Automatism

Automatism is a legal term for the state of acting involuntarily, as in sleepwalking.

External links:

• http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v3n1/ridgway.html
• http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v287n5/ffull/jjy20049-1.html

• Lycanthropism and automatism:
  • http://www.geocities.com/voxsententia/abovethelaw/ozwolf.html

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The term automatism is also used for the practice or theory of the spontaneous production of words (speech or writing), drawing, painting or other creative production, or behavior in general, without conscious self-control or self-censorship.

There are two types of automatism: mediumistic automatism, in which the speech, writing or behaviour produced is purported to be communicated from ghosts, spirits or the like, channelling through a psychic or medium, and surrealist automatism.

In 1919 Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault wrote the first automatic book, Les Champs Magnetiques.

Breton, the founder of surrealism, defined it as "pure psychic automatism."