Edward gets creeped out by Maya.
Rod Serling: Twelve o' clock noon. An ordinary scene, an ordinary city. Lunchtime for thousands of ordinary people. To most of them, this hour will be a rest, a pleasant break in the day's routine. To most, but not all. To Edward Hall, time is an enemy, and the hour to come is a matter of life and death.
Air date: November 27, 1959
Edward Hall (Richard Conte), a nervous, anxious, and utterly exhausted man, stumbles into a psychiatrist's office one afternoon. Edward explains to the psychaiatrist, Dr. Rathmann, that he has no history of mental illness, but what he does have is a major problem. Recently, he has begun dreaming in chapters, finding himself in a creepy carnival with where a seductive, unnerving performer, Maya, tries to scare him to death, since Edward has a heart condition. Since then, he's been awake for 4 straight days, refusing to sleep so he can avoid the dream and by extension, Maya. Of course, the strain of exhaustion isn't doing his heart any favors, either.
Perchance To Tropes:
- Adaptation Name Change: In the short story by Charles Beaumont, the protagonist's name is Philip Hall. In the television adaptation, his name is Edward Hall.
- Amusement Park of Doom: Edward's dream carnival is spooky and potentially deadly, if only because of Edward's heart condition.
- And You Were There: Edward becomes terrified upon seeing that the doctor's secretary has the same face as Maya. Even outside the dream, she has the same appearence.
- Cat Girl: Maya is described as one, though it's more about her eyes and the way she moves.
- Danger Takes a Backseat: Edward mentions reading a newspaper story of a woman being murdered by an assailant in her backseat. He crashed his car out of paranoia about the same thing, nearly killing himself from the shock.
- Driven to Suicide: Upon seeing Miss Thomas' face (which matches Maya's), Edward jumps out the window in fear.
- Dutch Angle: The carnival Dream Sequence features them prominently, as a means to showcase how eerie and otherworldly it is.
- Dying Dream: At the end, Dr. Rathmann and Miss Thomas note that Edward just came in, fell asleep, let out a scream, and died. The near entirety of the episode was his dream.
- Foreshadowing:
- Edward lies down on the couch and closes his eyes as the lights dim, leaving him in near darkness for a moment. It's an early sign that he really did go to sleep, rather than narrowly avoiding it.
- Shortly after the above moment, he opens the window, leans out a bit, and remarks about the long drop to the ground. He later jumps out this very same window and plummets to his death within the dream. The experience causes him to have a heart attack and die in the waking world.
- Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Edward describes his predicament like this word-for-word: if he falls asleep, the shock of his continuing nightmare will kill him, but if he stays awake, the strain and exhaustion will kill him instead.
- He's Dead, Jim: At the end of the episode, Edward screams while he's asleep. Dr. Rathmann checks his pulse and immediately pronounces him dead, not even bothering to apply first aid or call an ambulance.
- Matter of Life and Death: Mentioned in the opening narration; if Edward can't get help, he will die.
- Morton's Fork: Edward's choice. Either he can go to sleep and have his heart fail from fear, or he can stay awake and die from the strain on his heart.
- Named by the Adaptation: In the short story by Charles Beaumont, neither the girl in the dream nor the psychiatrist are ever named. In the television adaptation, their names are given as Maya and Dr. Elliott Rathmann.
- Never Sleep Again: Edward has been refusing to sleep out of fear of Maya scaring him to death.
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Maya is a literal one, as she makes it her mission to scare Edward to death.
- Passed in Their Sleep: Edward thinks that if he falls asleep, he'll die. At the start of the episode. he goes to a psychaiatrist's office, lies down and closes his eyes for a moment, then jumps up and explains his situation to the doctor. At the end, it's revealed that the whole episode was a Dying Dream; Dr. Rathmann reports to his receptionist Miss Thomas that the man came into his office, laid down, and never woke up.
- Properly Paranoid: Edward has been worried that if he falls asleep, he'll die. He was right.
- Twist Ending: Most of Edward's discussion with Dr. Rathmann never happened. He dreamed everything that happened after he laid down on the doctor's couch and closed his eyes.
Rod Serling: They say a dream takes only a second or so, and yet in that second a man can live a lifetime. He can suffer and die, and who's to say which is the greater reality: the one we know or the one in dreams, between heaven, the sky, the Earth - in the Twilight Zone.
