What is the Soul?

If you are a religious or spiritual person, you probably believe the soul to be the true "self". If you don't place any stock into religious, spiritual or metaphysical ideas, you probably don't believe there to be a soul at all. I believe there is a soul but the nature of the soul's existence after the body stops functioning, is difficult for me to determine. I believe the body to be a machine, built by nature as a vehicle for you and I (souls) to experience and interact with the objective and natural world. The body is necessary to provide the senses and tools for existence and participating in the tangible world, which the soul itself lacks i.e.; vision, hearing, tasting, touching and communicating. The soul is seated in the brain through which it extends throughout the body to cause and sense various experiences. When the body ceases to function and the soul departs it, the soul then no longer has the ability to experience or interact with the natural world as it no longer has a body. It is somewhat frightening to envision existing without any of the sense faculties but logically, if there is a soul that lives beyond the death of the body, that is exactly the condition we all face post-death. Why else would a physical body be needed if the soul itself has all of the same faculties? I am interested in knowing what others think of the nature of the soul.