The dream was written at a time when Dali and Gala found themselves an uncomfortable haven in a fishing hut at Port Ligat, which they later turned into a luxurious, labyrinth-like house: one of the magical metamorphoses so beloved by the artist. Although by 1931 Dali’s paintings had already been recognized as a contribution to world art, he still struggled to make ends meet.
In Port Ligat he tirelessly worked, creating masterpieces, which includes this obsessive landscape, dreams. A face devoid of a mouth is an image that goes back to the ‘Andalusian dog’ of Dali and Bunuel, the classic of surreal cinema; there the main character literally wipes his lips in a gesture that explicitly expresses a sexual threat.
The world of creepy, claustrophobic dreams of Dali begins to seem familiar and even natural – due to a touch to the universal unconscious, and, perhaps, because the images created by Dali have already entered the consciousness of the public.
