I've never managed to lucid dream; to realize a mirror's not a mirror and to grasp at reality's curtains. For all I know, all dreams were actual realities, truly inhabited, their illusion of free will laid bare for the farce that they are.

When Sleeper woke up on Erlin's Eye, so did I - a new dream, a new reality.

Citizen Sleeper has this entrancing, hypnotizing quality - in no small part due to its soundtrack - that wraps around you, integrates you in its environment, convinces you that it is real.

For you look at them through an interface, and they look at you through an android. They're not real to us, and we're not real to them. But even despite these obstacles of synthetic cables and electric signals, there's still warmth in there. In the sharing of stories.

And with this warmth comes intimacy, and with this intimacy comes belonging. When Sleepers first arrive, they're aliens, refugees, neighbors by necessity. You need this labor, I need this drug. Dependency is a shackle, and as such, we're forced together.

For a long time, I resented dependency. Ever since I was diagnosed with diabetes, I've resented depending on drugs produced by corporations. The struggle to obtain it. The looming dread of knowing that, if they wanted, they could just stop production one day, and I couldn't to do anything about it.

We're all part of society, sure, but with medical dependence, you're truly unable to even function away from industrialization. Technology is your savior. Technology is your curse. Self-sufficience will never be in your grasp.

So you latch onto others. Despite the alienation, you smile. You open up. And you hope for the best.

That's the beautiful contradiction at the core of Citizen Sleeper. How much do you open up? How dependent should you be on others? How fragile is this connection, how breakable is this community?

Lem's trust in you to take care of Mina. The Gardener's offer to untether yourself from pain. Moritz' second chance with Bliss. The Singers breaking away from the Hearth.

We all want connection. We all want freedom. You gain one, you lose the other. A careful dance. An uneasy navigation. But as the Sleeper, you'll never truly have both -your android nature creates a wedge between you and any human. And your dependence on Essen-Arp shackles you to a provider.

...I don't think there is a definite answer to this question. It doesn't even make sense for one to exist. But I think this game made me understand better my feelings on the matter.

Independence is nice, but... I don't mind depending on a community. On connecting with others, even for a brief period. Even if we never see each other again.

We're all floating in this beatiful sideral ocean we call life, ocasionally bumping into each other, orbiting one another. This game, it just, it really makes me want to believe we're all trying our best. That we can do this. That I should persist.

"To persist is to believe that a future, any future at all, is possible."