Liminal Spaces: A Psychological and Social Deep Dive

If you've spent decent time on social media over the past couple of years, you've probably come across photos of liminal spaces.

Dictionary.com lists the primary definition of a liminal space as "a state or place characterized by being transitional or intermediate in some way," like a motel or a train station where everyone is either coming or going.

But toward the tail end of 2021, the number of Google searches for liminal spaces skyrocketed thanks to its recently-popularized second definition: "any location that is unsettling, uncanny, or dreamlike."

It's difficult to elaborate on the common thread of all liminal spaces. In the eyes of the masses, you know a place is a liminal space simply because of its aura. But you don't necessarily know why it makes you feel the way that it does.

We wanted to pin down the viral phenomenon a bit more, so we caught up with Peter Heft, a scholar and the author of "Betwixt and Between: Zones as Liminal and Deterritorialized Spaces," for a more academic perspective.