Dreams for Sale
"Dreams for Sale" | |
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The Twilight Zone episode | |
Scene from "Dreams for Sale" | |
Episode no. |
Season 1 Episode 2, Segment 2 |
Directed by | Tommy Lee Wallace |
Written by | Joe Gannon |
Original air date | October 4, 1985 |
Guest actors | |
Meg Foster : Dreamer | |
"Dreams for Sale" is the second segment of the second episode of the first season (1985–86) of the television series The Twilight Zone. A woman (Meg Foster) finds that a relaxing outdoor picnic with her family is nothing more than an escapist fantasy being beamed directly into her brain.
Plot
On an idyllic outdoor picnic with her husband and their daughters, a woman becomes confused and disoriented when sounds and sights begin stuttering and events repeat themselves. She awakens and discovers she is in a futuristic dream-making machine alongside hundreds of others in a sterile, industrial environment with no view of the outdoors. A technician explains to her that she was in a Dreamatron "Fully Interactive Dream" machine, running a "Country Picnic" program.
He fixes the circuit board for her dream bay and tells her to relax and enjoy her last six minutes before returning to work. Apparently, her mind somehow fixed herself in the other life, and not her real life. Still confused, she returns to her dream world and relaxes again in her fantasy, but the machine burns out before technicians can disconnect her, trapping her in the alternate reality forever. All they can do is sadly note, "At least she died happy..."