This painting's simple for Dali, but still cryptic. I have no text for the dream (if it is a real one--this is Dalí). The woman (or statue?) in the foreground has ants swarming where her mouth should be; ants in Dali's work often mean corruption, something rotten.

In my sourcebook, Eric Shanes notes about the man sitting on the far left: [he] "holds his bloody head in one hand, while in his other he clutches a butterfly-holder complete with butterfly. Both the figure and the plinth were inspired by a statue in Barcelona of the Catalan playwright, poet, and man of the theater Serafí Pitarra (1839-95)." [Copies of the painting, even the one in Shanes's book, crop off that butterfly-net. Sorry.]

I wonder if this is a portrait of Dream herself, at least as Dalí sees her--living in darkness, mouthless/mute because she never ever explains herself--that takes deep work, and probably a (Freudian) translator. Mind you, I disagree--my dreams are pretty direct. But it's true to Dalí's view.

SOURCE: Salvador Dalí by Eric Shanes, (2014), pp 94-5.

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