Imagination is an indispensable source of joy. Many vivid sensory pleasures arise from illusion or fantasy, and absolute freedom implies withdrawing, deep within oneself, from any supreme notion of justice. In other words, only imagination allows me to become aware of everything that could possibly happen, and only the fear of madness makes us hold back from it.

We still live in an age dominated by logic, this, of course, is precisely what I wish to address. For now, logic is mostly used to solve secondary problems. Absolute rationalism has not disappeared, but it confines us to considering only what is closely tied to our lived experience. In doing so, we neglect the true purpose of logic. … If within the depths of our thinking there exists a kind of magical force, one that can amplify or even overcome the surface, then we should first capture this force, and only afterward, if necessary, allow reason to regulate it.

In the 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism, André Breton emphasized the importance of “not hesitating before conception.”

In the process of conception and experimentation, like dreaming, we embrace, without reservation, a series of strange episodes. Through this, entirely new connections and forms of description emerge. Even if reality does not yet reflect them, it is only due to certain constraints. And once we can identify and name these constraints, we gain the possibility of waiting for the day they are lifted.

If things do not go as desired, what, then, can one still do? I would like to place the key to this passage in his hands.

To you, reality may seem fixed.

But you forget the many futures that have yet to appear, the branching paths that once nearly took shape but were abandoned. You have lost interest in tracing them. But why let reality limit your desire to pursue these paths? If we have the ability to move toward a new place, it means that as long as you can imagine a better elsewhere, all you need is a different method, one that allows you to carve out a new path.

As a method of revolutionary thought, the 1930 Second Manifesto of Surrealism further explains the misunderstandings, classifications, and oppositions encountered during its development. Breton calls on us to value inspiration and creation. At certain moments, passion acts like a short circuit, stimulating a unique form of inspiration that compels expression, almost involuntarily. Surrealism, then, is the deliberate recreation of such moments.

If we adopt surrealism as a method, if we unhesitatingly abandon the assumption that all things must “exist,” and if, through a path that does exist in the world, we can not only prove its existence but also help others walk it, then we declare that it is entirely possible to enter what is called the “non existent” path.

At the end of this book is Breton’s 1924 surrealist work Soluble Fish, following the manifesto that can also be read as a preface. Reading his work makes you believe in the potential of the body… to extend a third hand, to take a comb and brush the sun, feeling its warmth… or to push the limits of sensory perception, to feel blood flowing through the veins of stone… to touch, even twist, the boundaries of space, folding the ground of reality like paper, aligning the slanted edges of a street corner convenience store, arranging traffic signals and parking lines like lines of copy, reshaping them…

Surrealism seeks to summon the vitality of consciousness, inviting us, in the fullness of that vitality, to dissolve into our own thoughts, like a soluble fish.