The paper presents a phenomenological analysis of the act of collecting and collectors' purposes in order to understand their meanings in relation to the cycles of people life. Start by discussing some theoretical frameworks that explain the habit of collecting, pointing to the search for the meaning of permanence of objects and the environment according to the development and understanding of human life cycles, total or procedural. After, it follows an empirical registration analysis of these senses, according to data collected from web sites and interviews with collectors, which focuses logic of continuity and discontinuity with the explanatory frameworks outlined. The logic of discontinuity outline other possible explanatory framework of the relationship between collections and life cycles, based on the development of a sense perception of the world result to ruptures occurred in the personal trajectories of collectors.
biographical trajectory; collecting; life cycles; perception