If you’ve been on the internet for a while, especially on the creepy side of it, you’ve probably come across a phenomenon called liminal spaces. They’re sort of this weird specific niche. I think the most popular one is probably The Backrooms, an image that got wildly popular on the internet back in 2022. The Backrooms was probably most people’s introduction to liminal spaces, as it also had a mysterious story to go along with it that drew many people in. Sadly it became very dumbed down and commercialized, going from this niche community to a Youtube Kids buzzword. It went from having this ominous aura to it, to people making videos with names like “GOING TO THE BACKROOMS AT 3:00 AM (GONE WRONG)” about it having “scary” monsters and how to survive them, completely straying from the original idea.

So what is a liminal space, and why do we find them unnerving? A liminal space is an image of some sort of area/place that gives off a feeling of liminality or strangeness, maybe even feeling oddly familiar or dream-like. They aren’t necessarily transitional spaces in this context, but can be. It’s sort of hard to define a liminal space, but there certainly are a few defining features. The first is that the space is the focal point of the image, not what’s in it. There are never people in a liminal space because you naturally focus on who’s in the space, not the space itself. For that same reason there’s never monsters in them either, despite liminal spaces often being used in a horror context. You see, people seem to lump the feelings of horror and terror both into the category of scary, which they technically both are, but not in the same ways. 

Think about watching a horror movie. Horror is what you feel when the big, scary jumpscare happens, it’s quick and gives you that adrenaline rush. Horror is easy to get people to feel because all you really need is a loud sound and some scary image of a monster or something and your audience will be needing a change of pants in no time. But the thing about horror is it wears off eventually. After watching the same horror movie over and over again your mind realizes there’s no reason to be scared and you stop getting that same initial reaction when the jumpscare happens. But terror? Terror is the feeling of the build up before the jumpscare, that long dragging scene with the characters walking up to the door where the monster is hiding. It’s a dreadful, drawn-out, kind of fear. It makes you just want the jumpscare to happen already so it can end. Terror is scary because you have to think. You don’t know exactly what’s gonna happen next, but you know it’s gonna be something bad and your mind starts racing with possibilities of what might happen, some of which being worse than the actual outcome. Liminal spaces make you feel terror. They feel off but not immediately threatening. 

Look at these two images for example. Which one do you think leans more towards horror and which one leans more toward terror?

Now, if you’re like me, you probably thought the one with the monster had more to do with horror and the empty one seemed more like terror. Just like the horror movie, the first image gets old after a while and its fear factor wears off. With the second one it’s more of a lingering fear, it feels almost uncanny, like something is off but you can’t quite place what it is.

The empty image I used for this example is actually a popular liminal space image. So why do we feel so unnerved by liminal spaces? We humans tend to fear the unknown. A lot of liminal space images use this to their advantage by being pictures of places taken out of their usual context. A popular choice for liminal spaces are images of usually populated places like malls or schools, but abandoned and/or taken at night. Usually you’d expect them to be filled with people, so when they’re so empty it feels almost wrong to look at because it subverts your expectations. Another kind of liminal spaces are transitional places like hallways or even airports. Think of two rooms connected with a hallway. The point of a room is for you to be in it; you usually linger in most rooms as they are places for you to stay, to be taken in. But hallways? Hallways are just there to get you from point A to point B, you don’t just stand around in hallways. A LOT of liminal space images are of hallways because you never stay in one for too long, so an image of just the hallway ends up feeling very liminal because it’s taken out of context.

Another genre of liminal space is nostalgic liminal spaces. These usually depict things like playgrounds, elementary schools or family homes. I think these are so uncanny because they seem familiar, but you know you haven’t been there. It almost feels like it’s distorting your childhood memories and making you question them. Look at this photo of a wooden playground:

Does this feel familiar to you? Well, on the reddit post where I found this photo tons of people do. But that’s not right? So many people can’t have all gone to the same playground! When you see something familiar to something you’ve seen before and don’t remember that well, your mind tends to assume that what you’re looking at is the thing you couldn’t remember, making you think “oh yea! I’ve seen that before!” even when you haven’t.

Another thing about liminal spaces is how incredibly easy they are to find in real life. If you just spend a while looking at liminal space images you’ll probably start spotting them in real life! Got a nearby abandoned building? You’ll probably find liminal spaces in there! Is it summer and the school is closed down? That could be a liminal space too! Liminal spaces are really everywhere if you look hard enough, so I highly recommend looking further into liminal spaces on your own!