Several Matrix characters escaped the simulation by themselves, as in without external help like Keanu Reeves’ Neo received. While Thomas Anderson could feel that there was something wrong with reality, it was only thanks to Morpheus and his crew that Neo woke up from the Matrix. Neo was offered a choice between the Blue Pill and the Red Pill, the latter of which worked as a tracking program. Neo was just one of many people Morpheus and the humans from Zion helped escape from the Matrix.

The process through which a person wakes up from the Matrix without external help is known as self-substantiation. No case of self-substantiation happens on-screen in any of the Matrix movies, yet the expanded Matrix universe has many examples of it. Here is a breakdown of every Matrix character who escaped the simulation by themselves.

The First “The One”

In The Matrix, Morpheus tells Neo...