Perchance to Dream (The Twilight Zone)

Cast

• Edward Hall: Richard Conte
• Dr. Rathmann: John Larch
• Maya/Miss Thomas: Suzanne Lloyd

Synopsis

Edward Hall, a man with a heart condition, believes that if he falls asleep, he'll die. On the other hand, keeping himself awake will put too much of a strain on his heart. He seeks out the aid of psychiatrist Rathmann and explains that he has been dreaming in chapters, as if in a movie serial. In his dreams, Maya, a carnival dancer, lures him onto a roller coster in a funhouse in an attempt to scare him to death. Realizing that Rathmann cannot help him, Hall starts to go, but stops when he realizes that Rathmann's receptionist looks exactly like Maya. Terrified, he runs back into Rathmann's office and jumps out of the window. In reality, this was all a dream: Hall actually came in to Rathmann's office, lay down, immediately fell asleep—and then a few minutes later, screamed and died.

Trivia

• This was the first episode aired that was written by Charles Beaumont (and also the first that was not written by Rod Serling).
• The title of the episode, and the Beaumont-written short story that inspired it, is taken from Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech.

Critical response

"Throughout the TV filming, Florey strove for quality. It might have been the most expensive MGM feature. He rooted out the meanings of certain lines, frequently surprising me with symbols and shadings I'd neither planned nor suspected. The set was truly impressionistic, recalling the days of Caligari and Liliom. The costumes were generally perfect. And in the starring role, Richard Conte gave a performance which displays both intensity and subtlety." —Charles Beaumont writing in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction, December 1959.

References

• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

External links

• Perchance to Dream at IMDb
• TV Tome episode page