painting was intended "to express for the first time in images Freud's discovery of the typical dream with a lengthy narrative, the consequence of the instantaneousness of a chance event which causes the sleeper to wake up. Thus, as a bar might fall on the neck of a sleeping person, causing them to wake up and for a long dream to end with the guillotine blade falling on them, the noise of the bee here provokes the sensation of the sting which will awaken Gala." The guillotine anecdote refers to a dream reported by Alfred Maury in Le sommeil et les rêves ("Sleep and Dreams") and related by Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams. References Paintings by Salvador Dalí 1944 paintings Fish in art Nude art Elephants in art Paintings in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum Water in art Tigers in art Insects in art