Glossary of Academy Terms

Six (plus one) layers of reality stacked on top of each other like floors. The first is the physical world everyone sees. The sixth is the level where the observer is formed. The seventh is under question.

The physical world. The top layer of the stack. What you see when you open your eyes. Stable, convincing, and — as it turns out — not the only one.

A mechanism that blocks roughly ninety-six percent of incoming information. Installed in every human brain. A feature. Without it, the brain overheats.