Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening the scene. Next to the naked body of the sleeping woman, which levitates above a flat rock that floats above the sea, Dalí depicts two suspended droplets of water and a pomegranate, a Christian symbol of fertility and resurrection. Above the pomegranate flies a bee, an insect that traditionally symbolizes the Virgin. In the upper left of the painting what seems to be a yelloweye rockfish bursts out of the pomegranate, and in turn spews out a tiger that then spews out another tiger and a rifle with a bayonet that is about to sting Gala in the arm. Above
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening them is Dalí's first use of an elephant with long flamingo legs, found in his later compositions such as "The Temptation of St. Anthony". The elephant carries on its back an obelisk, inspired by Bernini’s "Elephant and Obelisk" in Rome's Piazza Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The bayonet, as a symbol of the stinging bee, may represent the woman's abrupt awakening from her otherwise peaceful dream. This is an example of Sigmund Freud's influence on surrealist art and Dalí's attempts to explore the world of dreams in a dreamscape. The elephant is a distorted version of the Piazza della Minerva sculpture