Illumined Pleasures was created by fusing oil and collage on panel. The canvas of the painting is small, measuring only 24cm x 34.5 cm; its size compared with the mass of detail Dalí has managed to cram into it, clearly reveals Dalí's great talent as a miniaturist painter.

The title of this work may refer to the luminous imagery projected on or performed within the theater-like boxes that dominate the composition. Here Dalí played with the disjunctions between reality and the illusion experienced in the darkness of a movie theater. The imagery refers to personal and universal dreams and anxieties. Dalí's own disembodied head appears in the middle box, while an allegory of castration anxiety plays out below. Underscoring the experience of motion - picture viewing presented in the painting, this work illustrated the shooting script for Un Chien Andalou when it was published in the journal La Révolution surréaliste. Here Dalí uses them to create scenarios - pictures within the main picture. In the middle box is a self-portrait, like the one of The Great Masturbator. Blood flows out of the nose and above the head is a grasshopper: both symbolize a hysterical fear. The box to the left shows a man shooting at a rock. This rock can be construed as a head, with blood flowing from the holes. The box to the right has a pattern of men on cycles with sugared almonds placed on their heads.