that wall, that barrier that
>keeps me from "real reality", locked in the phony reality we all
>occasionally indulge in. That grinning, product-placement artificial world
>of cameras and facades.
>
>I doubt very much that that wall is found by not thinking, letting my
>brain run automatically, and scribbling down the results. Sure, that
>might help, but that's not the KEY to freedom.
See you are still unaware of what automatism really means
in the first place. Perhaps you refuse to allow yourself to
understand, clinging to that curled leaf of confusion, dogma,
whatever.
>I've been finding solace in big books on psychotherapy. Surrealism's
>roots. Various psychoanalysts describe the repeating patterns of human
>behavior. What we learned on mother's and father's knee becomes the
>reality we face until the day we die. Every significant person we
>encounter takes on aspects of our parents.
More unrelated than related to me.
>The patterns that form in our conscious and unconscious minds are
>incredibly intricate and beautiful. Literature, art, and freedom
>originate in this stuff -- the soul. I read a description of
>"prepsychotic panic" in one text that gave me chills.
So, then why so resistant to the idea of automatism, the unconscious,
and freedom in the prior paragraphs?
"Behaving automatically": why dont you define that. Then again,
nevermind: automatism, as stated here and elsewhere so many times,
involves setting aside 'the conscious mind', and this in theory
allows one to achieve closer tangibility to inner thoughts, dreams,
whatever you want to call the stuff behind our existence within the
creative universe, as I like to think of it.
>So how do you tap into that stuff without going totally mad? I don't
>know. I have no idea. But I've gotten some interesting tastes of it,
>just by reading up on psychoanalytic theory and schizophrenia.
Its interesting, but I don't buy into a lot of those models.
-john
john adams
john adams
>> As for the discussion on automatism I find it a little inept.
>> What kind of repressed line of thought is it that states in going about
>> (through automatism) throwing off convention, everyday thought processes,
>and
>> expectation of results one is doing exactly what they had aimed to
>circumvent?
>> It's an argument with the merit of a thousand empty barrels of hearty rum.
>
>If I buy a leather jacket and a motorcycle, and start riding up and down
>busy thouroughfares, does that make me a rebel?
Sure, why not? I suppose it would be dependent upon the circumstance
and the definition you hold of rebel. But no one is speaking of rebels.
>If I start worshipping the automatic, deliberately throwing off
>"convention" and "every day thought processes", does that make me free?
>Can you simply shrug off society and conformity so easilly?
Now, how do you arrive at worshipping 'the automatic'?
And, are you arguing to embrace conformity? The important
point I believe is to follow inner desire and intuition. Each person
is unique with their own set of desires, motivation, and background.
If you prefer the idea of conforming to the mass structure of
society and to view individuals as helpless in such a structure
then go right ahead. But it is neither surrealist nor realist.
>I am not protesting the leather jacket and the motorcycle, so much the
>simplistic attitude that that's all you need. Slipping out of your tweed
>jacket and into one of leather ain't liberty.
>
>> And It's the same old story, remember the one: the snail who chose to
>>cling to his own aquatic fern, and in doing so resisted new experience and
>>ideas, despite the wise old barnacles advice otherwise?
>
>"What'sa matter? Too chickenshit to wear leather and ride a chopper like
>the rest of us rebels? You conforming scum! Why can'tcha be like the
>rest of us?"
Wrong idea altogether.
>I am reminded of the film "The Truman Show". When Truman finally reaches
>that wall of sky and begins throwing himself at it, beating it with his
>fists, sobbing hysterically, and the music swells... I always choke up
>inside. If only it were so easy to find that wall, that barrier that
>keeps me from "real reality", locked in the phony reality we all
>occasionally indulge in. That grinning, product-placement artificial world
>of cameras and facades.
>
>I doubt very much that that wall is found by not thinking, letting my
>brain run automatically, and scribbling down the results. Sure, that
>might help, but that's not the KEY to freedom.
See you are still unaware of what automatism really means
in the first place. Perhaps you refuse to allow yourself to
understand, clinging to that curled leaf of confusion, dogma,
whatever.
>I've been finding solace in big books on psychotherapy. Surrealism's
>roots. Various psychoanalysts describe the repeating patterns of human
>behavior. What we learned on mother's and father's knee becomes the
>reality we face until the day we die. Every significant person we
>encounter takes on aspects of our parents.
More unrelated than related to me.
>The patterns that form in our conscious and unconscious minds are
>incredibly intricate and beautiful. Literature, art, and freedom
>originate in this stuff -- the soul. I read a description of
>"prepsychotic panic" in one text that gave me chills.
So, then why so resistant to the idea of automatism, the unconscious,
and freedom in the prior paragraphs?
>The model goes like this:
"Behaving automatically": why dont you define that. Then again,
nevermind: automatism, as stated here and elsewhere so many times,
involves setting aside 'the conscious mind', and this in theory
allows one to achieve closer tangibility to inner thoughts, dreams,
whatever you want to call the stuff behind our existence within the
creative universe, as I like to think of it.
>So how do you tap into that stuff without going totally mad? I don't
>know. I have no idea. But I've gotten some interesting tastes of it,
>just by reading up on psychoanalytic theory and schizophrenia.
Its interesting, but I don't buy into many of those models.
-john