The film was the product of Deren's and Hammid's desire to create an avant garde personal film that dealt with devastating psychological problems, like the French surrealist films of the 1920s such as Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L'Age d'Or (1930).
Deren and Hammid wrote, directed and performed in the film. Although Deren is usually credited as its principal artistic creator, filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who knew the couple, has claimed in his book Film at Wit's End that Meshes was in fact largely Hammid's creation, and that their marriage began to suffer when Deren received more credit.
The original print had no score. However, a musical score influenced by classical Japanese music by Deren's third husband, Teiji Ito, was added under Deren's supervision in 1959.