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SPACE AND TIME IN THE SHAMANIC COSMOS: A SEMIOTIC PERSPECTIVE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2018. Issue 2 (16). P. 175-194

The article is a collection of the author’s thoughts on some new ways of exploring the categories of time and space in the culture of archaic and traditional societies, with the reliance on semiotic and structuralist theories. The process of becoming aware of time is connected with the acquisition of speech which creates a syntagmatic chain out of consecutive elements of language. The characteristics of space reflect the unfolding and establishing of temporal relationships. No less important in this regard are paradigmatic relationships – it was a combination of paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects that allowed primitive man to develop stable time units. During shamanic rituals, customary syntagmatic relationships are suppressed, thus the usual course of time is interrupted and its measure is changed. The spacial expression of this consists in the formation of alternative worlds. The author concludes that shaman’s altered states of consciousness are result from the altered connection between paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships in mental processes which, in turn, entails time and space being measured differently.

Keywords: paradigmatics, syntagmatics, duration, discreteness, altered states of consciousness