Famous Nappers 3.5
More from Salvador Dalí
We’ve previously discussed Salvador Dalí’s 1948 tome-lite, 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship, and his detailed instructions for his “slumber with a key” napping technique. Here are a few other interesting ideas from this masterpiece.
Saint-Pol-Roux (not a saint) used to put a “Poet at Work” sign on his door when he napped.
To control your dreams when sleeping (not napping), have your valet pour selected fragrances (evocative of periods of adolescence) on your pillow around an hour before working — same with music, as well as a very intense light on (or pressure upon) the pupils.
Dalí offers graduate level sleeping advice that involves having a lunch of sea urchins and beans àla Catalane washed down with a light, very young wine, staring at a blank canvas for a while (a schooner is a sailboat, stupidhead), eating sea perch head for dinner, and staring at the sea perch’s eyes for a while afterwards. In so doing, you’ll do your best work.
Dalí also reiterates his advice that the “slumber with a key” nap should last no longer than a quarter of a second, noting that this is particularly important for painters and those who labor with their minds more than their bodies — to that end, he points out that anybody who isn’t a hard laborer (he’s def talking about the TND crew here) will be sluggish after a longer nap.
To paraphrase another work of true genius, “raise a glass [of a light, very young wine] and sit and stare / understand the man.”