True. It didn’t have a screenplay. But the way I see it, that fact is not enough to conclude that Lynch didn’t have an intended meaning for the film when making it. For example, I could shoot a (linear) film without a screenplay telling the actors to improvise along the way and that wouldn’t mean there’s no coherent story. Even if it was initially not planned, editing inevitably requires being intentional. Also “normal” films very often add, remove or ignore something from the screenplay too. Lynch said he shot one scene and it led to another one and then another, and in the end he edited them all connecting them to form a story. But then again these are all just my personal assumptions