Automatic writing

[Kyriakos]

Automatic writing is a method of writing involving the writer altering his consciousness to some degree, becomming less aware of the fact that he is controlling his creation, and thus enabling the deeper parts of the psyche to take over, partly. This leads to the writing being more open to be influenced by the depths of the psyche, rather than a controlled creation.
There are many theories about automatic writing, and many different authors used it. For example the spiritualist Olga Blavatsky wrote some stories in which she was preceicely claiming that the story came to her without her control. She believed, it seems, that it was something completely outside her psyche, a view that reflects her metaphysical opinnions about her life.
Others, like Kafka, used a partially automatic writing, but not out of pure will to do so it seems, but out of an amalgam of conscious attempt and unconscious urge. Kafka himself wrote in his diary that he was not aware of what he was doing with his literature, something which in context i took to mean that he could not really start to understand the way in which he wrote. Others also mentioned that when he wrote he "became another person", which again seems to signify that he was in an altered mental state at that time.

You can read more on automatic writing in this wiki article

What is your view about this? Have you ever thought of it? Have you read a story that you believe whas written in such a way, and what did you think of it?

 

[Snorrius]

Well, as a phenomenon automatic writing obviously exists - i.e. it is possible to make your hand write "uncosciously", i.e. you will not control the result. The question is an interpretation - spiritualists thought this is act of spiritual origins while there are some non-mystical explanations. Personally I wanted to master it at some point but then decided there are more interesting/useful "occult" practices like lucid dreaming.

 

[Darth_Pugwash]

Sounds like a good way to write some nonsense.

 

[Greizer85]

Sounds like a good way to write some nonsense.

I suggest you read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience_Worth
and some of these: http://www.patienceworth.org/patienceworthpoems_008.htm
Hoaxes or not, they are very beautiful.

Automatic writing is a very romantic phenomenon, and while I am incapable of it (not that I've tried that hard, though), I'm glad that it exist and frees some people from the iron shackles of reason. Not that reason is a bad thing, mind you - but it can get uninteresting to follow it all the time. Occasionally one needs to jump into a river with his clothes on; howl at the Moon a bit; take a bite at someone's face; explode some flowers or grow a new bridge; induce some raw origins or do some automatic writing.

Edit: Ghosts are intelligent. But the phenomenon itself is non-logical, in that if there is no guidance, the result is often nonsensical. While the surrealists would frown upon it, modifying material so begotten can be very fruitful. As someone said at a time or another, "the best works are those which madness prompts and reason writes down".

 

[Lord Baal]

I've done it before, when I first read about it as a teenager. Tried it for weeks before I did it. I was amazed when I wrote in Hebrew, a language I didn't understand. I was considerably less amazed when my father read it and told me it was nothing but a poor phonetically written version of a nursery rhyme my grandmother used to tell me as a kid.

That's all automatic writing is: writing something from your subconscious instead of something you think of with your conscious mind. Women who have claimed to have transcribed music composed by the spirits of great composers like Beethoven have invariably produced utter garbage that Beethoven would have spat on. They subconsciously like to think of themselves as musicians, so they develop a fantasy to explain away the music they write, since they're not musically trained.

I can respect people like Kafka, who actually try to achieve this and know what they're doing - though I don't like his work - but have nothing but disdain for people that use religious or spiritual justifications to describe a perfectly natural psychological phenomenon. Especially when they continue to claim these inspirations after they've been shown to be false. But still, as long as they don't profit from it - and most don't - let them waste their time deluding themselves.

If anyone wants to do this, try meditating while sitting at a desk with a pen and paper in front of you. If you do it right, sooner or later you may start to write something. It's often not very legible, but if you spend some time on it afterwards you can make out what you've written. I'm not sure how it would fare with typing. If anyone has a crack at it, let us know the results.

 

[Kyriakos]

It is my view as well that automatic writing is not something metaphysically-related, but a way to get out something you have deeper inside you. But the depths of the mind are endless, so one could bring things which are rare treasures indeed.
Sometimes i insert bits of automatic writing in my work, although it is not entirely automatic, rather i try to dive momentarily inside my mind, still concious that i am doing that. The result, i have found, is that i bring back something that gives the story a larger depth.

However it should be noted that as with anything that has to do with altering ones consciousness, there must be caution, and control. Otherwise problems may appear

 

[Lord Baal]

Like accidentally writing on your own leg? Because I had about five verses of that nursery rhyme on there.

 

[Mirc]

I thought that when you said "altered mental state", you meant drugs, but after reading all the other posts in the thread... How exactly can you "meditate" in front of a pen and paper and enter an altered state of mind in which you will start writing something? Genuinely curious here.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think that it can happen that one who is not very familiar with such abilities will sink too deep and there be faced with many things he cannot control, for in the depths of the mind lie mechanisms which are not evident when the person is in conscious state.
It is a bit like one who has lived all his life in a small village, and then suddently finds himself in a vast city, which he didnt even know existed. He is unaware of the abilities there, and the dangers.

 

[Kyriakos]

@ Mirc: i cannot really advise you as to how, since i think that there are too many parameters here at play. The best one can say is that i fyou actually will for it to happen, something will, if the circumstances work. As for me i am so familiar with writing that i just think and watch the progression of my thought appear on the computer screen, i do not pay any conscious attention to typing, and this helps if i want to go deeper. But semi-automatic writing (the vast majority of my work is 95% conscious 5% semi-conscious) if controlled can lead you to insights about yourself, just like any other type of mental phenomenon one experiences.
Full automatic writing is something, on the other hand, which i am not familiar with.

 

[Lord Baal]

I thought that when you said "altered mental state", you meant drugs, but after reading all the other posts in the thread... How exactly can you "meditate" in front of a pen and paper and enter an altered state of mind in which you will start writing something? Genuinely curious here.

It's not easy. Most of the cases I've heard of were researched as part of parapsychology - ie; attempts to scientifically explain the 'supernatural,' such as telepathy, poltergeists, etc.. If you've ever seen the Sixth Sense, you'll see the other context in which automatic writing is researched; plain old ordinary psychology and psychiatry. Since automatic writing requires an altered mental state, it often occurs in people, particularly children, with mental disorders.

Despite all this, it is possible to do it intentionally. You'll never do it the first time, and you'll never do it if you're trying to do it. Basically, you just have to meditate, and if you happen to have a pen and paper in front of you, you may - big emphasis there - start automatic writing. It will likely take you weeks or months of meditating before your subconscious decides to do this, if it ever does.

Personally I think it's pointless myself, but some people might want to try it. Other people may have different methods of doing it as well. I doubt most Spiritualists who do this as part of their religion meditate in the process. They're probably experiencing something more like a religious trance.

 

[Gelion]

One of my friends who used to smoke crap told me that the best stories came to her when she was stoned. I think I read a few and I had to agree.

Still, if you take a religious view on things, I'd be pretty scared to see "something else" write my stories for me. Divine inspiration supposedly comes when you are conscious.

 

[Kyriakos]

Originally i planned to start a new thread on this, but i recalled that i must have had started one before, and it turns out it happened almost exactly two years ago

So, to sum up, what is your view of automatic writing? I think still that it is a very interesting phenomenon, although i do not really care for its supernatural (supposed) uses; i only mind the ones particular to literature, and freeing the passageways to one's unconscious mind, so that the river of emotion reaches the surface.

 

[Synobun]

Tried it once, all that happened were a lot of scribbles and jumbled words.

It seems my sub-conscious is rather confused.

 

[Mise]

Once I fell asleep during a lecture and drew a duck.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Isn't automatic writing where it records every sentence you speak and puts it on a document?

 

[GoodGame]

I don't know about the "altered consciousness" or "automatic writing" aspect. I definitely wouldn't try drugs, etc.. just to alter my writing speed. I think there's enough fail biographies of authors experimenting with recreational drugs to expand their minds.

That said, I do think there's a useful technique to writers called 'rapid writing', which I found to be very helpful in completing a very length (40ish pages) report for a class. The way I used it was simply to start with a fresh .Word file, plop a title of relevance to the report and began writing all my thoughts about it in an acceptable form (attention to grammar, paragraph organization, transition sentences) as fast as I could. The idea was just to get what I thought about the topic on paper, like a USB connection from my brain to the paper.

Take a major topic and organize it into logical subsections, then go to town on each subsection in a rapid-writing way is a pretty effective way of prototyping a writing. The writing will need a lot of work still--fact-checking, critiquing, re-organization, and probably a full another draft----but it does a lot for one's confidence in a deadline to have a technically full piece of original work at the start of a project, rather than just blank sheets.


In terms of "altered conscious states", I did find that getting up earlier than normal, or at least if work anxiety kept me from restful sleep, that it'd be really effective to just go straight to work in the word processor doing another round of 'rapid writing'. The less 'awake' I was, the more effective my rapid writing technique was, I thought.

Overall I'd say it's about losing inhibition and overly-critical/neurotic thinking while writing, and saving the self-criticism/critical review for draft review.

I should mention that I didn't invent the technique for myself, but read "Writing on Both Sides of the Brain" and applied it to my writing. http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Both-...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326375538&sr=1-1

There's a similar book for writing: "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241

 

[muhtesem insan]

I don't know if exessive boredom count as an "altered consiousness". In high school one of our teachers' teaching policy was reading a text she prepared and forcing us to write it. After a while it becomes automatic and you write while thinking about other things. But after i realized i have also written down parts of a conversation my two classmates having.