liminal state
Neither here nor-there
A liminal state is a condition of being between phases—neither fully in one state nor another.
The term comes from Latin for "threshold," suggesting the doorway between rooms.
Someone in a liminal state occupies transitional territory: the liminal state between waking and sleep, adolescence as a liminal state between childhood and adulthood.
The concept appears in anthropology to describe ritual transitions, but has spread to describe any in-between condition—airports, dusk, the moment before a decision.
- thresholdPoint of beginning
- betweenIn the middle of
- transitionChange from one state
- doorwayPassage into a room
- passageSegment of text
rite of passage · in-between · neither here nor there · dusk · dawn · half asleep · waking dream · crossing · boundary · no man's land · edge · dreamlike · trance · suspension · holding pattern · waiting · becoming · coming of age
- altered statestrance, hallucination, altered perception, consciousness expansion, derealization
- dreamsnightmare, dreaming, daydream, nightmares, dreams
- mental statesknowledge, conscious, mood, anxious, memory
- near-death experiencesout-of-body, tunnel of light, white light, bright light, life review
liminal statestability
Resistance to displacement
permanence · fixed position · stasis · equilibrium · rootedness
liminal stateincorporation
Forming a legal entity
social integration · reintegration · belonging · aggregation · separation
liminal, limit, limits, limited, limiting, limitless, unlimited, limitation, limitations