The End We Dreamed
Nightfall Apocalypse, the Series — Part 1
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There is more space between the molecules of the air around us, and the earth trembles beneath our feet, while technology turns us inward, into the vastness of ourselves. We are grounded by choice, not by anything else.
And if we weren’t so conscious, being alive would be terrifying.
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Apocalypse Now
It feels like the Apocalypse.
I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to worry, but the energy shifts are undeniable and daunting — if only because we are heading toward a place we’ve never been before.
Two major events briefly crossed my awareness: the flood in Valencia, Spain, at the end of 2024, and the L.A. fires of early 2025. I could smell them in my waking state but observed everything from the comfort of my safe space, many miles away.
Yes, I am an empath, but in my reality, nothing has changed. The real drama is rarely recorded and seldom broadcast, and nothing I have seen compares to watching The Impossible (2012)[1], about the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 with Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, or The Towering Inferno (1974)[2], the tale of an all-consuming fire on the opening night of a fictional 138-story skyscraper in San Francisco, with Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. More than entertaining, films like these help humanize and sensitize us.
In fact, The Day After depicted a Kansas town’s destruction so convincingly that President Reagan noted it changed his stance on nuclear arms, helping spur the 1987 INF Treaty[3][4]. Similarly, the British television film Threads portrayed the effects of nuclear war on the UK with such stark realism that it deeply affected both audiences and policymakers, shaping public discourse on disarmament during the Cold War era[5].
In the dream state, however, I directly experience the apocalypse. We all do.
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Apocalyptic Storytelling
Apocalyptic storytelling has ancient roots — from Babylonian myths to Judeo-Christian end-times visions, and even echoes in Greek drama and Norse mythology. Ragnarok, for instance, foretells the destruction and rebirth of the world, while ancient Greek tragedies often wrestled with divine wrath, hubris, and collapse. But modern apocalyptic fiction began in earnest in the 19th century[6].
One of the first modern examples of apocalyptic storytelling is Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826), which envisioned a future plague wiping out humanity. Then, authors experimented with cosmic collisions and unknown poisons — as in M.P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud (1901), where a lethal vapor leaves only one man to wander a dead world — and ecological vengeance, as in John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951), where humanity is blinded by a cosmic event and left to face the rise of aggressive, intelligent plant life.
These stories reflect the evolving fears of each era: 19th-century comet panics, 20th-century Cold War nuclear nightmares, and 21st-century climate crises and pandemics. They serve not just as tales of destruction, but as warnings and parables — asking what must die within us for something new to be born. Maybe.
The evolution of James Bond and Mission: Impossible is very telling. From Cold War espionage to bio-terrorism, rogue AI, and global technocratic threats, both franchises reflect the evolution of our collective fears: Bond moved from nuclear villainy to shadowy cybernetics, while Ethan Hunt’s missions mirror the growing complexity of global instability and systemic collapse. The enemy is no longer just a person — it’s a network, a philosophy, an existential mirror reflecting us back to ourselves.
Notably, technological apocalypses entered fiction well before atomic weapons became a reality: the first fictional atomic explosion appeared in 1895 in Robert Cromie’s The Crack of Doom, and H.G. Wells’ The World Set Free (1914) later imagined uranium-based “atomic bombs” — decades before the first real detonation, which occurred in Hiroshima in 1945.
And that, dear readers, is how we create reality.
The potential of the atomic bomb already existed — drifting in the dreaming landscapes. But it was our fear that pulled it through, anchoring it into reality.
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The End of the World
In The End of the World, I shared my view that humanity has been relentlessly tempting fate — reenacting its darkest fears, over and over, increasing the probability of their manifestation on Earth. And while this may be true, the reenacting serves a greater purpose, and manifestation through dreaming is that powerful — but not that literal. It is a dance between the Soul and the human, where choice and healing happen both in dreams and in waking life. We’ll get there.
In any case, there, and in The Dream Multiverses, I referenced the enormous creative body of work — in English — centered on global annihilation. There is no precise total count, but scholars agree it is vast. For example, a comprehensive 1987 bibliography by Paul Brians catalogued over 800 English-language novels, stories, and films specifically about nuclear war and its aftermath, covering the years 1895 to 1984 (Brians, 1987). If we include works with other apocalyptic causes — pandemics, climate disaster, cosmic impact, etc. — the total across English-language books, films, and plays likely runs into the thousands. Just imagine what can we find in other languages.
In short, apocalyptic themes constitute a significant and long-standing branch of speculative fiction (if we can call it that), reflecting humanity’s deep-seated anxieties about civilization’s end.
And this topic continues to stay in my awareness because the end is nearing — and now, this story belongs to a greater and more encompassing arc: Apocalypse itself.
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Frozen Manhattan
In my dream time, I have twice encountered apocalyptic potentials. One of those occasions came on March 2, 2006. I traveled into the future, to the very end of a dire timeline — and found a Frozen Manhattan:
“The surrounding islands seemed very much alive; from the air, at dawn, you could see the many dots of light coming from beach houses and villas, creating a charming contrast with the total darkness of the sea.
But in Manhattan itself, everything but the top floors of the skyscrapers was submerged in water — and most of it was frozen. Large cargo ships strenuously maneuvered through the only canal in sight, running right beside the buildings; other than that, even the waves seemed to have been locked in place by the iciness for eternity.
As remarkably apocalyptic as the whole thing was, there was an astounding beauty — and a feeling of awe rather than anxiety. From the private jet I traveled in, I regretted not having a camera.”
As I mentioned in The End of the World, the experience of watching any movie pales in comparison to the unique perspective and extraordinary realism of my dream. Its vividness echoes scenes from cinema — particularly Artificial Intelligence (2001)[7], where Manhattan lies submerged beneath a frozen ocean and the child David is awakened from the ice, at the sea floor, by otherworldly beings. That haunting vision — skyscraper peaks piercing through the sea, holding the last remnants of civilization, and a surrealist desolation — mirrors the eerie stillness I witnessed.
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89 Seconds to Midnight
As M.R. Carey noted in A Brief History of the End of the World[8], popular culture has been wildly imaginative in its visions of collapse — not just through asteroids and environmental disasters, but with alien invasions, zombie plagues, and other extraordinary scenarios. From the absurd to the prophetic, these tales mirror our fascination with endings — and with what might emerge from the ruins.
Yet sometimes, that imagination is sparked by reality. On February 18, 2025, NASA announced that asteroid 2024 YR4 had a 3.1% chance of striking Earth in 2032[9] By late March, that probability had dropped to a negligible 0.0017%. And unlike the 10–15 km-wide asteroid believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs, 2024 YR4 — at 40 to 90 meters in diameter — would “only” be capable of destroying a city.
But the real danger doesn’t come from the sky. Intelligence was already artificial — and mind, without soul, becomes corrupted.
“The dysfunction of the egoic human mind, recognized more than 2,500 years ago by ancient wisdom teachers and now magnified by science and technology, is for the first time threatening the survival of the planet.” — Eckhart Tolle[10]
The Doomsday Clock, created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists[11] after the nuclear bombings in 1945, symbolizes the likelihood of human-made catastrophe. It doesn’t measure time, but expresses threat through metaphor.
Set at 7 minutes to midnight in 1947, it’s been moved backward 8 times and forward 18. Its farthest from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991. And its closest?
89 seconds. As of January 2025.
A breath away.
Are these tragedies of biblical proportions coincidence or destiny? Are we heading toward our annihilation? Is my dream a confirmation of a daunting future? Why is the collective so endlessly drawn to apocalyptic stories? What, truly, is the Apocalypse? And is the end already unfolding?
This is only the beginning,
Aberdeem
Olivia M. Zenteno [Aberdeem] is a branding and business strategist. She is building A Thousand Dreams, a portal for dreamers all around the world. www.athousanddreams.world
Thank You
A special thank you note to all those who have kindly supported me in this endeavor; it is invaluable!
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The Invitation
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Background
If you want to know what this blog is about, you may want to read the following post:
If you want to know how the dreaming experience unfolded for me, you may want to read the following post:
If you care to learn about A Thousand Dreams’ origin and destiny, The Launch is the post. The idea came to me two years after I began writing and took shape and gained notoriety really quickly thanks to Adamus Saint-Germain and the Crimson Circle.
And if you want to have fun, take the quiz:
Other than that, in this blog you will find posts about many types of dreams and their relationship to our physical reality. Hope you enjoy them!
Reach Out
Contact me at aberdeem144@gmail.com. I will be happy to hear from you.
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References
[1] The Impossible (2012). Directed by J.A. Bayona. Starring Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor. Warner Bros. Pictures.
[2] The Towering Inferno (1974). Directed by John Guillermin. Starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. 20th Century Fox.
[3] The Day After (1983). British Film Institute. https://www.bfi.org.uk/ — Noted for influencing President Reagan’s stance on nuclear arms and contributing to the 1987 INF Treaty.
[4] The INF Treaty, or Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, was a landmark 1987 arms control agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. It required both nations to eliminate all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. It was the first treaty to actually eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons and included on-site inspections for verification.
[5] Jackson, Mick. “Threads: 40 years on”. The Guardian, September 15, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/sep/15/threads-nuclear-apocalypse-bbc-tv-drama-40-years-on-mick-jackson-interview
[6] Apocalypse. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse
[7] Artificial Intelligence: A.I. (2001). Directed by Steven Spielberg. Warner Bros. Pictures / DreamWorks SKG.
[8] Carey, M.R. A Brief History of the End of the World. Electric Literature. https://electricliterature.com/a-brief-history-of-the-end-of-the-world/
[9] Davis, Nicola. “Chance of giant asteroid hitting Earth in 2032 falls”. The Guardian, February 24, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/feb/24/chance-giant-asteroid-hitting-earth-2032-falls
[10] Tolle, Eckhart. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. Penguin Random House, 2005, p.23.
[11] Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Doomsday Clock. https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
