Man, sometimes you just stumble onto something that really grabs you, right? For me, it was surrealism art. I wasn’t looking for it, didn’t even know much about it beyond a melting clock picture or two. But one day, I just clicked on some random art gallery online, and boom, there it was. A painting with a dude in a bowler hat and an apple covering his face. Another one with elephants on super long, skinny legs. It just messed with my head in a good way, you know? It made me stop scrolling.
I remember thinking, “What in the world is going on here?” It wasn’t like a landscape or a portrait where you kinda know what you’re looking at. This stuff was just… different. It felt like someone had painted a dream, a really weird, vivid dream. And that’s exactly what got me hooked. I wasn’t trying to be an art critic or anything fancy. I just wanted to figure out what these guys were trying to say, or even if they were trying to say anything at all. It was like a puzzle, but a puzzle with no right answers, which was even cooler.
So, I started digging. Not in a scholarly way, just clicking around, looking at more art. Dali, Magritte, Ernst, all those names started popping up. I’d just stare at these pictures for ages. First, I’d just take in the whole scene. The colors, the weird setups. Then, I’d start to zoom in, mentally, on the individual bits. A floating rock, a half-animal, half-human figure, an open window showing a different world outside. They were all just hanging out together, making no sense, but at the same time, making perfect sense in that dream logic kind of way.
That’s when the “deep dive into symbolism” kinda just happened without me even planning it. I wasn’t reading textbooks, nah. I was just letting my mind wander. I’d pick an artwork, maybe one I’d seen a dozen times, and I’d just list out everything bizarre in it. Like, “Okay, we got a birdcage, but it’s got a fish in it. And then there’s a keyhole, but it’s on a tree.” And then for each thing, I’d start asking myself, “What does a fish in a birdcage feel like? Trapped? Out of place? What does a keyhole on a tree mean? A secret entrance to nature? Something hidden in plain sight?”
It was never about finding the “correct” interpretation, because honestly, I don’t think there is one. It was more about exploring the possibilities, letting my own subconscious play with the artist’s subconscious. It was like I was dreaming along with them. I realized that these artists weren’t just painting random stuff; they were pulling images directly from their deepest thoughts, their fears, their desires, their dreams. They were just, you know, throwing it all onto the canvas without the filter of waking life.
I remember one time, I was staring at a piece with a bunch of eyes in it, just looking out. And at first, I just thought, “Creepy.” But then I started thinking about what eyes do. They see, they watch, they perceive. So, were these eyes watching me? Was I seeing through them? Or was it about perception itself, how we see the world? It just branched out into all these different ideas. It was pretty wild, just letting my brain connect dots that weren’t necessarily there, but felt right somehow.
Sometimes, I’d try to look up what the artists themselves said about their work, but usually, they were pretty cagey, or just talked about tapping into the subconscious. Which, fair enough. That’s kinda the point. It’s not meant to be explicitly explained. It’s meant to be felt, to be experienced like a riddle. That’s what made it so personal for me. It wasn’t about getting the answer; it was about the journey of trying to figure it out, to feel the dream logic.
I started noticing recurring themes too. Like, rocks that were floating, or strange, often nude figures in unexpected places, or architectural elements that defied gravity. A lot of times, animals would pop up, but not just normal animals – animals doing human things, or composite creatures. These weren’t just visual quirks; they felt like symbols the subconscious kept bringing up. Things that maybe represented freedom, or transformation, or primal instincts, or just the weirdness of existence itself.
My entire process turned into a kind of meditation. I’d sit down with an image, block out everything else, and just let it speak to me. I’d pick out one element, then another, trying to link them together in a narrative that felt like a dream. It made me realize how much our everyday symbols are just surface-level. Surrealism kinda rips that surface away and shows you the raw, unpolished, often unsettling symbols that are swirling underneath, in the depths of our minds.
Honestly, this whole dive didn’t just change how I looked at art; it changed how I looked at my own dreams. Suddenly, my own weird, nonsensical dreams had a new layer of meaning, or at least, a new way to appreciate their internal logic. It wasn’t about understanding everything rationally anymore. It was about feeling the emotional pull, the symbolic weight, even if I couldn’t articulate it perfectly. It’s an ongoing thing, still finding new bits to unpack, new dreams to see in those canvases. Every time I spot a new one, it’s like another invitation to go exploring in the deep end of the mind.
