Surrealist automatism is spontaneous writing, drawing or the like practiced without conscious aesthetic or moral self-censorship.
It is to be distinguished from mediumistic automatism, by which it was inspired: ghosts, spirits or the like are not purported to be the source of its automatic messages.
"Pure psychic automatism" was how Andre Breton, surrealism's founder, defined surrealism.
In 1919 Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault wrote the first automatic book, Les Champs Magnetiques.
"The Automatic Message" was one of Breton's most significant theoretical works about automatism.
In the 1940s and 1950s there were a group of Canadians called Les Automatistes, who pursued creative work (chiefly painting) based on surrealist principles.