Dream interpretation: End of the world

Many people dream of the end of the world and get really scared, assuming they’ve previewed a coming reality, but, of course, dreams are symbolic. Here’s a short one posted to the one-day dream forum last month, followed by my interpretation.

Dreams of aliens and the end of the world. What do they mean?“I’ve been having constant dreams about aliens arriving, and/or aliens influencing our lives. I see end of world, panic, spaceships. But when I wake up, it somehow gives me a sense of beginning.”

My interpretation

You are dreaming of the end of the world as you know it – some aspect of your own private world or being that is coming to an end. No wonder you wake up with a sense of a beginning. We can only grow and change in the world for the better by ending some things so new things can begin. End old attitudes, so new attitudes can begin. End old personal world perspectives so new ones can begin.

And those aliens? Easy – parts of your being that you have alienated are coming back on board. You mention panic, so your dream suggests that a panic situation in the past caused you to dissociate from certain feelings or emotions and send them into your personal outer space. Because things are changing in your world now, you’re confident enough to face the old sense of panic and integrate these feelings into your being as you step into the future a more confident, calm, (unpanicked) person. Congratulations!

Read more short interpretations here.

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84 Responses to Dream interpretation: End of the world

  1. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Brook,

    You can relate to your dream reflecting the beginning of the end of a life situation ( a change), so start by identifying that situation. What feels like it is beginning to end? I would need to talk with you about your dream to help you meaningfully, of course, but the essence of your dream concerns healing, seen as the ‘beginning of the end’ of the way things have been since your daughter died. Grief is a long and complicated process, and while you will forever remember and miss your daughter, the process is one of making sense of the world, finding meaning and purpose, paths forward. Since you describe your dream as a reunion, it most likely reflects a reunion within yourself – an integration or coming together within yourself, ‘getting yourself together’ in a new way. Your dream highlights feelings of abandonment and loss (your son crying, leaving you), yet an assurance of healing, “everything would be okay”.

    Remember that everyone and everything in a dream reflects something about the dreamer, so look at the raw feelings here and note the sense of change, healing, reunion after feelings of loss, coming together, everything soon to be okay.

    Being five, I imagine your son may be about to start school, and if this is so you may be feeling grief and a sense of loss around that, which triggers your feelings around loss and grieving for your daughter. “Mommy would be there soon,” suggests you know a sense of ‘getting it together’ in a healing way is imminent. Change offers such opportunities to embrace life.

    I hope you can work with these beginnings, Brook. You might want to book a session with me so we can explore this more accurately and meaningfully, and find more guiding light.

    Jane Teresa

  2. cella says:

    I dream of collapsing building and the ground underneath me sagging, breaking representing end of the world. I am either standing on the roof of a building that starts collapsing like all other building around me or I am running for my life and earth behind me is breaking down into pieces. The dream always ends abruptly and when i wake up I take a breath of relief that it was just a dream. But I am this dream almost every week for last one year.

  3. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Cella,

    You might like this blog about earthquake dreams:
    http://www.janeteresa.com/on-solid-ground/

    Remember too that dreams reflect the last 24-48 hours, so this recurring dream is about something that’s been recurring in your life during this year (and it began one year ago).

    Jane Teresa

  4. Janki says:

    While i was dreaming it was raining outside so in my dream it was also raining and me and my dad and cousing were drinving somewhere and i my dad told me to give him some money which i was goona do but insead i ate some and it was a voucher to but ice cream soda. Then it suddenly went to me at home and watching t.v and i was at a car park before thet and me and someone else were asking people if they could swim because of all the rain. wE WERE THINKING THE WORLD WAS GOING TO END. I asked my grandma if she could swim and them myn mum and they said a little and i was like i’ll teach u. The day was also really dark and gloomy as if i was in som sort of scary creepy end of the world flick and thats what i felt like in the dream.

    Wow this looks like some jumbled words. I’m sorry but this is all i an remeber so its just like that Could you please tell em what it means, because i’m like really scared right now.

  5. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Janki,

    Thank you for your dream. This isn’t a place where I offer interpretations (I offer consultations for that), but you’ll get lots of clues about how to understand ‘end of the world’ dreams by reading through some of the dreams and comments on this thread. Remember that as you sleep you process your conscious and unconscious experiences of the last 24-48 hours. Look at the last couple of days for feelings that something in your life was coming to an end – not the world itself, but something else, a phase of your life, a way of looking at your world. You might like to read this article about why we dream:
    http://www.dream.net.au/aboutjane/about_dreams.cfm

    Jane Teresa

  6. jasmine says:

    I had a dream which began with me driving a car. I guess I was just joy riding trying to get away .. I was alone & it was dark outside & I pulled into a neighborhood & 2 girls & 3 guys asked for a ride & I drove them around & then when I took them back into the neighborhood it was early in the morning & they asked if I would stay w/ them & I said no & they got angry & started taking things out of my car… clothes & things which I made them give back. After this I was exaughsted & I said ok I guess its time to go home now & I was using my gps driving & I was going up a ramp & my car turned into an airplane then my gps kept saying I couldn’t go there & all I heard were police sirens & other planes all around me started to crash & cars were crashing & I was looking for a safe place to land but couldn’t find one. I thought it was the end of the world. I couldn’t find a place to land so I just went down & the plane crashed into the ocen & them I woke up…but I was still dreaming. I went to make sure everything was ok & I was asking my moms noyfriend were there some plane crashes & he said he didn’t know he would check the news & then I woke up for real…. what could this mean? It scared me.

  7. Betty says:

    Last night I dreamt that I was working out at the gym and my recent ex boyfriend (of 8 years, which I just recently heard that he was seen with another woman) happened to be there. It was raining really hard outside and it would not stop. It rained so hard that it started to cause tidal waves in the ocean, leading to the beginning of the end of the world. But instead of wanting to spend my last day(s) with my current boyfriend, I spent my last moments with my ex boyfriend. My current boyfriend was never even came up in this dream.

    What can this possibly mean? I am so confused… Can it be that our babies 3 year anniversary of my miscarriage is coming up? Or could it be the fact that I got really hurt when I heard that he was seen with another woman?

  8. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Jasmine,

    Thank you for contributing your dream. It was a scary dream, but read the article to remember that this kind of dream can be very helpful once you understand it. If you need more help with understanding your dream, you might like to book a professional consultation with me through http://www.dream.net.au/

    Jane Teresa

  9. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Betty, Ah those tidal waves of emotions, those feelings of being overwhelmed.

    Everyone in a dream represents something about you, so your ex represents the tidal wave of emotions that you felt at the time of the dream.

    You might like to read this:
    http://www.janeteresa.com/tsunami-dreams-and-dream-alchemy/

    Jane Teresa

  10. Mike says:

    I am 24 yr old male. I had a dream (minutes ago actually) where we all found out that the world was going to end from something like polar magnetic shifting or something like that. I remember crying and telling my family I regret I could never have children and grandchildren because the world was ending. Eventually, by the end of the dream, I remember we were surviving but it still felt odd. I can remember looking at the radar and seeing big orange blotches representing the O-Zone layer collapsing or something like that.

    I should note, I fell asleep after eating spicy food and watching a documentary about the bombings in Germany and Japan in World War II and fell asleep during a documentary about Hirohito in Japan. I also am a novice meteorology nerd so I often look at the radar for snowfall and rain.

    Thanks.

  11. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Mike, Thank you for your contribution. It appears that the documentary resonated with some personal feelings within about something in your life potentially ending, or, more accurately, shifting towards a different angle. What a neat demonstration of your dreaming mind coming up with personally significant symbols (meteorological) to represent these feelings.
    Jane Teresa

  12. Cindy says:

    Last night I dreamt there was a big party outdoors when suddenly we felt ourselves shifting from one side to the other -like being in a car going on curve streets.
    My mom and sister called me to show me this massive planet that was going to crash with the earth (I was hiding under a tent so couldn’t see much of the sky) and I went to see it and it was bigger than the sun but you could look at it directly. The whole sky was dark instead of this massive orange planet.
    Suddenly I felt really happy cause I thought to myself that I lived a long and fufilling life (eventhough I’m only 27) and that if the world was ending then I could say I didn’t miss out. I felt complete. I tried to rub on the same energy on my mom and my sister – I can’t remember what their reaction was- all I remember is that at the end I decided to look for my dad and my brother so we could all experience the end of the world together but before I could find them I woke up.

  13. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Thank you for your contribution, Cindy. It’s wonderful to acknowledge a sense of fulfillment and completion when things come to an end, or when we let go of the old to open the way for the new.

    Jane Teresa

  14. Leanne says:

    Last night I dreamt the world was ending.

    I was very calm about it. I sat down in my room to meditate, most people were in a partying panic. Kind of an odd behaviour wanting to be happy, but scared.

    I was wondering what it means?

    tks

    Leanne

  15. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Leanne,

    Many dreams, when you look into them, mention opposites. Yours has calm and panic. Those opposites give you clues about issues you’re processing in your dream as you work towards balance. Here’s an article about this that will help you:
    http://www.janeteresa.com/extreme-dreams/

    If you’d like to discover more about your dream with my help, you might like to book a consultation by skype or phone here:
    http://janeteresaanderson.com/consultations/phone-or-skype-consultation/

    Hope this helps.

    Jane Teresa

  16. Nate says:

    i was swimming in a backyard pool when suddenly there was an enormous tornado like thing. it wasn’t quite a tornado though. this was something else. perhaps black hole related. i grabbed the ladder of the pool to hold on. next thing i know we are being lifted into the air, just out bodies. i can feel that this is the end. i close my eyes and say “i love everyone” and then i felt it. it was the strangest feeling. my body was being broken down, sort of like professor Xavier in the third x-men movie when the phoenix killed him. now keep in mind, i didn’t actually see my body do that in the dream. but in the dream i just knew that’s what was happening. and i felt this like warp around my head and body. its so hard to explain how it felt. it sounded kinda like someone slid their finger down a bass guitar string. but it sounded much more epic and earth shattering. (BERRRROOOUUUU) after that i woke up but i wasnt sure that i was really alive. my eyes were still closed when i woke up and i was just trying to comprehend what had happened. it was the strangest and most real dream I’ve ever experienced.

  17. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Nate, Thank you for your contribution to End of the World dreams. Often people believe their end of the world dreams are previews of what will happen, whereas they are symbolic. It’s good to have such a great collection of dreams here illustrating a vast range of scenarios – just to prove the point!

    Jane Teresa

  18. Bobbi says:

    I will start with some background. I’m a 29yo female, married with a 3yo son and I’m also 15 weeks pregnant.
    My dream started off with my son Carson and I hiding with a bunch of people at a bank. There were bad people outside trying to break in with m16s and rocket launchers etc. I was able to escape with Carson to my aunts house. (In real life, she has not lived in this house in close to 15 years.) some of my family is there, a couple aunts, my grandma, one of my sisters and Carson and I. It is around Christmas time. We know something bad/weird is going on with the earth. Carson and I go and lay on the couch and I’m trying to get him to sleep. The phone rings and my aunt talks to someone and then she says “another 75 people have moved now and we should to. The wind is going to be powerful enough to kill us.” Behind her is a wall of windows and I was able to see how grey the sky was and then instantly I heard an extremely loud crack sound and the sky became so white and made everything else white. It was to bright to look at. I turned my head and covered my son and started praying for God to keep Carson safe and to not have him be in any pain. If this was the end of the world I didn’t want him to suffer.
    I woke up and was actually praying and mouthing the same thing.

  19. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Bobbi, Thank you for adding your dream to our collection of ‘end of the world’ dreams. So often people think their dreams about the end of the world are predictive – a view of how the world will end’ – and so it’s really helpful for people to read such a variety of ‘end of the world’ dreams. It helps illustrate that these dreams are symbolic (and are about the dreamer’s personal life), since, if they were predictive, they’d offer similar scenarios.

    Your dream refers to 15 plus years ago, and/or to what your Aunt’s house (and her leaving it) mean to you. I love the bottom line of your dream: “If this was the end of the world I didn’t want him to suffer.” That’s true of life, isn’t it – that when things change for us (when an aspect of our life comes to an end) we pray that we will not suffer too much pain as we ‘let go’ and ready ourselves to welcome a new phase into our lives. (If you’d like to explore this with me, you might like to book a consultation.)

    Jane Teresa

  20. Darren says:

    Last night I had one that felt quite extreme.. I was at my old primary school sitting around on the schools playground with my little brother waiting to pick my sister up from school. I remember looking up at the sky suddenly which looked like had solar flares if you will from the sun bursting in the sky. And suddenly from a distance there is lava everywhere like a volcano had erupted or something. The lava had surrounded me and my brother on the play ground but we managed to jump off far enough not to get killed. My brother landed in it but I grabbed him straight away and carried him while running away from the lava across the school oval as his legs had been burnt to crisp. Out of nowhere my little sister appeared and kept screaming run. As she ran into the school gym with the rest of a lot of other people. The lava began to crawl faster towards us. I remember having to run the opposite direction from the gym and having to run through a lake to get out the front of the school and the gym where my sister was. Wading through it the water began getting hotter and hotter as lava was beginning to enter the lake. Finally we got out and ran to the front of the gym to get our sister. Waiting and calling her name the gym doors never opened. Then I put my brother on the ground and woke up from this dream.

    I know this is quite a long story but I remember everything. It was a strong dream And i wake up wondering..

  21. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Darren,

    Thank you for adding your dream. Remember that dreams reflect the last 24-48 hours, and include references to the past when those recent experiences resonate with similar experiences in your past. If lava had a feeling, what would it be? Angry, erupting, boiling over? Did you experience those feelings just before your dream (you may have expressed them but more than likely you tried to run from them)? Think about how these feelings and the way you deal with them connects back to your primary school days. (This is not an interpretation, just a starting point for you.)

    Jane Teresa

  22. Moshel says:

    I had a dream on the afternoon of this past Easter Sunday of the world ending. This was a dream inside a dream – you know, where you wake up but you’re still dreaming? This has never happened to me before, even though I’ve had one other dream about the end of days. I’m a preacher’s daughter and had a very religious upbringing but do not buy into all of the recurring ‘end-of-the-world’ propaganda. I believe it will come as a surprise, like a thief in the night and may or may not be in our lifetime.

    With that being said – this dream shook me deeply and disturbs me still. In the first dream, I woke up late from my nap, arrived at my boyfriend’s parents’ house late for lunch, and after we ate, we went outside for a smoke. The sky looked dark like a bad storm was coming in. A weather alert popped up on my boyfriend’s phone so we all gathered in the hallway and braced for the storm with a mattress. I peeked around my children to look out the window and saw the huge tornado circling right outside, but it started to slowly open and rays of light were shining down, spreading, getting brighter, and destroying everything in their path. I told the family we need to get in the car and drive away as fast as we can. We all piled in the car while a family member drove away from the spreading light, I prayed over my kids and was squeezing them in the backseat as the light finally reached us and destroyed the car and our bodies. I ‘woke up’ just as this was happening and was telling my boyfriend about my dream as the entire scenario played out again. I kept telling him that this is exactly what I dreamt about. (I was still dreaming.) This time though, we never made it out of the hallway, but everything repeated itself. We were killed just as the light was reaching the house. When I awoke – really awoke – I felt dread and doom and sadness, fear, confusion and more feelings I can’t describe. I’ve tried to tell a minister about it, but he couldn’t offer any useful information. My father passed away last year, and he was astounded at the dream I had a few years ago. It was similar, but i was being pulled upwards by my chest into the light of the sky.
    I just wanted to tell people about this, don’t really need an interpretation, but I’ve been reading posts looking for someone that has had a similar experience.
    I have NEVER woken up inside a dream before. Perhaps this was what freaked me out the most, felt so real.
    Thanks for reading.

  23. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Moshel,

    Thank you for contributing your dream. I hear what you say about your experience of having a dream within a dream freaking you out the most. Here’s a funny but, as it turned out, very insightful dream-within-a-dream that I had years ago:
    http://www.janeteresa.com/dreamtime-tea-time/

    Jane Teresa

  24. karina says:

    Hi. I just woke up from an end of the world dream. I’ve had this dream maybe 3 times now. It is not exactly the same everytime but the way the world is ending is the same. In my dreams the end comes progressively. First by the earth getting super close to the moon and other planets meaning that earth is going to vanish from under us. In my dreams I am always in a panic and scared. This time it went further tome expecting aliens to all of a sudden come and help us. I woke up with no help from the aliens. I hate having these dreams but I feel that something in my life needs to change. I think that because in my dream I always feel like I need more time to be with familu instead of having stressed aboutdumb stuff. I dont know really why I have these dreams but they are scary.

  25. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Karina, Thank you for adding your dream to this thread. It sounds like you know exactly what this dream is about from your comments. Remember that dreams reflect the 24-48 hours before the dream, so for each of these three occasions look back over the previous two days and see what they have in common.
    Jane Teresa

  26. Alan says:

    I am a 34 year old male. I have just woke. Up from a dream where I was at work it was sunny outside when all of the sudden it became dark and then we saw a great light out the window. We couldn’t stop starring at it. As it became brighter and brighter I was More scared. I hid under a desk when a chunk of ice the size of a small car Came through the window. It started to snow in the summer it was very cold. ( now I’ve been an EMT for 10 years. ). I went outside to where I was met by 4 firefighters doing random checks. I told the fire chief everything I saw and where the ice was they used a thermal scanner on the ice to find out it was -6000 degrees Fahrenheit. The female firefighter had something behind her ear I noticed it and she became unresponsive to which I could not help her. We started to work her up and I woke up.

  27. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Alan, Thank you for your contribution. Dreams often have a pair of opposites. In your dream there’s fire and ice: hot and cold. Very hot, and very cold n your dream! Although we’d have to spend an hour to really look into your dream properly (a professional consultation), you might like to think about emotions, hot fiery (angry?) emotions, and cold (unresponsive, like the woman in the dream) emotions. You were probably battling these extremes in the couple of days before your dream, trying to find balance in expressing yourself.

    Jane Teresa

  28. Rasa says:

    I often have dreams about my violent death or the end of the world. The end of the world is never from a natural disaster; it’s generally that humans go mad and try to kill one another. Yesterday I dreamed that someone was trying to kill me. A teacher helped me by locking me in a room away from the man, but the wall disappeared and he was nearby, so I jumped from an open window and ran away through a forest. There was still danger, so I ran around and went back into the school and found a quiet room inaccessible to most people, but several girls were able to infiltrate it. I had to leave there and ran to my home, where I saw my sister (who was, strangely, wearing a white wig). I was about to take a shower then continue running when I woke up.

  29. ciera says:

    The dream I had absolutely terrified me, in the dream the world was coming to an end and fire in comments were coming out of the sky like rockets hitting the earth destroying people everyone was trying to run for shelter but eventually they would get caught by fire comet. My sister and I were able to xscape somehow being lifted into the heavens by flying. I woke up sweating, then went back to sleep and have the same kind of dream, more people were injuredI woke up before the end. Really confused and scared by this dream!

  30. ciera says:

    Hi its Ciera again P.s Also I had a fear of getting hurt and not dying right away but suffering. ..

  31. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Thank you, Rasa, for contributing your dream to this thread.

    Jane Teresa

  32. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Hi Ciera,

    Thank you for adding your dream here. Sometimes, when we type out a dream (or talk about it), our unconscious mind adds a typo or a slip of the tongue that is meaningful. Instead of ‘comets’ you wrote ‘comments’. When you had this dream you had probably experienced some angry (fiery) comments (that felt like destructive comets) and had been trying to escape (like the way you flew to escape in the dream) the suffering these caused.

    Hope this helps.

    Jane Teresa

  33. Erica J. says:

    I dreamt that the world came to an end. It was not as dramatic as the usual ones you hear about, but it scared my nonetheless.

    I was in an unfamiliar house and it was fairly large. I don’t quit remember what I was doing there or how I got there (that is very normal for my dreams). All of a sudden, everything around me went deafening silent. It was as if the world completely stopped. I looked out the window and everyone in the neighborhood had come outside and it looked like a scene from “The Happening”. I backed away from the window. Suddenly, I lost muscle in my body and fell forward. I immediately knew that the world was ending. I thought about my friends and family. I thought about the fact that I would never get to tell them that I love them, or get married and have children.I felt myself becoming nothing. It’s hard to explain. I just remember saying Jesus’ name over and over. I also, began to have doubts. I didn’t know what would happen. Was there a heaven? Was there a hell? What I saw was like the red pictures you see of outer space. I felt myself traveling. I awoke shortly have that, but I had dreamt long enough for it to scare me.

    I thought this had to be a message from God. I have decided to renew my religious beliefs and become closer with Jesus. I immediately thought God was trying to tell me to live a better life.

  34. Jane Teresa Anderson says:

    Thank you, Erica, for your dream and your thoughts about it. After experiencing a sense of helplessness and loss of identity in the dream, it must feel good to decide to live more fully, to live a better life.
    Jane Teresa

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