Liminal space eeriness and childhood trauma

I've been fascinated with liminal spaces since I first wrote about them in 2017, and I've written about them many times since. While watching a video today about liminal spaces and why they have the effect they do, it made me realize something.

Typically, when I see the more popular liminal space images, I feel like I've dreamed about them before. Not necessarily that I've been there, as is the popular opinion. Usually, people will claim they feel nostalgia or as if they'd actually been to these places, and the nature of the images, with them usually consisting of weird lighting and older buildings, contribute to that.

So if many feel that familiar nostalgia, why do I feel like I'm just looking at one of my dreams rather than a fake memory?

I've written about having CPTSD many times, and I feel that has a lot to do with it.

When we dream or go into REM sleep, our minds do their own thing, such as storing memories we retained from the day. This doesn't include trauma memories, which are basically shattered memories that splinter everywhere (as I learned while reading Traumatized by Kati Morton). So in that sense, they don't get filed away like normal memories.

Yet, we have flashbacks or trauma dreams, and it's safe to say that although trauma memories aren't filed away like normal memories, they still exist in our unconscious sleeping mind. In these trauma dreams, and even in regular dreams, our brains try to reconstruct what the world looks like, or what happened to us, as well as people related to these things. This results in a distorted view of the world, such as huge rooms or strange combinations of night and day, or furniture and houses that look like they were drawn by M.C. Escher.

When it comes to my trauma dreams, they aren't always obviously trauma dreams, but they look a hell of a lot like these liminal space images. They feel the same too, and I wonder if these are repressed memories or trauma symbols from childhood or times long past. They're filtered through my sleeping brain, so when I experience liminal space images in my waking life, they possibly connect to old, splintered trauma memories.

I've had dreams where it was around midnight and the sun was still overcast in the sky.

I've had dreams where it's night, and the lighting is like an orange streetlight and shadows are everywhere in houses that are mashed together with public places.

Sometimes the sun will be out in late afternoon, but it's so bright I can hardly see anything.

In one of those bright dreams, I was in what was perceived to be a childhood home. There was a white cage, I think, where a bird would usually be, and in front of a set of sliding glass doors was an old tube TV encased in wood. It had a similar feel to a summer long past, but upon waking, I didn't recognize the house at all. It was very nostalgic and eerily comforting, if you understand what that feels like. You want to stay there forever because it feels familiar, but something is strange or feels unsafe and people are absent — except for you.

This is when I suspect old trauma memories from childhood that I can't possibly remember. Our minds can only go back so far, as it is. I think one of the earliest memories I have is a brief flicker of putting on training roller skates that were orange and blue and made of plastic. I wasn't even old enough to go to school yet.

Another is of an old neighbor we had when I was possibly 4 or 5. He wasn't liked by my parents, and I'm not sure he liked us, but he had a garage sale one time my brother and I snuck over to. There was a toy in the shape of a parking garage and track, and it came with a few cars. Maybe some people. All Playskool plastic-type stuff. I brought it home and don't remember if my parents found out, but I think they did.

I barely remember when my mom signed me up for kindergarten for the first time after we moved in the early 90s. After that, my memories become much clearer, and I remember so much of my years from kindergarten forward. Then again, I'm going on 34, so maybe as I grow older those memories will start to fade too.

My point is, we can't remember things so clearly from when we were in the single digits. Even then, if we really sort back through our past, we'll catch flashes of things from when we were still toddlers, but those memories are more likely to feel like dreams. Either that, or we aren't sure if we're making them up or if they're real.

It's strange and eerie when you think about it. There is a time in our lives we can barely remember. And if we do, we're seeing our childhood through an adult lens now, so we can't really feel the child-like emotions anymore. We can't remember what we thought about or how we felt at the time. What memories did we have then?

It's just like home movies. We're experiencing the memories on the outside as if we're the ones watching instead of having been involved in them. That could be the fault of old photographs as well, especially old Polaroids. We get used to seeing our own faces in our memories, so it's strange to view them in first-person as we age. We feel disconnected. Maybe that's just my particular experience.

Add in childhood trauma though, and things get wild.

When you have normal memories of childhood, they'll likely differ from those of us who have lived through childhood trauma. Our memories are fragmented even more so, depending on the severity, I imagine, so looking back feels... strange.

Was it real? Is it a fever dream? Are all these liminal space photos from ages past pulling from trauma memories, and in that sense, that's why the images make me uneasy?

It isn't kenopsia, which is "the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet," necessarily, like it is for your average person. Some of these images may just be taking me back to symbolism from times of trauma — pulling out those trauma dreams that can only piece together things from fragments. That's where traumacore art comes in, which is a mixture of liminal space images and childhood imagery like Hello Kitty characters, often disturbing in nature. I don't recommend you look it up if you've had childhood trauma or are easily triggered.

Liminal spaces are fascinating, and I think they can help us learn more about ourselves and how we view the world. They'll likely have a bigger impact on people who are depressed, who fear loneliness, or who have been through trauma. The subject really blew up in 2020, I think, because of the shared feeling of isolation we all had. We were all stuck in a liminal space with limited or no human contact, and the world changed drastically to one we hadn't experienced in our lifetimes. The rate of people with depression went way up as well.

I think it would be an interesting study to see the effect of (the modern definition of) liminal space images on people who have experienced childhood trauma. I wonder if they can aid in repressed memory recollection. If so, that would be a useful tool in trauma therapy.

However you feel about liminal space images, there's definitely something about them that sticks with you.

©2022 Shane Blackheart