Salvador Dali himself claimed that his works were “hand-painted dream photographs”. This is due to the fact that he typically painted while in self-induced hallucinations, which he referred to as his “paranoid critical transformation method”. This hallucination technique used by Dali enabled him to paint based off thoughts and ideas from his subconscious. Since Dali was a surrealist and accessed his subconscious to create his works, including The Persistence of Memory, Dali never gave his works an exact meaning, allowing critics and observers to interpret many different meanings. However, there is one meaning for The Persistence of Memory that stands out above the rest as it has more supporting details and background than the others. Therefore, the most logical meaning of Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory, is that the work is used to depict a dream-like state and the “erratic passage of time” as experienced by persons while in this state. 

 The Persistence of Memory’s most blatant reasoning that it depicts a dream-like state is through the objects and scenery that Dali chose to use in this piece. For instance, the juxtaposition of the clocks in relation to the background is something that one would never encounter in the real world. The background Salvador Dali chose for this piece was based off of where he grew up in Catalonia, Spain. The scene shows rugged cliffs overlooking the ocean directly next to a barren desert, however, in this barren desert, there are four clocks shown to be melting on various objects. These four melting clocks would not be found in a typical desert scene or any real life scene, therefore instilling a sense of wonder into the spectator. The idea that this piece portrays a dream-like state is also supported by the creature that appears to be asleep in the middle of the work. This creature cannot be positively identified but is distinguishable by its uncommon features. Many times people cannot identify what it was in their dream, just like spectators cannot identify the creature dreaming in the center of the piece. Dreams leave a sense of wonder in the one experiencing it, just as Salvador Dali’s work does for spectators. 

The idea that one experiences an erratic passage of time while sleeping is strongly supported throughout almost every detail that Salvador Dali incorporated into The Persistence of Memory. The painting itself is a surreal desert landscape with cliffs and a large body of water in the background. In the foreground of this picture, however, there are what seems to be four distorted, or melting, clocks. One of which appears to be melting overtop of some unidentifiable creature and another to be covered in ants. The distorted clocks represent the uselessness of a clock while in a dream-like state for the fact that one cannot keep track of time while dreaming or sleeping. The Persistence of Memory shows the spectator that there is no real need for clocks in the dream world as time seems to be an unreal concept. On one of the clocks, there appears to be ants covering it and eating it, seemingly destroying time. Another one of the clocks is draped over the dreaming creature, further showing that time disappears while one is dreaming, as the clock seems to be melting away overtop of the creature as it falls deeper and deeper into its sleep. 

Yet another major detail supporting the idea that Salvador Dali wanted spectators to receive the message that time is irrelevant while in a dream-like state comes from the simple fact that The Persistence of Memory is a painting, as opposed to a photograph. This fact supports such a claim because it shows that Dali painted exactly what he wanted its viewers to see and interpret. If Dali were to have staged this scene and taken a photograph of it, it would have taken away the dream-like wonder that one experiences while looking upon this work. It also would have not allowed Dali to have such control over the way the scene is depicted, Dali would not have been able to have an unidentifiable creature shown dreaming in the center of his work, thus taking away a huge supporting detail to the claim. Dali was able to make every detail have a role in supporting the dream-like scene, all the way down to his brush strokes. In The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali used oil paints to show fluid brush strokes that seems the blur the boundaries between the details and objects shown in this work. Although his work showed great fluidity, it is apparent that there are no unintended strokes in his work, showing this piece as both fluid and precise. The fluidity and blurred borders within The Persistence of Memory are strong supporting factors to the idea that this piece shows a dream-like state as dreams are typically a type of blurred memory.

Since Dali was a surrealist, his work typically always depicted a dream-like state filled with details that came from his subconscious. Surrealists of Salvador Dali’s time aimed to show dreams and ideas free of their conscious control. Dali was one of the most influential surrealist painter during the early twentieth century, when surrealism became a more common practice. Since Dali was able to reach his subconscious with his drug-free hallucinations through his paranoid critical transformation method, his works were some of the best of his time. The Persistence of Memory comes as his most popular work due to its incredible detail and ability to covey its message, that time is an unreal and useless idea while one is dreaming due to the inconsistent passage of time while in a dream-like state. Although there are many interpretations behind the true meaning of The Persistence of Memory, it is very apparent what the true meaning really is. Dali is able to show a dream-like world that shuts down time through his use of brush strokes, juxtaposition, background and other minor details.