Mindlink

Mindlink (マインドリンク) is a concept in Digimon Seekers. It also appears in the  as a trait.

Abilities
Upon activating a Mindlink, the Tamer will fall unconscious in the real World with their mind transferred into their Digimon. If they cancel the Mindlink, it will return to their body.

During the trials, not all features had been created yet. The effects on people's body were also bad with Saya Ryusenji vomiting and defecating herself in front of everyone. As she did more and more Mindlinks her body got used to it and the side effects would be less severe. By the time Eiji Nagasumi began Mindlinking there were no known side effects on the human's body.

Mindlinking allows a Tamer to view the actions of their Digimon as though they are the Digimon themselves, though they cannot control their actions.

When linked with their Digimon they can hear each other's thoughts, allowing them to communicate. Whilst Mindlinked, the Tamer shares all of their Digimon's senses. For example, they can smell what their Digimon can smell. During the Mindlink trials though, only Saya Ryusenji was able to converse with her Digimon and no other senses were able to be shared at the time. To circumvent this, the testers used digital observation vessels to tell their Digimon what to do.

Though they cannot control their Digimon's actions, the Tamer still has access to a virtual monitor, which gives them various options. One of them is the ability to Hololize. Straying too far way from their Digimon whilst Hololized is dangerous. Hololizing allows the Tamer to interact with the World around them, including touching their Digimon partner.

Another function allows a Tamer to scan another Tamer that is Mindlinking to get information about them.

When a Digimon takes damages whilst Mindlinked, the Tamer's mental data takes and feels damage as well and it is possible for the Tamer to die whilst Mindlinked to their Digimon if it takes enough damage.

If a Tamer Mindlinks for too long, they will be unable to undo it and will become permanently trapped within their partner's DigiCore. For this reason, the DigiPolice set a time limit and Mindlinking for longer than this limit is against their rules. Becoming trapped like that also has the chance of killing the Tamer. The higher level the Digimon, the shorter the time limit is. A such, digivolving will lower the limit. The Sons of Chaos are also aware of the limit, and so also set a limit. Tomonori tells Eiji Nagasumi and Leon Alexander about the limit, and tells them not to exceed it. Even with these limits in place though, many Hackers have exceeded it and become trapped forever. Should someone become trapped, their body in the real World will fall into a coma and though they will still be considered to be alive they will be unable to wake up.

After Mindlinking with a Digimon, the Tamer and Digimon will be able to communicate with each other without having to Mindlink.

In the  it allows the Digimon Seekers Tamers to be placed under specific Digimon as a digivolution source to give those Digimon extra effects. At the end of the turn, the Tamer can be moved out of the sources, ending the Mind Link, which is similar to the time limit within Digimon Seekers itself.

Fiction
Tomonori Ryusenji wanted to one day explore the Digital World, though the only way he found he would be able to do so would be to transfer a human consciousness into a Digimon's DigiCore so that they could experience being there by seeing it from within the DigiCore. Wanting to experience all five senses whilst there, he began researching DigiCores in the hopes he could see his goal to come true. He found it was possible too, as other scientists were researching ways to convert the human consciousness and memories into data. There were even machines that would allow blind people to access sight, or deaf people to access hearing though the government had made it so that they couldn't move past research for around 10-20 years. Tomonori figured however, that since the Digital World was a different World, those rules wouldn't apply which lead him to focus his time on this endeavour and would focus on it even if it took him the rest of his life. To make sure no one would find out and stop him, the company researched it in secret.

Some time later, with Tomonori having been able to figure out how to it, he would have Saya Ryusenji become the first person to do a Mindlink — linking her mind with a Digimon — though the effects on her body were bad with her vomiting and defecating herself in front of everyone. As she did more and more Mindlinks her body got used to it and the side effects would be less severe. Shuu Yulin and Kosuke Kisakata would then join in the testing as well. In these instances, they would use regular computers. All three of them would go through many Mindlink tests though thus far had only explored their Digimon Docks. To be able to explore further than that, and reach the Digital World, they would need better computers. They would also need to learn how to control their partners, since if they lost control they would go passed the Mindlink limit and be unable to return to their bodies.

Now time for to put the Tartarus program into action Yulin, Kosuke, and Saya Mindlink to their partners. They have their partners board the Tartarus probe, a digital observation vessel so that they could begin the Tartarus program. The Digimon search the Digital World on their own virtual vessels with their partners controlling the vessels using Kosuke's tools. Due to the weak technology being used, the groups visibility was low but despite this they followed the path set for them and continued on their journey. As they explored, they were attacked with Kosuke and Yulin having no clue what had attacked them. Yulin and Kosuke figure had been the attack target, and were unable to do anything as Saya's unit vanished without a trace. Kosuke blamed himself, as he had been the one to push for her to be a one woman rescue team, and regretted it wishing he had been doing it instead so that she would've returned safe in place of him. Tomonori forces Kosuke and Yulin to retreat as he considered it far too dangerous to have them try and rescue his daughter. The Tartarus probe was damaged and and  were injured and as such he had them withdraw as the chance of all three of them falling into DMIA was too high. When they logged out, Kosuke cried as he held his unresponsive fiancée. Her consciousness had fused with Agumon's DigiCore, and Agumon's whereabouts was unknown. Now in a coma, her body was sent to the local hospital with no hopes of her ever waking up.

Over the following years, Tomonori made sure to keep Saya's body in a stable condition. He sent her to a hospital in the United States that specialized in coma patients then continued the Tartarus program and Mindlink tests in secret — though without the help of Yulin and Kosuke as he didn't want to put them in any more danger. Despite losing Saya, most aware of what happened considered the project a success as they had managed to capture footage of the Digital World and their programs allowing control of their Digimon worked as intended. Kosuke cut contact with Yulin, and dropped out of University — though still kept in contact with Tomonori.

More than a decade later, Mindlinking was still a mostly unknown concept to the general population. By this time, Tomonori would state that as the amount of data needed to Mindlink was high, a Digimon Linker was required as it samples their biometric data, brain waves, and level of consciousness for 24 hours a day to allow them to Mindlink. This was untrue though, since his students had Mindlinked with regular computers in the decade before. He seemingly lied about this to keep people safe.

The DigiPolice, Sons of Chaos, Eiji Nagasumi, and Leon Alexander make use of Mindlinking in their many battles against each other.