Are We Just NPCs? The Simulation Theory That Might Break Your Mind

What if your entire life was just a background story? What if your thoughts, dreams, and choices were nothing more than lines of code in an advanced simulation? Sounds crazy? Maybe. Or maybe not.

The other day, I was walking down the street when I suddenly stopped. I felt like I had done this exact thing before—same street, same people, same thoughts. Déjà vu? Or was it something else? A glitch in the system? What if our entire existence is just a game—one in which we’re all non-playable characters (NPCs)?

The NPC Dilemma

In video games, NPCs are background characters with limited responses and predictable behaviors. They exist to add depth to the world, but ultimately, they don't have control over their actions. Now, imagine that we, too, are trapped in a simulation—our lives, decisions, and routines programmed for us.

Why do we follow societal norms so blindly? Why do most of us wake up, work, eat, sleep, and repeat, day after day? We like to believe we have free will, but what if that’s just an illusion designed to make us feel important?

Glitches in the System

If we truly lived in a simulation, there would be glitches—moments when reality doesn’t quite make sense. These “glitches” are things we often dismiss, but what if they’re the evidence we need?

Déjà vu: Could this be a loading error in the system?

The Mandela Effect: A collective false memory, like people misremembering the spelling of Berenstain Bears or a movie called Shazaam starring Sinbad. Could these be evidence of system updates rewriting history?

Unexplainable coincidences: Have you ever thought of someone, and they suddenly called you? Maybe it wasn’t fate—just an algorithm at work.

"Glitches" in real life: Some people claim to have seen birds frozen mid-air, pedestrians disappearing when they look away, or numbers repeating unnaturally. Could these be coding errors in the simulation?


Who Are the Real Players?

If we are NPCs, then someone must be playing the game. But who?

Are they advanced beings running an experiment on us? Are we entertainment for a higher-dimensional civilization? Or are we part of a vast, multiplayer experience, where only a select few have actual control?

Think about it:

Some people seem to have incredible luck, while others struggle endlessly. Maybe the lucky ones are real players, and the rest of us are just background noise.

The wealthiest, most powerful people could simply be those whose players bought in-game perks, while the rest of us are stuck on default settings.

Some individuals seem to have "plot armor," escaping danger effortlessly. Maybe they have extra lives.


Can an NPC Break Free?

The real question is: If we are NPCs, can we wake up? Can we become aware of the system we’re trapped in?

In most video games, NPCs can only act within their coded limitations. But what if an NPC suddenly started questioning the game itself? Maybe that’s what philosophers, artists, and deep thinkers have been doing for centuries—searching for cheat codes to reality.

Perhaps enlightenment, meditation, or psychedelics allow us to momentarily glimpse the truth—that we are living in a construct, and someone else is holding the controller.

What Does It All Mean?

If life is a simulation, does that make it meaningless? Or does it set us free?

After all, if nothing is real, we can make our own rules. Maybe that’s the ultimate way to break free from our NPC status—by refusing to play the game the way it was designed.

Or maybe, just maybe, the person controlling you is watching right now, smiling, knowing that you've just begun to question everything.