Beyond the Screen: Is Fiction Revealing Our Hidden Reality?

In an era saturated with streaming content, it’s easy to dismiss the latest television series as mere entertainment. But what if the growing obsession with fantastical realms, immortal beings, and time-bending narratives is more than just a fleeting trend? In this thought-provoking piece, Naa Shormeh Roar (Augusta Sarah Wulff) dives into the speculative undercurrents of popular shows from Netflix, Marvel, and beyond.

I just cannot seem to stop wondering—hmmm. Is the growing flurry of television series merely a ploy to entertain, or a quiet attempt to awaken us to something we’ve forgotten? Something we’ve perhaps buried so deeply in myth, we now call it fiction? Where once foreign series centred on love, war, crime, and ancient empires—anchored firmly on the Earth we know—modern stories now glide between realms. Netflix, Marvel, Freeform, Disney, and other creators have tilted the camera skyward, inward, and beyond. They offer us portals cloaked as screens. And I’ve found myself drawn in—more so than ever. These stories, I crave them. They speak to something unspoken. I dream of the characters. I feel I’ve met them before. I wonder if, perhaps, I have.

The Shift: From Earth to Elsewhere
We saw the first tremors in the late 1990s. In The Terminator, a machine from the future returns to alter our present. In The Matrix, Neo learns his world is a coded illusion. That iconic moment—Morpheus offering the red or blue pill—is not just a plot point. It’s a mirror. Would you really want to know if your life was an illusion? Would you choose to wake up… or stay comforted by the lie?

And so the ripple grew.

Of Vampires, Compulsion, and Immortal Sorrow
In The Originals, we meet the first vampire family: the Mikaelsons. Klaus, Elijah, Rebekah—they are beautiful, immortal, powerful. They can compel humans to obey, heal from any wound, and live eternally. And yet, they are broken. Klaus is haunted by his hybrid nature. Elijah clings to honour. Rebekah longs to grow old—something her immortality will never allow.

Is immortality a gift or a curse? If pain and memory never fade, what becomes of the soul? Could vampires be real—not just as folklore, but as the misunderstood remnants of something ancient?

In real history, graves in Eastern Europe were once staked, dismembered, or buried face-down to prevent the dead from returning. The case of Mercy Brown in 1892—her body exhumed, her heart burned—tells us that belief in vampires wasn’t just myth. It was fear. Desperation. An attempt to explain the unexplainable.

Outlander: Love Across Centuries
In Outlander, Claire Randall—a 20th-century nurse—falls through time. Through ancient standing stones, she lands in 1743, amidst war, blood, and prophecy. There she marries Jamie Fraser, a Highland warrior. As the doomed Battle of Culloden approaches, Claire is forced to leave him behind. On the eve of that devastating war, she travels through the stones once more—returning to the 20th century, carrying Jamie’s child in her womb.

What’s haunting is not just her journey—but her knowing. She knows history. She knows who dies. And yet, she must live it. Is it possible that time is not linear at all? That we are living pasts we’ve not remembered yet? What if déjà vu is the mind recalling a life it has already lived?

Dreams vs Reality: The Sandman and the Mind’s Other Life
In The Sandman, the Dreaming is not a fantasy—it is a kingdom. Ruled by Morpheus, it contains our fears, our forgotten memories, and sometimes, our destinies. When he is imprisoned, the waking world begins to collapse. Episode 5, “24/7”, shows a world without lies—where people in a diner speak only truths. The result? Violence. Chaos. Madness. So, is our sanity dependent on illusion? Are we dreaming now, believing we’re awake?

Children of Two Worlds
There is a recurring theme—hybrid beings. Caught between the human and the supernatural. Hope Mikaelson, daughter of a vampire-werewolf hybrid and a powerful witch. Sabrina Spellman, half-mortal, half-witch. Her daughter, Brianna, was conceived in the 18th century but born and raised nearly two hundred years later—in a modern world shaped by science and memory, yet forever tethered to a past she never lived. These characters often hold balance between realms. They are keys. They are threats. Could we be hybrids too—of spirit and flesh, memory and myth? Are the limits of humanity not in our bodies, but in what we refuse to believe we are?

Technology as Portal
In The Matrix, machines rule and the “real world” is code. In Travelers, future consciousness is sent into present bodies via technology. In The Flash, time is torn apart by advanced tech and moral failure. These shows suggest that magic and machinery are two sides of the same coin. That spells may one day be written in binary. If consciousness can travel through code, is the soul just data? And if so, who is programming us?

Religious Symbolism: Blurred Lines Between Good and Evil
In Lucifer, the Devil seeks therapy. God is fallible. Angels fall in love. In Shadowhunters, Nephilim fight demons while hiding their own darkness. In Sabrina, Lilith is not evil—she is exiled. She is power redefined. Perhaps heaven and hell were never places, but states. Perhaps demons are simply rejected angels, and gods are what humans need them to be.

Are we worshipping old stories, or living in new ones? What if the divine is not above us, but watching… waiting… within?

The Role of Women in the Unknown World
They are dreamers. Portals. Witches. Queens. They are mothers of chosen ones, lovers of gods, leaders of rebellion. Claire travels time by instinct. Sabrina balances death and life. Lilith is reborn in every realm. Eleven rips open gates with a scream. Brianna crosses centuries for truth. Why are women always the bridge between dimensions? Is the feminine not just life-bearing—but world-bearing?

Death, Immortality, and the Cost of Return
In these shows, death rarely means the end. Vampires rise. Ghosts guide. Travelers inherit the living. In The Sandman, Death is a sibling—gentle, necessary, inevitable. But what is truly frightening is not dying. It is returning different. It is being remembered wrongly. Or not at all. What happens when we die in one world? Do we awaken in another? Is the afterlife just the next screen… buffering?

So I Ask Again…
Are we simply watching stories? Or are the stories watching us? Could fiction be memory? Could dreams be warnings? Could fantasy be the only honest version of history? Is there another Earth that we do not know of? Is there life beyond this one—or other dimensions we are yet to understand? Could we be the shadow selves of someone else, living inside their sleep? And if you could cross over… would you ever want to come back?

© 2025 Naa Shormeh Roar (Augusta Sarah Wulff). All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without prior written permission of the author.