It is an oil painting on wood. In this "hand-painted dream photograph", as Dalí generally called his paintings, there is a seascape of distant horizons and calm waters, perhaps
Port Lligat, amidst which
Gala is the subject of 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 pouncing tiger that then spews out another pouncing tiger about to attack Gala and a rifle with a bayonet that is about to sting her in the arm. Above 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. ==Themes and symbolism==