The Pacific Rim novelization, generally cursed though it may be, does contain a bit of interesting lore. Presented as part of a magazine article, a strange phenomenon known as drift hangover is described:
…Interviews with former Rangers suggest that their cognitive systems are permanently altered by the experience known as the Drift. They report persistent perceptions that another consciousness is operating in tandem with their own, as well as feelings that each action they take is recreated on a larger scale somewhere else. Some Rangers call this "Drift hangover," but unlike hangovers, it does not appear to diminish over time.
The number of surviving ex-Rangers is very small, necessitating a degree of skepticism when assessing these findings. The Pan-Pacific Defense Corps does not permit external physicians or clinical staff to examine active Rangers, further limiting the available data. Nevertheless, it appears highly probable that the neural handshake causes persistent and perhaps permanent changes to the perceptual systems of the participants.
Also perhaps worthy of further investigation, though likely beyond the purview of this journal, are the claims of certain Rangers that they remained connected to their Jaegers even after the neural handshake and the Drift were terminated. Numerous anecdotal reports of exist of Jaegers shifting with no Ranger in control of them, with attendant claims that these motions replicated the sleeping motions of the Rangers assigned to that particular Jaeger.
If substantiated, these claims would characterize the nature of the neural handshake in a profoundly different light. They would also raise the specter of a sort of imprinted simulacrum of consciousness in the Jaegers themselves…
