Persona 4 itself is set in the year 2012 in the fictional town of Inaba, Japan, so a year or so in the future there would be easy to imagine. Unfortunately for the P4 world, when the nightmares and monsters attack the people there will be at a sore disadvantage. The nightmares will attack, monsters will be walking the streets, and that's not the worst part. With much of the population letting these nightmares and fears get to them, this makes for a wonderful opportunity for certain subconscious aspects to start to bleed into the world. The world will be a sort of a Bad End world, hybrid real world/Shadow world that was at one point described in the game (by Adachi). Peoples' own shadows will appear and be common in the world. They'll manifest to torment and kill them.
What is a Shadow Self? Well, that's a complicated question. What a shadow person is not is simply a false opposite image of a character. For simplicity's sake it can be defined that a shadow self is a manifestation of an individual's negative repressed inner fears, insecurities, and doubts about oneself or the world around them. A shadow self only wishes to be accepted by the person's psyche who spawned them. A shadow self cannot be completely defeated by violence; they will simply get back up and continue fighting the further a character denies them. When a character denies them, they transform into monstrous shadow creatures that then must be defeated so that they can revert back into their human form. The only way to defeat a shadow is to accept and acknowledge the shadow self as part of the self. If not, then the shadow will continue to work to torment and/or kill character.
Also if you defeat a shadow you get a persona to summon to fight for you. Edit: Those who face their shadow in the AU though may be able to have their own personas but only in dreams or dreamfields/scapes. It would involve a lot of dreamwalking practice to be able to do it.
Persona 4
What is a Shadow Self? Well, that's a complicated question. What a shadow person is not is simply a false opposite image of a character. For simplicity's sake it can be defined that a shadow self is a manifestation of an individual's negative repressed inner fears, insecurities, and doubts about oneself or the world around them. A shadow self only wishes to be accepted by the person's psyche who spawned them. A shadow self cannot be completely defeated by violence; they will simply get back up and continue fighting the further a character denies them. When a character denies them, they transform into monstrous shadow creatures that then must be defeated so that they can revert back into their human form. The only way to defeat a shadow is to accept and acknowledge the shadow self as part of the self. If not, then the shadow will continue to work to torment and/or kill character.
Also if you defeat a shadow you get a persona to summon to fight for you. Edit: Those who face their shadow in the AU though may be able to have their own personas but only in dreams or dreamfields/scapes. It would involve a lot of dreamwalking practice to be able to do it.