Soul

A soul is an object possessed by each individual human in the world. Everyone's soul is uniquely shaped by the individual's life experience.

## Appearance

The soul's form in the real world is depicted as a vague ball of light, though in illustrations it is depicted as a stylized heart. Once it leaves the body, the soul becomes a spirit and is able to take on the shape of its previous body, as demonstrated by Alison. In addition, the soul can be bonded to physical objects, as seen with the Dreamworld Entertainment animatronics.

## History

The concept of the soul and its uses was taught to Edmund L. Avidmiser by Xavier, though it was against code to do so. Despite being warned that humans should not tamper with souls, Edmund experimented with it and invented technology that the world had not seen before, with his studies being documented in the book he authored, "The Essence of Soul Energy." As Edmund's experimentations became more intense and the power went to his head, his interactions with souls began to monstrously transform his physical body. Litho went on to pass this information to Alison as well as Sara Covetman. In an attempt to reach immortality, Sara experimented with souls by putting various souls inside of the animatronic characters being developed for Dreamworld Entertainment.

## Soul Power and Essence

As described by the Watchful Eye Toys tape in Episode 7, Soul Energy is a form of power that can be harnessed from humans' raw emotions. The energy is described as the "most powerful resource in the world," being strong enough to create and power unheard of machines and allow for teleportation, transmutation, time travel, and immortality.

"Essence" describes the tangible energy of a soul that is used to create the Soul Energy resource. Essence is unique to the individual as it is shaped by the life experiences and the associated emotions of that person. Memory is the most defining feature of the human soul, each memory has different emotions attached to it, and each emotion creates a different amount of Essence. The strength of a soul is thus measured by how much Essence contained in it.

Memories can be grouped into three major categories: **Recollection, Reminiscence,** and **Rumination.**

* **Recollection memories** are comprised of the raw information gathered throughout life, such as facts or fictional stories that the individual has learned. Little emotions are invested in these memories, and as a result recollection memories produce the least amount of Essence.
* **Reminiscence memories** are memories of events that the individual lived through, the individual's personal history. The emotional attachments and nostalgia held by reminiscence memories provide an average amount of Essence and are described as a "strong middleman" between the other two types.
* **Rumination memories** are memories comprised of the raw experiences recalled by an individual in response to specific triggers, such as locations or other people. Rather than containing any actual information or events, rumination memories describe the strong emotions that were experienced in response to individual stimuli. As a result, rumination memories hold more Essence than any other type and are more desirable during Essence collection.

Acquiring a full soul requires killing a human and harvesting their soul, which has notably become more difficult in the modern day due to the development of modern surveillance technology. Twimblos are credited as a more discreet and ethical manner of acquiring Essence from small fragments that have been broken off of a human soul, though building up Soul Power through fragments and Essence is a slower process.