What technique did Salvador Dalí name for transforming obsessive images into artworks?

Salvador Dalí named his technique for transforming obsessive images into artworks the paranoiac-critical method.

Dalí developed the method in the 1930s as a way to access and organize irrational associations. He deliberately cultivated a state of self-induced paranoia, then used critical analysis to interpret the images and connections that emerged. The goal was not simply to copy dreams, but to turn unstable perceptions into controlled artistic compositions.

The method helped explain works containing double images and visual ambiguities. In paintings such as Metamorphosis of Narcissus and Swans Reflecting Elephants, one form can be read as another depending on how the viewer interprets the image.

The term should not be treated as a clinical diagnosis of Dalí. It was an artistic concept and a deliberately provocative phrase. Dalí presented it as a practical tool for creating Surrealist imagery while retaining compositional control.