How did Surrealism draw on Sigmund Freud's ideas about the unconscious?

Surrealism drew heavily on the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, viewing the unconscious as the primary source of human imagination and creativity. Surrealists believed that by accessing this untapped realm, they could bypass rational thought and social conventions to reach a higher, absolute reality—a "surreality"—where dreams and fantasy merged with everyday life.1234

To tap into these unconscious psychic forces, artists employed several key techniques:

• Automatism: A method of spontaneous, uncensored creation, such as automatic drawing or writing, intended to record mental associations without the interference of the conscious mind.523
• Chance-based methods: Techniques like frottage (rubbing), grattage (scraping), and decalcomania were used to create suggestive, ambiguous forms that the artist would then complete based on instinctive responses.52
• Exquisite corpse: A collaborative game where artists contributed parts of a composition without seeing the work of others, resulting in unpredictable, collective imagery.23

By utilizing these methods, Surrealist painters sought to reveal the "sense" of the irrational and provide a record of the artist's deepest psychic states.52