Sometimes the surrealists made use opium and hypnotism to reach the state that will make possible the observation of an alternative reality without any restrictions. In spite of those experiences their position related to the use of opiates and practices was never too explicit, because as a result of them we just get a distortion of the true essence of the mind.
The surrealist technique of Automatic Writing where only with the use of pure mental automatism in a passive state,
we write what our own subconscious dictates without any moral or logical restrictions, is another method that could lead us to Freud discoveries: the so-called Method of Free Association.
The Automatic Writing is the confirmation that the use of the automatism to reach a deeper state is very relative, because it is almost impossible to transcribe into paper our most irrational thoughts without the filter of our conscious side. Andre Masson used this technique in numerous drawings, in which we really can see the scribbles of his unconscious side, but just as incongruous lines that later will be modelled by his rational side and turned into recognizable shapes.
The Automatic Writing represents another step in the liberation of the mind of the individual, as well as a fabulous method of creativity, but its use was repudiated by members of the Movement, years later because it became superficial and no longer had the revolutionary objective.

Other surrealist inventions, such as the Frottage or the Exquisite Corpse, were as well celebrated and abandoned for the same reasons.