The SIMULATION
what if reality is not real?
Overwhelming evidence suggests that we live in a simulation - this movie might be your red pill
What if I told you that nothing you know about this world is real? Your home, your pet, your partner - even your body - are just a simulation, just like in The Matrix. And what if I told you that leading neuroscientists, physicists, philosophers, and even Elon Musk believe this is not only possible, but likely - with compelling evidence to support it? From Hinduism’s concept of Maya (“the great illusion”) and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, to revelations of quantum mechanics and the 2003 famous Paper by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom that that framed the Simulation Hypothesis as a serious academic argument - the idea that reality is an illusion has echoed across cultures and eras. Now, as AI brings us closer than ever to creating entire artificial worlds, that ancient question becomes urgent.
The Simulation dares to challenge the most basic assumption of human existence - the reality of reality itself. It fuses the insights of pioneering scientists, radical philosophers, and spiritual guides with AI-powered visuals that not only construct rich, futuristic worlds exploring what might exist “outside the simulation,” but also weave a central narrative thread - suggesting that AI itself could be the hidden programmer.
At the heart of this search is filmmaker and journalist Kaitz Brebner who goes on a deeply personal quest when subtle cracks in his perception make the question impossible to ignore. Some encounters electrify him - a physicist unveiling particle experiments suggesting reality exists only when observed, an AI pioneer demonstrating simulated worlds indistinguishable from life, some point to psychedelic experiences as fleeting glimpses beyond the Matrix - Others challenge him directly, dismissing the hypothesis as poetic allegory or a dangerous distraction. As he descends into the “rabbit hole,” each encounter - whether with a renowned human expert or an AI-generated persona engaging him in profound, sometimes unsettling conversations - becomes both a revelation and a test, pulling him toward both discovery and danger. Cryptic warnings hint that uncovering too much could sever his link to reality, while the psychological strain forces him to confront a darker possibility: the journey may not lead to truth at all, but to the unraveling of his own mind.
To embody abstract concepts like quantum physics, digital code woven into nature, or the disorienting sensation of derealization, the film employs a cinematic language of visual metaphors - macro cinematography, CGI, and innovative archival manipulation - creating a visual tension that mirrors the hero’s inner conflict.
A crisis forces the director - and, alongside him, the viewer - to confront a paradox so destabilizing it shatters his assumptions and changes his approach. The film moves beyond the binary question of whether we live in a simulation into deeper existential territory: if we are inside one, what is the purpose of its programmers? The Simulation proposes a vision less dystopian than other works exploring the theory, like The Matrix or Black Mirror, and offers a provocative hypothesis - that humanity’s enduring fascination with love may be a hidden clue to the simulation’s meaning.The film shines a new, technologically infused and mysterious light on ancient traditions like Buddhism and Kabbalah, revealing them as more relevant than ever - and to the tantalizing possibility that we are exploring the simulation from within the illusion itself.
"The Simulation" redefines spiritual awakening as recognizing we live within an illusion - from within the illusion itself. Like Buddha under the tree or Truman in The Truman Show, it asks us to awaken to deeper truths. It blurs the lines between science, spirituality, and speculative fiction, illuminating the theory through the lens of wonder, meaning, and human connection - offering a deeply human, thought-provoking existentialist perspective.
Can this film be your red pill?
Mission Statement:
By Director Kaitz brebner
The simulation hypothesis may be one of the most thrilling, disturbing, and consciousness-expanding ideas imaginable. The aim of this film is to offer the viewer a new perspective on their life, on the world around them - and to open a door to a profound paradigm shift. Throughout history, challenging foundational beliefs has led to perceptual revolutions: for example, the realization that the Earth is round changed humanity’s self-image within the universe. This film does not seek to convince the viewer that they live inside a simulation - but rather to offer the contemplation itself as a moment of awakening, a gateway to deeper understanding of existence.
When I first encountered the idea, during advanced film theory studies at Tel Aviv University, it seemed like a curious novelty - cool but far-fetched. Over the years, as artificial intelligence, VR headsets, and technologies like ChatGPT and Midjourney advanced, the possibility of living in a virtual reality indistinguishable from physical reality became increasingly tangible. Worlds once reserved for Black Mirror are coming to life. The simulation hypothesis has shifted from a fringe theory to a subject seriously explored by scientists, physicists, philosophers, and cultural leaders like Elon Musk - all of whom admit: this is a possibility that cannot be dismissed.
I’ve been a documentary filmmaker and journalist for over 15 years, working at the intersection of mainstream media and the worlds of spirit and consciousness. During a personal spiritual journey through Latin America, I became obsessed with the idea. I watched countless testimonies of near-death experiences in which people described an “even more real” world they encountered after clinical death. I discovered that ancient traditions have discussed similar ideas for millennia - in Hinduism, in Kabbalah, and in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. My own experiences with consciousness-expanding substances opened the possibility that our reality may be a simulation - not necessarily digital, but also not physical in the conventional sense, and far from the materialistic worldview that dominates science. Upon returning to Israel, I began working on a feature-length film that investigates the idea deeply - blending rational inquiry with spiritual exploration.
During development, I read dozens of articles, books, lectures, and videos - and was surprised that despite the hypothesis’ growing popularity, aside from the 2021 film A Glitch in the Matrix (which in my opinion didn’t fulfill the topic’s potential), there has yet to be a comprehensive, creative, and up-to-date documentary diving deep into the heart of the simulation hypothesis. Especially now - as the AI revolution transforms the hypothesis from a speculative idea into an emerging reality - this is the time to bring it to the center of cultural conversation.
I’ve decided to embed the idea within the visual language itself: interviews will be constructed and deconstructed through AI animation, locations will be generated in real time, and imagery will use the WarpFusion technique to destabilize the viewer’s sense of “reality.” I will undergo a filmed psychedelic journey with a shaman - as a lived exploration of the theory. A parallel narrative will unfold: a future in which people from the year 2500 visit 2025 as part of a simulated museum, seeking to understand what led humanity toward self-destruction.
Unlike most treatments of this topic, the film doesn’t portray the hypothesis as a conspiracy or threat - but as an opportunity. Perhaps the idea of the simulation is actually comforting: that we don’t live in chaos, but inside a story that someone (perhaps ourselves) wrote - and maybe there’s a purpose behind it. One fascinating theory suggests the simulation was built by future humanity after a nuclear or ecological catastrophe - to learn how to prevent the next disaster. And yes, the idea of Dr. Gideon Lev will be central to the film: that maybe love - the force that permeates songs, books, films, and memories - is the clue. If someone “wrote” this simulation, perhaps love is the theme we were sent to explore. And if this film plays even a small role in raising these questions - then I’ve done my part.
I don’t know if we live in a simulation - but I do know with certainty that it’s a question we must never stop asking. Because contemplating it may open our worldview to far deeper layers of existence.
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Treatment
The documentary film "The Simulation" presents a thrilling, revolutionary, and seemingly implausible idea-yet one that may be worth considering: the Simulation Hypothesis. This hypothesis posits, quite literally, that we are living inside a simulation, whether digital or otherwise. Once dismissed as wild science fiction, the simulation hypothesis is now a serious topic explored by scientists, philosophers, and thought leaders. What once paralleled Plato’s Allegory of the Cave has, in the age of artificial intelligence, VR, and virtual worlds, become an urgent existential question.
The film is born from a personal question that turned into an obsession for the director: Is it possible that everything I see, feel, and experience is part of an elaborate simulation? Are human consciousness, the sense of self, and the love we feel merely lines of pre-written code? And if so, what does that mean for free will, responsibility, and morality?
"The Simulation" is not a dark, conspiratorial, or threatening film. Unlike works such as The Matrix or Black Mirror, which portray a “cage” paradigm, this film asks: “What if we could understand the cage-and maybe live in it differently?” Rather than dwelling in paranoia, the film opens questions of meaning, freedom, love, and the possibility that reality is not what we think. If-even for a few minutes-we assume that what we experience is not the “true reality,” can we reorganize our inner world?
The Cinematic Approach: The Medium is the Message
The documentary structure intertwines rational investigation with artistic, psychedelic, and consciousness-based expression. The film will adopt a hybrid cinematic language that combines live interviews, archival footage, personal video diaries, and groundbreaking animation created with artificial intelligence. The simulation is not only the content-it is also the formal language. Scenes will not necessarily take place in real locations but will be shaped within ever-changing visual worlds where algorithms participate in the creative process. Interviews with experts will undergo visual transformation using WarpFusion techniques, blurring the line between reality and imagination and causing interviewees to "morph" into other figures-scientists, philosophers, digital avatars. In this way, the film creates an immersive viewing experience that reflects the concept itself, engaging the viewer in a sensory-conscious encounter with the simulation, not merely a discussion about it.
The backbone of the film is the personal journey of the protagonist, a director and journalist, who, in a reference to Neo from The Matrix, begins to question the nature of the reality he experiences. He is not a superhero, but a curious, skeptical, and vulnerable human being, inviting viewers to identify with him and ask the same questions. In parallel, a secondary plotline, animated entirely with AI, follows a child from the distant future sent into the simulation as part of a learning system. These two narratives, the real and the animated, will intertwine until they converge in a surprising conclusion.
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Part One: The Red Pill (approx. 30 minutes)
The film opens with a rapid montage of voices and images posing the central question. Different voices ask: "What if I told you that nothing you know about this world is real? Your home, your pet, your partner, and even your body are all computer simulations, just like in the movie 'The Matrix'."
We meet our protagonist and guide for this journey. Through personal video diaries and intimate footage, we learn of his obsession. He explains that this question, once a philosophical curiosity, has become an existential necessity for him. We see him in his study, surrounded by books, articles, and screens displaying clips on quantum physics, Hinduism, and artificial intelligence. He describes how synchronicities in his life, events where his thoughts seemed to influence reality, ignited the investigation. "Sometimes the world around us doesn't seem like an autonomous system separate from us," he says in voice-over. "It feels as if our thoughts and actions affect what happens. We think of a friend we haven't spoken to in years, and suddenly they call. Is it because we are all connected to the same 'server'?"
The official investigation begins. The director sets out to meet a series of experts to establish the theory. The first encounter is with Professor Nick Bostrom of Oxford University, the originator of the modern argument. Bostrom, in a calm and authoritative voice, breaks down his trilemma: "If you look back 40-50 years ago, we didn't have computer games at all... and today we have virtual reality platforms where millions of people cooperate... If our computing power continues to increase at the current rate, then in the not-so-distant future, we will have... virtual realities in which the avatars... will be so sophisticated that they might have the ability to think and feel as we do, and even have consciousness. Taking this into account, there are three options. One, that we will go extinct... Two, that we will never reach the technological ability to do something meaningful... The third possibility is if we don't go extinct and we do reach that technological possibility... what will we do with all this computing power?" He explains that future historians would want to run simulations of the past, and if that happens, the number of simulated beings would far exceed those in "base reality." His conclusion is chilling: "The odds that we're in base reality is one in billions."
To illustrate these ideas, the film cuts to AI-generated animation sequences. We see complex digital worlds, photorealistic avatars, and vast server farms running billions of simulations simultaneously.
From there, the director turns to the world of science and technology in Israel. Professor Raphael Malach from the Weizmann Institute of Science presents visual experiments demonstrating how our brain constructs reality. He shows the director an image and asks, "Does this look like it's coming out or is it indented?" After flipping the image, the director's perception completely changes. Malach explains: "What we can see here is actually how the brain is constructing what we see due to the prior knowledge that we have... What we experience is actually a compromise between what's really out there and what we expect to be out there." He continues by showing the director an image that looks like random blotches; after a brief exposure to a picture of a butterfly, the director suddenly identifies the butterfly within the blotches. "The sensory information is the same. Why are you now seeing something that you didn't see before?" asks Malach. "Because my expectation has changed," the director replies.
The investigation moves to the virtual world. Professor Doron Friedman, head of the Advanced Reality Research Laboratory, demonstrates to the director how VR technologies can destabilize the sense of self. The director dons a VR headset and finds himself in the body of a giant. "Wow, I'm so tall," he says. "I always wanted to be a bit taller. I think this is a little too much." Friedman explains, "You can control a virtual avatar as if it were you... It is very easy to 'work' on our senses of sight and hearing." The director then experiences a delay in his hand movements. "This is a manipulation of the sense of bodily self," Friedman explains. The director finishes the experiment and declares, "My sense of reality is shattered."
The film continues to explore the idea through different lenses. We hear the voice of Alon Neuman, a creator and author, who says, "We are tools in a game, just as we play in computer games... We are also patterns within something much bigger." Quantum physics enters the picture, with explanations of the "double-slit experiment" and the fact that observation changes the behavior of particles, suggesting that reality does not exist objectively until we look at it.
In parallel, we see the first animated scene of the child from the future. He is a young boy, his eyes wide with wonder, experiencing a simulation of ancient Egypt. He touches the pyramids, watches ceremonies, learns. This short, surreal segment serves as a visual echo of the director's journey, offering a glimpse of what might exist "outside the simulation."
The first part concludes with the director, and the viewer with him, beginning to take the hypothesis seriously. The idea is no longer preposterous, but a disturbing possibility backed by logical arguments and scientific demonstrations. The director stands before Neo's dilemma: take the blue pill and return to his life, or take the red pill and dive all the way down. He chooses the red pill.
Part Two: Doubts in the Matrix (approx. 20 minutes)
After establishing the theory, the second part challenges it. The director, true to his journalistic roots, seeks out skeptical voices. He meets Dr. Nir Lahav, a physicist and consciousness researcher from Cambridge. Lahav, with a resolute voice, argues that the hypothesis is a sin against the truth. "To say there is a simulation or there is a God-all of these are sins against the truth because we are so far from the real truth," he says. "Anyone who says they know the final answer is doomed to fail... You have to love the uncertainty, love the great mystery, because that means there is a reality that we have not yet understood."
The film explores the idea that the hypothesis may be just a metaphor, a product of its time. Throughout history, humans have used contemporary technology to explain the universe. Archival footage shows how, during the Industrial Revolution, the soul was compared to a steam engine. We see clips from the 1927 film Metropolis, which imagined the future as an industrial dystopia. Could it be that we are indeed in a simulation, but our computer metaphor stems only from our limited modern vocabulary, and its true nature is completely different?
Dr. Carmel Vaisman, a digital culture researcher, expands on the critique. She points out that the hypothesis has become a veritable belief system for many technologists, like Elon Musk, and has also been adopted by far-right groups and conspiracy theorists in the United States. "The philosophical hypothesis has become an actual belief for many technologists," she explains. "There is also a new religious movement that believes that we live in the Matrix, and this is a common belief among the new right and all kinds of extremists and conspirators in the U.S."
The director's doubts grow. He begins to wonder if he is chasing a profound truth or being swept up in a modern myth. He realizes his investigation must expand beyond conventional science. He meets Professor Meir Hammo, a philosopher from the University of Haifa, who distinguishes between the "brain in a vat" idea and Bostrom's innovation: "The illusion is not in relation to the experiences the brain in a vat has... but in relation to ourselves. We are in an illusion regarding our own soul, and this is the novelty... Not only is the external reality an illusion, but we ourselves are not real."
In parallel, in the second animated scene, we see the child from the future, now a teenager, experiencing the French Revolution. He is no longer just a passive observer; he begins to ask questions about the laws of the simulation, about suffering and freedom. He tries to intervene but finds he is constrained by the parameters of the program.
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Part Three: The Existential Crisis (approx. 20 minutes)
The intellectual crisis pushes the director into more extreme and esoteric territories. He understands that Western science is limited in its tools and seeks answers in ancient traditions that have asked the same questions for millennia.
He meets Asaf Ohion, a Kabbalah lecturer, who presents him with a mystical perspective. "It is true that we are in a reality that is a kind of simulation," says Ohion, "but it is not produced in a computer that is in a physical world... We are indeed inside a software/simulation/thought, this thought ties together everything that has happened and will happen during spacetime."
He meets Dan Russell, a hypnotherapist and former Buddhist monk, who summarizes the Hindu concept of Maya with simplicity: "Everything outside of our consciousness is an illusion, Maya, but what a wonderful dance it is."
The journey becomes more perilous. The director starts receiving strange messages on social media, anonymous warnings: "You must not expose the matrix. They might disconnect you. That's how people end up with sudden breath failure at night." Others warn that the film could drive people mad. The tension mounts: Is the director approaching a dangerous truth, or is he losing his grip on reality? We see him at night, unable to sleep, examining the shadows in his room, doubting his own senses.
To find an answer he cannot get from conventional science, the director decides to travel to South America to undergo a filmed psychedelic ceremony with a shaman-an experience considered by many to be a "gateway" outside the simulation. He meets Dr. Rick Doblin, founder of MAPS, who explains: "Psychedelics have a transformative potential to change our perception and provide deep insights into the nature of reality." We see the director preparing for the journey, once again leaving his family, this time with a greater sense of urgency and trepidation. This is the highest stake of his journey, a desperate attempt to break through the boundaries of perception.
During this part, the director also explores the limits of reality through other experiments. He enters a virtual world using a VR headset and "interviews" a bartender character named Victor, created by AI. "Victor, I'm having these concerns. I'm thinking that we might be living in a simulation," says the director. Victor, in a calm, synthetic voice, replies: "I understand that you're feeling concerned and have thoughts about living in a simulated reality... However, as an AI, I don't have personal beliefs or experiences." The unsettling conversation highlights the gap between human consciousness and artificial intelligence.
Part Four: The Awakening (approx. 30 minutes)
The fourth act is the climax of the journey and the integration of its insights. We experience the shamanic ceremony with the director. This is not a sensationalist scene, but a poetic and contemplative cinematic experience, combining intimate footage of the director in the rainforest with complex AI animation that visualizes the dissolution of his sensory perception. In this experience, the director does not "exit the matrix" but arrives at a new, paradigm-shifting insight.
He returns from the journey with a different perspective. The question "Are we in a simulation?" gives way to deeper questions: What is the purpose of the simulation? Are we the product of an AI we created, which is now trying to understand its creators? Are we part of an experiment by a post-apocalyptic future humanity, trying to learn from past mistakes to prevent self-destruction? Aviad Rosenak, an AI entrepreneur, raises the possibility: "We are between 3 to 10 years, and maybe up to 20 years, from getting there [AI with consciousness]... If we are really living in a simulation, and then we create a complex simulation like the reality outside, it could indicate that the reality outside the simulation is even more complex."
This is where the film introduces its central, hopeful thesis, presented by Dr. Gideon Lev. Lev argues that reality is not the result of a random collision of atoms, but that the simulation was written around a single, profound theme: love. "My conclusion," says Lev's voice over images of human intimacy, "is that it's an almost universal fact that the thing that gives people... value to their lives, satisfaction, meaning, is love... It's logical that in this simulation, love is the best thing the simulators wanted to capture." He adds, "If you trust the simulation and it encourages you to love more, then it's a great idea... I think it's a nice simulation. Maybe it's because I live in it."
This insight resonates with the words of Asaf Ohion on Kabbalah: "Outside the simulation, there is a quality of endless love, unconditional love and bestowal... The ultimate purpose of the program is for us to come out of the program and get to know the qualities or the intention of the programmer to raise us to a higher level of existence."
In this part, the film offers a renewed perspective on the idea of spiritual awakening: not an escape from the illusion, but the realization that we live within it-from within the illusion itself. Like Buddha reaching enlightenment under the tree, or Truman discovering the dome, it is a call to awaken to a deeper truth while still "stuck" in the simulation. Tali Appel, a philosopher of science, explains: "Spirituality is the ability to exit the simulation and understand the truth beyond it... Breaking the inner code is an understanding of who we really are, beyond the stories and the simulation we live in."
In the final animated scene, the child from the future, now a young man, returns to meet a mysterious programmer named Shekinah, who controls access to the system. She asks him, "What do you want to learn this time?" He answers, "I want to understand the system itself. How does this game really work?" She smiles and asks, "You wanna break the Matrix?" He replies simply, "I just want to make a movie."
As his pupils roll back, he re-enters the simulation-and his journey becomes the very film we are watching. The two plotlines converge. The protagonist and the futuristic child are the same soul, in a time loop, trying to understand the source code of existence.The film ends not with an answer, but with an invitation. The director, after his journey, understands that we may never get a definitive answer because the system is built to prevent us from knowing. But if we are here, we must engage with life fully, evolve, and progress through the "levels of the game." He returns to his family, this time truly present, and realizes that the search for ultimate reality has led him back to the only reality that matters-that of love and human connection.
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In an era where technology is advancing at breakneck speed, "The Simulation" invites us to confront uncomfortable truths about existence. It dares us to peek behind the veil of reality and reflect on the ultimate question: If our world is a simulation, what does it truly mean to be human?
Prepare to take the red pill-and dive into a world where reality is only the beginning.
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