Maya, also known as 'The Cat Girl,' is the main antagonist of "Perchance to Dream", the ninth episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone, the episode airing in 1959.
She is a figure from the dreams of protagonist Edward Hall, where she is a carnival dancer who attempted to lure Edward into high-stress situations that would inevitably kill him. In the dreams, she appears to be a human woman with painted eyebrows and black eyeliner, first appearing wearing a leopard-skin dress to complete her 'cat girl' look, but later appears wearing a sparkly dress. Eerily, her visage is identical to a woman from the real world, namely the receptionist of the real-world therapist Eliot Rathmann, despite the fact that prior to the episode, Hall had never met Rathmann or his receptionist.
Maya, like the receptionist, was portrayed by Suzanne Lloyd.
Biography[]
Maya appearing in Hall's rearview mirror
Maya first appeared in the visions of Edward Hall, a man with a heart condition that would kill him if he got too excited, and who possessed an almost unnaturally vivid imagination since his childhood. One night, while driving home from work, Hall remembered a recent news story of a woman who was attacked in her car by someone who had snuck into the backseat, and the paranoia of something like that happening to him made him start to imagine someone in the backseat of his car. Due to his vivid imagination, Hall began to see an image of someone else looking back at him through the rearview mirror. Said person appeared to be Maya, but Hall could only see her eyes before crashing the car, only narrowly surviving.
At 11:30 some night afterwards, Hall began to have a strange dream in sequence: in the dream, he arrived at a warped and twisted amusement park in the night, but while at a carnival game, he was suddenly attracted by the calls of a nearby announcer at a booth where Maya, cloaked in shadows, was going to perform. Introduced as 'The Cat Girl,' lights illuminated Maya as she began her show, dancing with cat-like grace in an almost seductive manner, her gaze fixed on Hall, who was standing the closest to her stage. Hall, while drawn to her, saw something in her eyes that made him suddenly get the urge to flee from her, and so he did, running off to a bench in another part of the park while Maya laughed at him. Maya, now in a sparkling dress, suddenly appeared with him and lit his cigarette, asking why he ran away, wondering if Hall didn't like looking at her. Hall asked if she should be working, but Maya claimed she was free for the night, taking a puff of Hall's cigarette and asking him to come with her when he told her he was alone, also addressing Hall by name. When Hall asked how she knew his name, Maya only eerily responded that she knew a lot of things, also noting that Hall was afraid. Hall responded by revealing that he knew he was dreaming, but Maya calmly responded that she was aware of that fact, before taking a still-frightened Hall with her to a funhouse.
Holding Hall close to her, Maya asked for Hall to take her into the funhouse. Deciding it was futile to argue with a dream, Hall bought tickets for them and entered the funhouse, finding it populated by demented, monstrous animatronic figures and other surreal displays as laughter echoed through the building, although Maya kept smiling the whole way through. Eventually, the two stopped, as Maya surprised Hall by saying "We've been expecting you, Mr. Hall." While Hall was confused by that, Maya suddenly asked him to kiss her, and when he tried to protest, Maya insisted, then pulled herself in and kissed Hall on the lips. They were suddenly interrupted by the screams and chatter of nearby monstrous figures that began to close in on them, making Maya start laughing. Hall, suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling that Maya was trying to kill him, made a run for it, before waking up, discovering that he was dangerously close to a fatal heart attack.
The next night, Hall fell asleep at 1 AM, only to be back in the same dream, right where he left off. He reached a rollercoaster on the other side of the park, only to be met by Maya again, who seemed somewhat upset. Hall demanded that she stay away from him, but Maya reminded him that they were in a dream, so there was nothing to be afraid of. Hall tried to protest that his heart condition would kill him from the excitement, but Maya again clarified that none of the excitement in the park was real, excitedly telling Hall that he could do all the things he couldn't while he was awake. Hall once again began to protest, only for Maya to point out the cheering passengers on rollercoaster cars passing overhead. She then insisted that they go on the coaster, and Hall felt compelled to follow Maya, getting tickets and then boarding the coaster with her, despite knowing the experience would be fatal. As the coaster began moving, climbing over the first hill before dropping and accelerating, Maya began laughing, Hall's condition flaring up. Hall cried out to stop the ride, but Maya responded that it was too late. As the ride sped up, Hall screamed that he had to get out, and Maya began menacingly ordering him to jump. Hall then awoke, and realized that if he were to go back to sleep, Maya would likely push him off the coaster, or he'd simply die from the high-speed experience, and thus began taking medications to keep himself awake.
Four days later, Hall was still awake, his doctor referring him to therapist Dr. Eliot Rathmann, but Hall realized that if he were to stay awake much longer, the strain on his heart would kill him anyways. When he arrived in Rathmann's office, he was too tired to realize that the receptionist, Ms. Thomas, told him "We've been expecting you, Mr. Hall," just as Maya had. Afterwards, Hall told Rathmann about the dreams he had with Maya, noting that Maya seemed familiar, but he wasn't sure where he saw her before. However, after telling Rathmann everything, he felt that the therapist couldn't help him, and walked out of the office. However, the then got a good look at Ms. Thomas, and realized that she looked exactly like Maya. Terrified, Hall ran back inside, telling Rathmann what he saw, but Rathmann pointed out that the receptionist wasn't even named Maya. Regardless, overwhelmed by fright, Hall threw himself out the window and fell to his death. However, as it turns out, when Hall entered Rathmann's office, he fell asleep on the doctor's couch, and the events of him recounting his carnival dreams were nothing more than another dream. The fall out the window was the last fatal shock that Hall could take, and he had died in his sleep.
While the last vision of Maya that Hall saw, seeing Maya as the therapist's receptionist, was just an extension of his dreams with her, the real Ms. Thomas did in fact share Maya's visage, and Maya appeared to know exactly what Ms. Thomas would say when Hall entered the building. Her unexplained abilities to casually be aware of her own dream-generated existence, appear in different visions, and somehow know the future, as well as having the appearance of someone Hall had yet to meet, makes Maya's true nature unclear, but if she was truly nothing more than a figment of Hall's imagination, then she was erased with his death.
