Atman

An atman is the entire psychosphere of any sentient intelligence.

To our understanding, humans are born with clean atmans, without any form of psychic decoherence. From this atman, they experience the world within the confines of a mortal shell. Atmans are typically understood by their movement, the process of reincarnation. Not to be confused with the 'soul,' atmans encompass the emotional resonances cultivated in memories, the connections formed between concepts and ideas, memories themselves, the fundamental motivations of a sentient creature, and its consciousness.

Synthetic intelligences have atmans similar to biological creatures. In some instances, synthetics possess even greater emotional complexity than the average human.

Atmans may become revenants after many reincarnations - as vast portions of their psyche decay through psychic decoherence.

Consciousness
Atmans operate consciousness. When a living creatures is 'alive' and experiencing its environment, an atman exists in their body or a phylactery somewhere. Human beings are born with only one consciousness, and with an NI, this consciousness may transmit itself and control a device from afar, or be temporarily uploaded to a spiritual realm. The consciousness remembers whatever experiences it has while operating this other machine, meanwhile, the atman remains in the mind.

An example of this happening is when pagan catechists go to temple. Once they arrive, they assume a meditative pose, begin rhythmically chanting and loosening their connection to their mortal body. When the Imam opens the connection portal to the temple dimension, the Persian's NI allows them to follow them into the temple realm, where they manifest as an avatar while performing their religious duties. During the entire event, their atman has not moved - only transmitted their consciousness into the temple realm.