Inside Out introduced audiences to the world of Riley’s mind, which is full of emotions, locations, and unique internal processes. Released in 2015, Inside Out creates a vivid and colorful world for the emotions that drive a person in their day-to-day life. Within the universe of Inside Out, each person is shown to have their own internal mental system. Their emotions, also personified into recognizably human forms, operate the person from within their head. The ending of Inside Out and the subsequent Inside Out 2 highlight how these emotions need to work in tandem, otherwise they’ll set off chaos within the person’s mind.

Notably, the imaginative and colorful approach to breaking down the human psyche is still one with very rigid concepts and guidelines. These rules help keep the film from spiraling out of control and actually create real stakes for abstract concepts like joy and sadness. It’s an interesting concept that is expanded upon in Inside Out 2 with new emotions. The sequel focuses on Riley as she grows older and her mind shifts somewhat to accommodate that, highlighting how universal Inside Out‘s world can be. Here’s how the minds in Pixar’s Inside Out films work.

How Riley’s Mind Works In Inside Out

The Headquarters Let Emotions Make Decisions For Humans

Riley’s mind in Inside Out works like a large-scale operation, with several different departments and functions that motivate the young girl. Inside Out more or less takes place in a grounded realistic world, but the story introduces a sense of colorful whimsy through the personification of the human characters and their emotions. Quick cutaways throughout the film reveal that everyone else has the same kind of mental constructs, albeit tweaked to fit within their personalities. When someone is born, they develop a mental command post known as the Headquarters from which the emotions can influence and control their person from the main console.

As they get older, the Headquarters grows, and the mind develops new departments, ideas, and locations to accommodate their expanded experiences and changing perspectives. However, sufficient problems can cause these areas to collapse, and interfering with the console too much or depriving some emotions like Sadness from fulfilling their duties can effectively shift someone into a depression. This prevents emotions from influencing the person at all, which can lead to disastrous consequences.

All Of Riley’s Emotions In Inside Out

Both Inside Out Movies Introduce Five Different Emotions

Inside Out‘s characters the internal emotions of a young girl named Riley, personifying her internal decisions and motives. Inside Out introduced five primary emotions, each born over the course of Riley’s early life. While Joy and Sadness served as the film’s protagonists, other emotions like Anger, Fear, and Disgust also eventually develop within her mind. While each of them is focused on Riley’s well-being, their differing personalities result in tension and even occasionally conflict.

This serves as much of the impetus for Inside Out‘s plot, as Joy’s attempts to contain Sadness only gets them knocked out of the Headquarters. This leaves the remaining three to bicker over the direction to take Riley, causing chaos internally and for Riley’s external life. As Riley grows into a teenager in Inside Out 2, she develops five new emotions. These are Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, Ennui, and Nostalgia, each of whom introduce new complications that the previous five have to adjust to while Riley navigates the social challenges of high school.

Riley’s Core Memories & Islands Of Personality

A major element of Inside Out is the concept of Core Memories. Core Memories are caused when a person goes through a particualr kind of event that goes on to define their personality. While most memories are held within a large storage facility elsewhere in the mind known as Long Term Memory that is connected to Headquarters via the Recall Tubes, Core Memories are stored in the Headquarters within a special container. This allows the emotions to play these moments quickly, utilizing them to influence their person. Notably, the Core Memories also create the Islands of Personality, large locations within the mind that signify personality traits.

Removing the core memories can impact them, and the other emotions that interact with the Core Memories can shift them. Removing the Core Memories can even result in the Islands of Personality being destroyed. At the end of Inside Out, Joy and Sadness realize that they can effectively fuse emotions to create more powerful Core Memories. When Joy and Sadness unite to create Melancholy, this produces a more powerful Family Island than the one that existed before.

Every Major Location Inside Riley’s Mind

Joy And Sadness Spend Inside Out Exploring Riley’s Mind

Much of Inside Out focuses on Joy and Sadness making their way through Riley’s mind as they seek to return a Core Memory to Headquarters. Along the way, they get the chance to visit the other primary places within her mind. The Train of Thought is a large vehicle that can take them back to Headquarters, which Joy and Sadness turn to when the Recall Tubes are broken. Along the way, Joy and Sadness end up encountering plenty of other locations. Dream Productions are portrayed as a film studio that creates all of Riley’s dreams. They also come across Imagination Land, which is home to several playful figments of imagination. Imagination Land has several smaller locations, such as Lava Pits, Trophy Town, Princess Dream World, Cloud Town, and the Stuffed Animal Hall of Fame.

There are also of more dangerous locations within Riley’s mind for emotions, which can contain or even effectively erase them. The Abstract Thought room modifies and changes the emotions physically, remaking them into new unique shapes. The Subconscious is portrayed as a deep dark cave where “troublemakers” like specific fears can be contained. The Memory Dump is perhaps the most dangerous for emotions. A massive chasm that exists between the Lands of Personality and Headquarters, the Memory Dump is where forgotten things go. If something is in the Memory Dump and truly forgotten, then it ceases to exist.

Other Notable Residents Of Riley’s Mind

More Than Just Emotions Live In Inside Out‘s World

While the emotions are portrayed as some of the more important members of Riley’s mind, there are several others that are introduced over the course of the film that play parts in the film. Some are imaginary concepts like the Imaginary Boyfriends, who Joy and Sadness use as a tool to advance on their journey. There are workers throughout the various departments of Riley’s mind, operating the Long Term Memory or policing the Imagination Land. Rainbow Unicorn works out of Dream Studios, ensuring Riley’s dreams largely remain sweet.

The guards to the Subconscious work to keep major fears at bay and away from Riley’s primary thoughts. The most notable other inhabitant of Riley’s mind seen in Inside Out is Bing Bong, Riley’s old imaginary friend. Bing Bong helps Joy and Sadness on their journey and ultimately sacrifices himself by staying behind in the Memory Dump so the two of them can escape. Inside Out‘s mental faculties and the world is surprisingly vast, but feels perfectly attuned to the mental processes people go through every day.