Growing up as a kid I watched the Twilight Zone on television every so often. My family stopped paying for cable when I was around 12 years old and decided to purchase an antenna with a few channels on it instead. One of the channels offered on that antenna showed all of the classic older shows such as The Stooges, Leave it to Beaver, Bewitched, etc. It also turned out that the Twilight Zone was one of those shows as well, and I was particularly drawn to this show in comparison to some of the others. Just recently I began to watch the show again, and the way I interpreted the episodes now compared to when I was younger is completely different. As a sophomore in college and an aspiring psychology major, I have put together some interesting psychological take aways from a select few episodes. I absolutely love the concept of this so called twilight zone that we as human beings can unexpectedly enter into. Digging deep into the abyss of the human mind is one of the most fascinating things to learn about and I feel that this show offers great abstract scenarios to ponder upon. This is all my educated opinion and by no means am I even sure if my interpretations are correct, but it is interesting to come up with theories and your own analysis of certain scenarios, especially within the dimension of the Twilight Zone.
In this article I will be analyzing and discussing my take aways from two episodes I recently watched.
1. A Stop at Willoughby- This episode of the series is from season one and begins with a man who works a highly stressful job, goes home to a demanding wife, and dreams of being in a different world. The man, Gart Williams, finds himself in a world that is not fit for him and his personality. The world moves too fast. There are enormous amounts of stress and competition, and Gart himself says his personality is not built for any of that. His wife has certain expectations of him that are just not possible for him to accomplish, and when he conveys that to her she ridicules him and leaves. At one point, the man is at work completely overwhelmed and finally reaches his breaking point. He calls his wife in desperation for help, but she leaves him in his weakest moment. Following that, Gart gets on the train to go home. Now days previous, Gart had fallen asleep on the train twice and dreamt of a utopian 1800s town called Willoughby.
