Can cats control us with their eyes?

I have discovered my cat doing something strange when I'm asleep,
now here's some history.
She likes to play fetch with her toy mouse when everyone else is asleep but this means that she has to find her mouse, bring it to bed then get me to throw it away for her again!
This means she has to awaken me from my restful slumber at about 5.30am, she has in the past used a range of tactics:
Crying for attention, this stopped when I got used to the noise and didn't wake up.
Then came the "skin pick" technique which involves one claw and the removal of a small amount of skin from an exposed area of me, this was and still is very efficient as not only does it wake you up but you will stay awake for a while from the anger, pain and itching caused by the wound this runt of an animal can cause!! But I would not be defeated in my quest for a good nights sleep so I would atomatically pull the bed covers over me when I would hear her coming up the stairs.
Now this was all working out fine, I slept with all of me under the blankies and she annoyed the other cat instead.
Ok, you are almost up to speed, just one piece of information, when we got our little Awen as a small kitten she would stare at you all the time and we used to joke about how she could stir your soul with her eyes.
So for the last few weeks I've been waking up at 5.30am for no apparent reason OR SO I THOUGHT, this morning the other half was already waking up cause he could hear F1 cars on the TV, and he witnessed the strangest thing, Awen sitting opposite me just staring at me for about 10mins, then I opened my eyes and there she was, where she has been for the last few weeks, sitting one foot away from me, she has the power to wake me with her eyes!