15 Places Where Reality Is Altered | The Odyssey Online
Start writing a post
Student Life

15 Places Where Reality Is Altered

How do you experience liminal spaces?

15992
15 Places Where Reality Is Altered
Julia Awad

Do you ever feel out of sync with your surroundings? Maybe you're anticipating something, but you just can't put your finger on it. Other times, you might feel like you're on the verge of something. For some people, this "out of sync" feeling can be described as discomfort or uneasiness. For others, it can be an unprecedented comfort.

This weird sensation is present when you're in, what's called, liminal spaces.

Before I explain what liminal spaces are, let's see if these places or situations evoke any feelings:

1. Airports early in the morning or late at night (midnight - 6 a.m.)

2. Beaches late at night

3. Empty museums

4. Stairwells

5. Hospital waiting rooms or hospitals late at night

6. School buildings on the weekends or summertime

7. Rest stops on the side of the highway8. Empty highways

9. When you're the last car in an empty parking lot

10. Playgrounds when there are no children

11. Post offices

12. Office supply section of your local grocery store

13. Your friend's house in the middle of the night when you wake up to get water

14. Your room at 5 a.m. (or when it's raining)

15. Elevators when you're alone

Feeling nostalgic yet?

If thinking of these places evokes any anxious feelings, you've probably experienced being in a liminal space. Liminal is derived from the Latin word "limen" which translates to the threshold.

A liminal space is essentially a transitional threshold. These places have no purpose on their own, their existence is not about themselves. Rather, they exist entirely to be a waiting place from one point in space to the next. Simply, their purpose is based on what comes before and after them.

Liminal spaces like waiting rooms, rest stops, or airports make you feel "off" or uneasy if you spend too much time in them because you're supposed to keep moving through life. When you don't, reality feels altered.

Liminal Spaces are throughways from one place to the next.

Another explanation of an altered reality is because of the incapacity of our brains to process these liminal spaces as individual entities. Our brains react to context, sowhen a space lacks context or we experience it out of context, we feel uneasy or anxious.

On the one hand, an empty school on the weekends or during the summertime can be described as a liminal space. The reason for this is because of the context that our brain has assigned to the specific building or hallway. What you usually see as a busy, loud, or hustled hallway is now calm and serene. Since the hallway lacks the context our brain normally associates with it, it begins to feel "dangerous" because it is unfamiliar. While we can override this feeling of "danger" by not doing anything irrational, the feeling of uneasiness or anxiety remains.

On the other hand, while your bedroom during a storm can also be considered a liminal space, it may cause a different reaction. As I mentioned before, for some people, liminal spaces cause uneasiness while for others, they evoke a feeling of unprecedented comfort. This comfort seems foreign or unknown and maybe you're not sure why it feels comfortable, nevertheless, it does.

Whichever category you fall into, whether these spaces make you feel uneasy or comfortable, we can all agree that liminal spaces are extremely fascinating. Maybe the next time you're in one, you'll be able to recognize it and have more control over your feelings of uneasiness.

Reality feels altered because we're not supposed to spend too much time in these places.

But what if we do?

Report this Content
This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
ross geller
YouTube

As college students, we are all familiar with the horror show that is course registration week. Whether you are an incoming freshman or selecting classes for your last semester, I am certain that you can relate to how traumatic this can be.

1. When course schedules are released and you have a conflict between two required classes.

Bonus points if it is more than two.

Keep Reading...Show less
Student Life

12 Things I Learned my Freshmen Year of College

When your capability of "adulting" is put to the test

2702
friends

Whether you're commuting or dorming, your first year of college is a huge adjustment. The transition from living with parents to being on my own was an experience I couldn't have even imagined- both a good and a bad thing. Here's a personal archive of a few of the things I learned after going away for the first time.

Keep Reading...Show less
Featured

Economic Benefits of Higher Wages

Nobody deserves to be living in poverty.

301846
Illistrated image of people crowded with banners to support a cause
StableDiffusion

Raising the minimum wage to a livable wage would not only benefit workers and their families, it would also have positive impacts on the economy and society. Studies have shown that by increasing the minimum wage, poverty and inequality can be reduced by enabling workers to meet their basic needs and reducing income disparities.

I come from a low-income family. A family, like many others in the United States, which has lived paycheck to paycheck. My family and other families in my community have been trying to make ends meet by living on the minimum wage. We are proof that it doesn't work.

Keep Reading...Show less
blank paper
Allena Tapia

As an English Major in college, I have a lot of writing and especially creative writing pieces that I work on throughout the semester and sometimes, I'll find it hard to get the motivation to type a few pages and the thought process that goes behind it. These are eleven thoughts that I have as a writer while writing my stories.

Keep Reading...Show less
April Ludgate

Every college student knows and understands the struggle of forcing themselves to continue to care about school. Between the piles of homework, the hours of studying and the painfully long lectures, the desire to dropout is something that is constantly weighing on each and every one of us, but the glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel helps to keep us motivated. While we are somehow managing to stay enrolled and (semi) alert, that does not mean that our inner-demons aren't telling us otherwise, and who is better to explain inner-demons than the beloved April Ludgate herself? Because of her dark-spirit and lack of filter, April has successfully been able to describe the emotional roller-coaster that is college on at least 13 different occasions and here they are.

Keep Reading...Show less

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Facebook Comments