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The liminal space is a magical place.
It’s a place of timelessness and infinite possibility. It’s the place of the unmanifest. It’s the place of insight, intuition, spontaneity, and creativity. But it’s also a place of fear, uncertainty, and emptiness.
The liminal space is always changing yet always consistent, and still, not a solid but a fluctuating suspended state.
In my life, I have encountered it when I, for instance, finished university and didn’t know what to do next. Other times, I have found myself in the liminal space when I was full of worry, fear, and uncertainty about life.
And although these were uncomfortable times, I have always emerged with some form of new insight and understanding.
The term liminal space might be unfamiliar to you, or perhaps you have heard about it and wondered what it is. The concept of liminality can be encountered in spiritual initiations, in the physical world, in video games, in art, and in your personal life.
For instance, staircases and elevators are liminal spaces as their main function is to get you from place A to place B.
In video games, a liminal space can be used as a horror element. An office without people, for instance, loses its purpose and can give you a feeling of isolation, emptiness, and suspension.
In your life you may experience this space as a job change, moving to a new town, financial strain, loss, life discontent, divorce, empty nest, a health diagnosis, or retirement.
These can be without a doubt unpleasant experiences. Yet they also hold great potential for personal growth and spiritual development.
What is the Liminal Space?
The word liminal comes from the Latin word ‘limen’, meaning threshold – any point or place of entering or beginning.
In archaic societies, the liminal space plays a role during initiation rites. For instance, before the initiated can become an adult, he or she is neither an adolescent nor an adult.
Because we lack initiation rituals in Western society, many young people find themselves repeatedly falling back into the liminal space between childhood and adulthood. And because there is usually no one around to show them how to navigate this space, they can feel trapped in this liminal phase.
Author and Franciscan friar Richard Rohr describes this space as:
“…an inner state and sometimes an outer situation where we can begin to think and act in new ways. It is where we are betwixt and between, having left one room or stage of life but not yet entered the next.”
So, in a spiritual sense, the liminal space is the space in-between – a transitory state. The space where nothing is yet manifested and everything is possible. It’s the space in between one thought and another.
You may have experienced this space at times in meditation or when you were aware of everything surrounding you.
It’s the space of pure presence – a place between “what was” and “what’s next.”
Hence being in the liminal space can be an ambivalent experience as you find yourself between uncertainty and curiousity. It’s a time of transition, waiting, and not knowing.
And whether you experience this as pleasant or unpleasant depends on your ability to embrace this experience.
Liminal Space and Spiritual Growth
The liminal space offers a powerful opportunity for spiritual growth and personal transformation.
A liminal experience can happen spontaneously. But you can also evoke this space by allowing yourself some space.
Between tasks, you stop for a second and allow yourself to enter this transitory space. Become one with this space and observe everything from this perspective.
The liminal space is the infinite space from which all thoughts, emotions, feelings, and breaths emerge and into which they disappear.
It’s also the place between stimulus and response. Many people are not aware of this place. But when you do become aware of it, you’ll gain a lot more freedom. You’ll have the freedom to choose to act consciously instead of re-acting unconsciously.
When something triggers you, pause and take a deep breath and connect with the space of pure potential. With each conscious breath, with each pause, you become more and more aware of this space.
And while you can experience the liminal space from moment to moment, it shows itself most powerfully in times of uncertainty and spiritual crisis.
Suddenly you’re confronted by your deepest fears and thrown out of your habitual patterns. This is an invitation to surrender.
The instinctive response is usually to get out of this space as quickly as possible. We often do this by numbing out the emptiness and silence by turning on the TV or seeking out social gatherings.
Yet if we can learn to sit in it, embrace it, and be present with it, it becomes a place of powerful healing potential.
In the liminal space all your karmic patterns, limiting beliefs, and narrow identities start to untangle and dissolve.
There is a certain freshness to it – a feeling of restarting.
Being in the liminal space is like dancing on a razor’s edge. It’s easy to lose balance and fall. But every time you lose balance and fall from your seat, you become aware and regain your balance.
No matter how uncomfortable you may feel in this space, eventually, the cold emptiness turns into a warm fullness.
Then you’ll recognize the liminal space is not just a phase through which to travel. It’s a destination on its own – a quantum reality with limitless possibilities.
So don’t be surprised if creative ideas, insights, and clarity start pouring in.
Dreams as Liminal Spaces
One particular form of liminal space are dreams.
There is a practice called liminal dreaming – the edge between being awake and falling asleep. This is usually accompanied by hypnagogia (a hallucinogenic, psychedelic, swirling realm when you fall asleep) and hypnopompia (the swimmy realm after waking up when a thought becomes a dream). Most people, however, are not fully aware of this because they are not conscious enough in this process.
Having said that, all forms of dreaming have characteristics of a liminal space.
When you dream, your conscious and subconscious mind come together for a creative dance of unlimited possibility. Hence, dreams are the space between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Dreams often have an abstract, surreal quality and can seem senseless. But when you start to pay more attention to your dreams, you’ll start seeing the meaning.
Dreams, like any other liminal space, can then become a source of insight and creativity.
Especially interesting are lucid dreams. In a lucid dream, you become aware that you’re dreaming, thus become more conscious. Although you are now more on the conscious side of things, your dream world is still a creation of conscious and subconscious contents.
It’s just that you’re now interacting more consciously with this content.
With practice, you can mold this dream space and all its contents in any way you like. This can increase your awareness of the potential of liminal spaces.
Although liminal spaces can differ, they all hold infinite possibilities. So coming into contact with this limitless potential in dreams can enable you to embrace other liminal spaces more openly.
You may see dreams as a practice ground for being more comfortable in liminality. In a way, it’s a transfer of insight from one context to another.
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In your life find ways to make space for liminal space. If you can be comfortable in this space of suspension, uncertainty, and transition nothing can throw you off.
What you’re really learning is to embrace the underlying infinite emptiness that is life. Every time you’re not trying to fill reality with something, you’re glimpsing into this space.
And when you embrace this, you’ll soon get to know the liminal space as a warm empty fullness, a place that feels like coming home.
“I saw you and became empty. This emptiness, more beautiful than existence, it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes, existence thrives and creates more existence!” – Rumi
Luka
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This was incredibly helpful. Such a niche subject yet so real. Thank you so much.
You’re most welcome, Elly!