Alice In Wonderland syndrome
Alice In Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) is an unusual neurological disorder that causes the person with the condition objects to sometimes perceive certain things as much smaller than they are. It's also referred to as "Lilliputian hallucinations," after the tiny folks in Gulliver's Travels. In The Guardian, Rik Hemsley describes life with the spatial distortions of Alice In Wonderland Syndrome. From his essay:
When it first happened, I was a 21-year-old undergraduate. I had been up late the night before writing my dissertation and drinking a lot of coffee, but on that particular morning I was stone cold sober and hangover-free. I stood up, reached down to pick up the TV remote control from the floor and felt my foot sink into the ground. Glancing down, I saw that my leg was plunging into the carpet. It was a disturbing sensation, but it lasted only a few seconds, so I put it down to over-tiredness and forgot all about it.Link
It wasn't long, however, before I started experiencing more extreme spatial distortions. Floors either curved or dipped, and when I tried walking on them, it felt as though I was staggering on sponges. When I lay in bed and looked at my hands, my fingers stretched off half a mile into the distance.
the latest
latest episodes
Go ask Alice... http://youtube.com/watch?v=gUA35XQxxw8
I used to get something similar to this...I'd be driving and suddenly I'd feel like my arms were 100 feet long and hanging off of the steering wheel. Nothing would change visually, but what felt and what i saw were horribly mismatched.
Maybe they can call this Spongebob's elongated arms syndrome or something.
I used to have something like this, mainly when I was young. It would usually happen at night when I was about to get to sleep. Things would seem far away, and smaller than they were. However, it seemed that I was able to make the effect come and go at will (but not during the daytime).
So I guess I didn't have this syndrome, but it was a very weird feeling. I have not been able to get it to happen for at least 15 years.
I've had the same as Paul and Robert above... again it was only when I was falling asleep, but sometimes during the day... it would be accompanied by a mild panic attack. It was around the same time that I used to have night terrors.
I've experienced this before, but only during periods of extreme exhaustion or illness. I'll feel very small, or detached from the rest of my body.
@3:
I've spoken to my doctor about the same kind of experience. It's apparently quite normal, it happens in the wake-sleep transition as your body is getting ready to shut down your ability to move, so you don't punch yourself in the head while you sleep (or whatever).
I've also experienced it while commuting to college, I was basically dozing off on the bus.
I too have had this many times over the years, almost always right on the edge of sleep. It was fairly common when I was a little kid, but now happens only rarely. I have had the Long Distance Steering Wheel Syndrome that Paul Coleman mentions above, but that was combined with the perception that the horizon was just a few feet away, putting it much closer than my hands.
Sometimes I'd get this if I was really, really, really stoned.
It made me giggle to see my friend's head as being smaller than a pencil eraser, centimeters from my eye.
I have had something like this as long as I can remember. About two weeks. [rimshot]. Seriously though, my experience is nowhere near as bizarre as the writer's, but my personal spatial anomaly has the added feature of controllability. I can choose to make it stop, and, occasionally, choose to make it begin.
The "hallucinations" for me are limited to scale only, never warping. When the effect is happening the world has no scale. Objects are simultaneously as tiny as a grain of salt and as large as a planet and also simultaneously within arm's reach and miles away. Or maybe it's me that has an ambiguous scale. Either way it's even freakin' awesomer than it sounds. It can happen anywhere anytime but for some reason it ALWAYS occurs in doctor's/dentist's waiting rooms.
@3 :
I had this sensation when I was young as well and particularly when I was sick or had a fever. My hands and feet would oscillate between feeling big as balloons or tiny and wiry, minuscule. I would have to open my eyes to confirm that I was in fact still the same proportions. I remember hearing the Pink Floyd song "Comfortably Numb" and identifying that symptom with the line "my hands felt just like two balloons". Clearly the brain is getting an overabundance or a detriment of sensory information. This explanation makes sense to me anyway, any neurologists in the house?
Nine readers of BoingBoing have/have had this condition? Does reading BoingBoing cause it?
I used to have a mild version of this as a kid. I was able to kind of shift back and forth from a "long distance" perception at will. I have not been able to do that since I was about 12 though. I didn't know anyone else had this experience.
@11:
Interesting, I didn't know so many people had this. I suspect there are two issues here, the "normal" issue where things seem far away on the border between waking and sleeping (#2, I'm looking at you!), and the "pathological" issue where it happens so often that it affects your life, and is accompanied by other hallucinations.
Few years ago this wasn't a syndrome since we just considered these situations: tripping on a good acid...
shockbeton
Objects are simultaneously as tiny as a grain of salt and as large as a planet and also simultaneously within arm's reach and miles away.
YES!! I'm so glad you people are here. I've tried to explain this and people just look at me like I rode in on a load of pumpkins. Oh this makes me happy.
I get the reduced size thing usually if I'm really concentrating on someone during a conversation. Happened a lot as a kid when I'd listen to my parents talk during dinner.
Ugh, I feel vindicated somehow.
@11, I think a better question is did these people see a neurologist? There's a good chance several of you out there have some form of epilepsy. (If you had it as a kid you probablly outgrew it).
I used to get this when I was a kid (I dunno - under 8 perhaps) when I was falling asleep.
I seem to recall that it's not uncommon in children.
Yep, I had the same thing falling asleep when I was a kid. It still happens sometimes, especially if I have a fever. And I've had the arms thing when I'm driving, too!
I have a related sensation when exhausted. It doesn't involve much spacial distortion - I feel more massive. It's a sensation of being more dense, but without feeling like I can't move.
Anybody else.
@10 - I was about to write your exact post. I get this whenever I run more than a couple degrees of fever. I remember one time I was sweating in my twin bed, and I felt like I was in between two wrinkles of the sheets, and that the edges of the bed were waaay out of reach.
And I remember being unable to picture anybody I knew without seeing their head the size of a basketball goal. When I looked at people with my eyes open, the effect was still there, but less pronounced.
It's the only hallucination I've ever had (err... or so I hope), and I remember it was actually kind of fun, except for the other symptoms that came with it.
Ingesting Jimson Weed will do something similar to you...before it kills you. Instead of everything seeming smaller, you see lots of miniature people:
http://coolthingsinrandomplaces.com/jimsonweed/
*raises hand*
Count me in as another subscriber to shockbeton's description of how this phenomenon always felt. When I was just a little kid, freaking out in my bed and crying to my mom, I described the feeling as "everything is far away," but it's not JUST a question of distance. I also can verify the linkages to fever, and the fact that it faded over time to the point where it hardly ever happens any more.
One thing is for damn sure, though ... when you're a kid, this effect can be EXTREMELY frightening and disorienting. It's not as freaky as having your legs sink into the floor, perhaps, but kind of like an acid trip it's an overpowering alteration of perceptions that you just can't shut off.
I feel like I just joined a support group, or something . . .
@everybody - Hello. My name is Kurt, and I've had Alice In Wonderland Syndrome. (Hi, Kurt!) You have no idea how relieved I am knowing that I am not the only one!
I use to get this all the time when I was a kid, specifically when I was sick at night. My alarm clock, walls, bedroom window and everything else would appear to be 10-times further away, and my bed sheets would feel like lead weights. I would panic and force my eyes shut, hoping everything would be normal when I opened them again. If I did fall asleep, I would have nightmares with the same sensation. It was absolutely terrifying.
If I describe it to my family and girlfriend they all look at me as though I've lost my marble. But now, finally, validation! All thanks to the BoingBoing Sufferers of Alice In Wonderland Syndrome Support Group (BBSAWSSG).
A friend of mine described this exact thing while on acid.
doesn't count as interesting unless the "zoomed" image has more information than before
I also used to get this at night as a child, pretty much the same way as described in #9: everything was simultaneously minuscule and huge, and both very close and very, very far away. And usually when this occurred I would also perceive things as being covered in a black and white checkerboard pattern instead of their usual color. Totally terrifying when you're 7 years old or whatever.
And it did happen to me again a couple years ago (I'm in my early 30s) when I was in bed with a fever. I kind of enjoyed the nostalgia trip :)
I used to also get this as a child. I would experience for example my nearest wall or my mothers face being both very close and far away at the same time (always after going to bed). This would make it seem like the object in question was shifting from near to far and back at great speed. Terrifying as a child.
I also recall, around the same time, having strange dreams where things "felt" very large or massive, in wheight and/or dimension. This feeling would often persist if I woke up from such a dream.
I remember once one of these dreams/night terrors was so intense, I woke up to find myself screaming in another room of the house, I had apparently stumbled over there, completely disorentated, half asleep.
Very very rarely, I get the same feeling during dreams. But its not as well defined as I remember it from my childhood. Kind of like its at the edge of my conciousness when I wake up.
#24 Rick, yes, really good acid does this. It has to be really good, though.
"Dude, my hands are huge! They can touch everything but themselves!"
But seriously - you can add me to the list. I used to have this when I was a kid, too. Except my hands would feel REALLY tiny. Usually when I was sick, I think. Then all of the characters from McDonald-land would be coming after me.
Mayor McCheese was always so angry...
Wow. For an unusual syndrome, there sure are a lot of people who suffer from it. I have also felt it and also not been able to describe it accurately without people thinking I am tripping on acid at that time. I ALSO started feeling it when I was little - while feverish. But I've had it enough times as an adult to not be able to discount it as a childhood thing only. And, additionally, I have had the feeling while driving, pretty much the same as described above.
My feeling tends to range, though, from my head and hands and arms feeling way too big (like a balloon) to sometimes very small (like twigs).
At 19 (16 years ago) I had the first of my (so far) 6 tonic-clonic seizures and have since associated any weird brain things with those. I guess I should rethink that...
It sure is interesting to find out how many other people have had this feeling!
Yet another: things got very, VERY far away and/or looked tiny (e.g., endless hallways or doorway too small to walk through) for awhile. Always: In childhood (to about age 13), when ill and especially when feverish, and environment was dark. No recurrence in adulthood. And I could never get people to understand it! Amazing.
I remember this as a child. I'd try to explain it to my mother and described it as 'small vision'. It would happen when I was tired and often saw my bedroom walls far far away in the dark. Objects would seem very small and far away. As an adult I've experienced it but very rarely. I have never ever encountered anyone else with this syndrome.
#27, Jemimus, your description is exactly what I experienced when I was younger too, except it wasn't limited to sleep/wake times.
We had giant polished granite columns in my high school, and I remember walking by one and getting this feeling of overwhelming denseness. I put my arms around it and felt uneasy.
That was actually the last time I can remember it happening, and at the time it was "nostalgic" for me--at that point it hadn't happened to me since my childhood, when they were full on panic-inducing, rather than merely uncomfortable.
Cool, I didn't know this was so common. I just had it recently after many years of its absence. I also drank a lot of coffee that day. I wonder if that could be a connection?
I often have to convince my date that she suffers from this affliction, once she stops giggling, that is.
Wow everyone. Several of you have written my experiences to a tee. I called it "the big/little thing" when I tried to explain it to my mom. It was awful for me -- terrifying. It would come with a fever or if I stayed awake for too long and got over tired. When I discovered Pink Floyd in high school I was sure Roger Waters had experienced it too. I would see things in my head like incredibly huge, bulky, roaring semi trucks being suspended by the thinest, most delicate thread. Ack. It still gives me the willies.
Just have to chime in to say, well, "me too". Especially as #36, Bill, says -- the sensation of huge, unstoppable, ferocious, massive, raging speed and vastness and, at the same time, a perfect stillness/silence like a drop of water hanging from a fingertip.
I could trigger mine at will by tapping my fingers together at the right frequency (about twice a second). Scared the crap out of me as a kid, and still makes me feel kind of odd, but I was always fascinated by it as well.
Certain phenethylamines have created similar sensations during subsequent research.
Wow, I get this occasionally too. Not when I was kid, oddly enough, but in the past 10 years or so. Mostly when I'm falling asleep, but even now sitting at my desk - it feels like my feet are at the same time faaar away on the end of very long legs, and really close up as if my legs were very short. I sometimes get it with my hands, but it's generally my feet and legs. Odd.
So the Bobs song "My, I'm Large" is based on something real?
I don't know why
I still seem to fit inside my car
'Cause I'm not the same size
I know I'm huge now
Thank you, Internet, for letting me into a community I didn't even know existed. I've experienced this occasionally ever since I can remember. Like most others, it happens just as I'm drifting off to sleep. I'm not freaked out by it at all. In fact, It's a very pleasant weirdness, like a déjà vu but longer lasting. Do you suppose they're neurologically related, somehow?
Me too! I thought I was just insane as a child until I read something about Charles Dodgeson probably having this as well.
I don't remember having it start due to an illness, but there would be the entire world in my bedroom, about the size of a beanbag chair, and I would be zooming toward it at an amazing rate of speed while at the same time falling in the slowest freefall. There was also a great feeling of urgency that I had to count all of something (people maybe) and they were spilling out of the world like beans from a beanbag, and I couldn't stem the tide because it was so far away and my hands were smaller than the beans. This was one of the most frightening things I have ever experienced. It continued into dreams, where of course, there were terrible monsters. I developed night terrors, and I remember seeing an old hag with long twisted fingernails. She would stand in the shadows in my room, waiting for me to drop the sheets too low so she could slit my throat. My parents never understood why I would complain of being so hot at night, even to waking drenched in sweat, and insist that I had to sleep with the covers as tight around my neck as I could stand. The hag was also infinitely far away and right in my face, but at the same time, she was so far away I couldn't touch her when she was up close. I remember waking up screaming in other parts of the house as well. There was what appeared to be a sinky place in my floor, and if I walked there by accident, my feet would go in, during the night, it seemed to draw my room into it very slowly. It was also far away and close. I had this only a few times as an adult, and was told to quit acting like a baby. As an adult, they were also accompanied by panic attacks. (I suppose that is what was going on as a child, too)
When I would finally manager to get from my bed to the hallway - it was very far away and my long spindley legs were never long enough to get me there in under a half hour - things became more normal. When I would try to explain to my dad that "everything was far away and I couldn't reach it" he told me the same thing used to happen to him when he was little, and to try falling asleep staring directly at a bright light, because then you can't see anything else. Surprisingly, I don't have to wear glasses from that. I developed epilepsy around the time the childhood syndrome wore off, and didn't "outgrow" it until my mid 20s.
Scary as hell at any age though.
Alice In Wonderland syndrome sometimes happens during the onset of migraines. It used to happen to me pretty regularly.
Yes! #36 and #37 (Bill and 5MeoCMP) describe it so well. I got it all the time when I was a little kid, especially when I was having a fever. There was always this big thing. Something vast like a shape you see underwater or something that could smother me. Then the little thing which was like a tiny point or drill. Yeesh, even the faded memory gives me the willies.
But besides that, I would also get a related feeling even as an adult, usually when I was feeling tired. This one usually happened while I was looking at someone's head. I would get the sensation like their head was really big or far away. It is hard to describe. Maybe like that zoom in camera effect that I don't know the name for where the background kind of drops away as you focus in on the subject.
I experienced this (along with nausea & vomiting) when I found out I can't eat mushrooms. (I was eating a portobella, by the way.) Everything in my field of vision appeared alternately larger or smaller, then I got sick. When I described it to Mom, she said that I'm probably sensitive to the toxins present in all mushrooms (poison 'shrooms simply have these ingredients in different proportions to the edible ones). She added that Lewis Carroll may have had the same problem, hence the inspiration for the Caterpillar's mushroom in "Alice in Wonderland." Years later, I saw the film "City of Lost Children," and the trippy scene in which the girl finally defeats the old man reminded me of what I'd seen after eating of the mushroom.
#26 (LAMACQ):
When I was four years old, I had my tonsils removed, and I distinctly remember a bizarre black and white checkerboard effect occurring just as I started to go under from the anesthesia. I don't remember ever having the near/far stuff going on, though.
Neurological phenomena are both fascinating and scary with all the ways one's brain can malfunction.
To refer back to #16:
I had forgotten about these occasional incidents of childhood (hearing a noise close by and perceiving it way across the room) or seeing something close and perceiving it far away. This would only happen in the dark when going to sleep.
40 years later, I developed mild epilepsy, and had one major attack, following a long stressful period of loud (jackhammer) renovation in my apartment building stretching over many months. I eventually moved out.
Recently I supposed there could be a relation between the two. Thank you, Cinemajay, for pointing out this possibility.
I first got this in 1984 when I was 16 and was admitted to a psych hospital for depression. Since then I have had it my whole life. Once when I was about 22 I had it 24/7 for almost a year. It was really scary and I thought it was never going to go away! I have the AIWS where everything looks small and far away. Sometimes my teeth feel way too big for my mouth. I have also had occular migraines with no headache. It's comforting to no that I am not alone and now there are people who can relate! I wonder if medicine will ever find the exact cause and ve able to "cure" it. I still get it when I am talking to people or looking down at the floor like when sweeping. It sucks.
Fascinating that so many people experienced this more often as children. Same with me, though I never thought to ask anyone else till now. As a child, as I was dropping off to sleep, and sometimes in my dreams, my surroundings seemed what I would describe as being simultaneously infinitely big & distant and infinitely small and close. I felt that I had some degree of control in focusing on one perception over the other and shifting between the two at will, without their being any perceivable change.
It was a dizzying sensation, but not unpleasant. In some ways it was comforting.
A few years ago, while reading Professor Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, it occurred to me that Einstein's curved space-time could be a scientific description of this exact same sensation. Or vice versa. Nonsense, of course, but it 'felt right'.
I don't recall experiencing this in adult life, although there is a photographic technique that can almost bring the sensation back, like a half-remembered dream. (With a wide-angled lens, place a camera on flat ground that stretches continuously away to a far distant object, building, hill, etc. Place another object - ideally a person - in the middle distance and shoot.) My Lomo (Russian camera) gets closest to the feeling.
In childhood I also used to experience mild synesthesia (crossed senses). Where letters of the alphabet (and the words they made, even days of the week) always had their own, distinct colours. A, as in cat, was always a dark blue. A, as in play, was pale blue. E was always yellow of differing hues. U, grey. O, black or charcoal grey. I, white, etc.
Sorry, to correct myself, it wasn't Einstein's curved space that reminded me of the sensation, it was Hawking's theory of a boundless, finite universe that 'curves' in on itself.
It seemed to me that somehow the big and the small were not opposites, but meeting points, because they were, to my mind, the same.
I am 19 years old, and i KNOW i have Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. I have these weird feelings all the time where objects that i come in contact with are very very tiny and im HUGE!! and then at other times. I am TINY and everything i come into contact with seems to be much much bigger than me. It usually comes with a migrane, which run in my family. it probably happens to me once every 2 to 3 months. its the weirdest feeling in the world and i'm just wondering if any doctors need me to study because i know thats its rare. If anyone has any questions, feel free to email me at ajen2689@netscape.net and please put in the subject "alice in wonderland syndrome" thank you so much. Im hoping to help the study of the syndrome before i get much older and it fades away. Thank you for listening.
- Alayna Jensen, San Diego, CA
yup, i get this too. usualy when going to sleep, had it since i was very young and still ocasionaly now, 25. i never found it scary tho, actualy quite enjoy it. i can kind of control it too in that i can keep pushing the bigness out and make the smallness smaller, i can sometimes make it happen but not always. sometimes its not too strong and fades away quickly but sometimes it can be very intense! it feels almost infinate like smaller than an atom and larger than space, but even that dosn't discribe it, like i can always get even smaller or larger it seems to flash very fast from one to another. i had it again recently and dicided to google it, typed in 'big small sensation sleep' and found this! before anyone says it, no i wasn't taking drugs from a young age! maybe some at a later age but thats got nothing to do with it. i dont beleve it has anything to do with sleep paralysis either as i know i can just snap out of it if i want. i kinda like 'big e smalls' discription and the hawkins theory, im gonna have to read that one maan! i remember sometimes getting a feeling like im a tiny point on a massive kind of sheet or wall that curves in or out on itself, but the wall was endless so how could it curve in or out on itself because that meant that it would have to eventualy meet itself again but it could't meet because it was endless! this used to confuse me and i would try to work it out, as i thought about it tho the feeling would get more and more intense and flash faster. it definatly has a kind of meaningfull feel to it. ok enough said for now! i would reely like to find out more about what this might be so any ideas/sugestions/comments, other than 'your mad' would be grrr8 thanks!
I have Micropsia syndrome..I have gone to an optometrist and they said everything was fine with my eyes..They gave me classes but after i take it off it makes everything seem worse...You see everything differently ..Its almost like your eyes had zoomed out of the real world..Like you were looking at things from farther away but they were at the same place as usual..When i am in school i panic very often..I went to another kids doctor but she couldnt help because she didn't even know what the syndrome was..I dont know what to do at this point..I try and explain it to my mom but she cant understand it if she has never experienced it..It started like 3 or 4 years ago..It went away for a couple months and it happened every now and then but it was never bad..In the last 2 months it has been happening every day at least 5 times a day..Usualy during school..But now when i go outside and see my friends..They look all small..It wasnt till 2 weeks ago that i tried doing research on it to see if i was just imagining it or it was actualy happening..So i found out about Micropsia (AIWS) and people described it , it felt like it was what i was feeling..I told my parents but they just didnt understand...They think i worry about things too much or i went on the computer and watched TV too much..I know its not that..Please , anyone know how to treat AWIS? I dont want to have this for the rest of my life and I have seen articles that say it can be caused by a brain Tumor..Is ths true? It also said that kids 2-10 usualy experience it but im alot older than that..I want it to stop..I want to see a doctor that actualy knows what it is..What the constant ringing in my ear is .. What this AWIS is..Why do i feel dizzy sometimes and feel like the floor is slanted and i am going to fall...Why? How? What can i do? I cant just close my eyes all day..And even then..I can experience dizzyness even with my eyes closed..And when i open them its even worse than before..Why are things so small..Why does this happen to me..Is it psychological? Is it a disease? Is it a tumor? So many questions ..With no answers....Most oof you say it outgrew you when u were very young..Im in high schooll..Why is this still happening constantly?
cj3022 @ 52 - I really feel for you, but don't panic!!
I think perhaps you are suffering from silent migraines - aka abortive migraines - aka ocular migraines. These are migraines without actual headaches.
Don't worry that you're later than average in experiencing these symptoms, in your teens you're made vulnerable to this sort of stuff by all the changes in your hormones, and by the stress inflicted by school etc at your age.
You seem from your post to be a bit panicky - a lot of doctors unfortunately might feel that you're neurotic (and maybe you are - I am, lots of us are) and dismiss your symptoms as hypochondria, since there are no outward signs.
But as you can read here, you're not alone, although it must be particularly horrible to experience the Alice in Wonderland shit while you're trying to interact with the outside world!
So... see your doctor again, suggest abortive/silent/ocular migraines (doctors prefer problems they can treat). And If you have no joy, post here again - I'll keep checking to see...
Thanks for the help..But how do i know if its a "Silent Migraine"? I looked it up and it didnt realy say anything about Micropsia..I think i should go see a neurologist..It started happening before my teens too so i dont know if its because of that...And its not like i experienced anything life changing or something that wuld cause me to experince this...But an article about Silent Migraines did say it can cause you to have weird eye experiences..So I dont know..How do i cure these things? Wat kind of doctor do I go to? Neurologist? Optometrist? Thanks for the help!
cj3022 @54 - Firstly, I'm not a doctor, I'm a fellow sufferer.
I'm not sure how it works in the US, but here in the UK, we first visit a GP (US = Family Doctor), who can then refer you to whatever specialist they think appropriate. With the symptoms you report here I would expect that they would want you checked out by an op(h)thalmologist and/or a neurologist.
It might be useful if, before visiting the doctor, you keep a diary of your symptoms and any factors which might be triggering the episodes. Record what you eat and drink, and when you do have an episode, record what time it was, where you were (and whether it was brightly-lit, overheated etc.), what you were doing and how you were feeling before it happened. You might even learn for yourself how to avoid it happening.
With regard to 'silent' migraines - "There is no diagnostic test to confirm Migraine disease. Diagnosis is achieved by reviewing both family and patient medical history, evaluating the symptoms, and performing an examination to rule out other causes of the symptoms. If there is any alteration in consciousness, seizure disorders should also be ruled out.
" ( from this site ), they are linked to micropsia here ,
"Migraine aura without headache or acephalic migraine
Around 3-5% of migraineurs experience an aura without headache. This presentation is more common in older patients who have had a history of migraine with aura during early age. Symptoms may include scintillating scotomata, formed stereotyped visual hallucinations in a single visual field or bilaterally, micropsia, and tunnel vision. Other auras include paroxysmal vertigo, hemisensory dysesthesias, and rarely auditory hallucinations. Acephalic migraine should be differentiated from transient ischemic attack, occipital lobe seizures, or temporal lobe seizures. " amongst other sites.
And once again, when you visit your doctor, if you can remain calm and composed, there's a much better chance that you're problems will be taken seriously.
I'll check back,
good luck :)
I am SOOO with Shockbeton/Xadrian! I have had this all my life, ever since I can remember where things are as tiny as pin heads or as large as planets as Xadrian said.
And I am so glad that people are out there too! I laughed out loud with releif that someone totally took the words out of my mouth....as Xandrian said it perfeclty..."I've tried to explain this and people just look at me like I rode in on a load of pumpkins."
I would get the reduced or super size me feeling like I was a giant when concentrating...on pretty much anything, but especially a person talking at me...and like Xadrian said, usually the parents...
I often wonder though if is could be a cause of physical and mental abuse...since I grew up with that. Just a thought.
Can anyone tell me if they have experienced noise hallucinations with their AIWS? I have an 8 year old that is experiencing both simultaneously. He is hearing the word "what" spoken over and over and when he opens his eyes he is getting the smaller vision hallucination. It would be great to hear that he is not the only one that experiences this. Thank you!
i'm no neurologist, but i just found this paper which is by some neurologist about two kids who had auditory hallucinations that accompanied migraine headaches, and pretty much what we all have here is migraines without the headache so your son may have that too.
it's just really really uncommon, so you probably should bring him to a neurologist so he can be tested for other psychiatric disorders: it is probably nothing but when i went to the neurologist they just tested anyways to make sure it wasn't the other three possibilities that yield AIWS: epilepsy, mono, or early onset brain tumor.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/hed/2002/00000042/00000007/art00013
that's the scholarly article. if you're motivated you can buy it for the low low price of like 43 dollars but i didn't.
for me my AIWS lasts for 4 days to a week straight and everything is dimmed down and tunnel-visioned, i perceive curvature where there is none and if i stare things move closer or start pulsating. sometimes everything just starts pulsating and my heartbeat echoes throughout my entire body.
Tunnel vision, heavy/massive physical pressured feeling (like heavy sheets mentioned above), repetitive auditory hallucinations, fear, loss of grasp on reality, etc., I had them also for a while during childhood. Recently, my son has also mentioned at bedtime that "everything looks small and far". It seems to be not as scary for him as I remember it being for me. I've been telling him that it happens to some kids when they are over tired and need more sleep, and I believe that's the #1 reason. Parent reaction of over-concern or panic could lead to increased anxiety for the kids too, and that might make things worse. So I try to monitor closely, provide assurance that it will pass, and not get in the way of the all-powerful self-fix that boosts confidence. I'll just comment here (unprofessional opinion) these other factors I believe to be correlated to the syndrome: Illness/fever, overheating (especially the brain) at night due to room temp, dehydration, too much blanket coverage, too much sugar/carb before bed, nervousness, caffeine (remember it's in soda, chocolate, cakes, coffee, tea, .....), too much late-evening exercise, and probably "hormone stuff". One trick to get out of the tunnel quickly might be to turn off the lights and/or keep eyes closed, but if the fear level has already kicked in, a cozy and cool walk to the kitchen for water-sipping party might be a good bet.
My son is 6 years old. For the past several weeks, he's been having fears at bedtime. Mostly in bed or right before bed ( but a few times during the day ) he tells us that he's having "that far away look". He says that everything looks further away than he knows it to really be. It's accompanied by fear that he categorizes as a 10 on a scale from 1 to ten. If he sleeps in our bed he says the fear recedes to a 3. He also has been having what he calls very loud booms in his head. Sometimes he'll have one, other times, five or sometimes more than 30! The intensity varies but usually he says it's louder than the blender. He's an extremely bright child who tests at a fifth grade level and can do schoolwork at that level. Sometimes he is prone to overeacting to a small cut to the point of shaking. Or moved to tears and covering his ears by the cheering at a baseball game. He will act panicked and irrational but when removed from the source of his fear he is calm and back to normal.
Most of the time he is a happy well-adjusted child. He is funny, loving and extremely observant. He has had other irrational fears in the past that he has outgrown and now he finds it funny that he was ever afraid. He is vegetarian. His height and weight are normal. He is an only child. He has a happy homelife with two loving parents and a dog. He has good friends and enjoys participating in sports. We have taken him to his physician and had an intake with the psychology dept. We are awaiting the scheduling of an MRI and the appointment with a child pschiatrist. We haven't had much offered in the way of a possible diagnosis, yet. I've recently stumbled upon information on the web about Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, Teleopsia, and Exploding Head Syndrome which seem to fit what's happening to him. We've been feeling really overwhelmed trying to figure out what this is, what might be causing this and what might help him. The possibilites seem endless: Temporal Lobe lesions, migraines auras, Lime disease, B12 or Zinc deficiencies, epilepsy or some sort of seizures, parasomnias ie: auditory sleep starts, pseudotumor, meniere's disease, middle ear damage, schizophenia and more. We're trying to see correlations in his diet, activity level, stress, video game, tv or computer use. As you can imagine it is extremely hard not being able to help him. I cannot enter his mind and stop the noise or fix his visual perceptions. We pray together and it's heartbreaking to hear him ask God to take away his "problems" night after night. I try to tell him that sometimes it takes time for prayers to be answered. He has told me he does believe his "problems" will go away. I do believe God led me here and to other sites so I could tell him he's not the only one having these problems and that they can go away. If anyone has any information that might help him; we would welcome it. Thank you!
Thankfully the noises and the "far away" vision have stopped! I had searched and found some information that people with similiar experiences had posted. This is our experience and what seems to have worked for us:
The loud noises stopped within two days of making sure he was getting enough Zinc and taking his multivitamin, daily. (I checked all our foods and many foods that are supposed to be good sources of Zinc don't have it listed on the nutritional information on the label ( such as nuts and milk ). I went grocery shopping with Zinc in mind and now have quite a few sources added to his diet.
The "far away" vision slowed and then eventually stopped when we put an inflatable bed on the floor of our son's room and took turns staying with him every night until he was fast asleep. A few weeks ago we changed to one of us sleeping in there every other night. In between he sleeps by himself with a night-light and some favorite stuffed animal friends:). We will keep lessening the days we are in there until he gets used to sleeping comfortably by himself, again. For a long time he could still make the far away vision come by staring at an object or person. Today I asked him if he could do that anymore and he said, "No!".
Of course, these are my observations and feelings and I have no double blind tests to back them up. I feel that prayer, Zinc (and a good multivitamin - we give him half the dosage and are eating healthily and expect him to get the rest from his food) and knowing we were there and he was safe every night he needed us. Boy, I wish we stayed in his room sooner. Once he stopped having these issues our worry and stress level went down considerably.
We had taken him to a child psychiatrist which honestly felt like we were being summed up, judged and came up wanting. The one good thing he did was reccommend a neurologist. She was very helpful and ordered and MRI and a EEG to rule a more serious physical cause such as a brain tumor or epilepsy. Believe it or not the MRI scheduled date is finally coming up this week but the EEG is not until next month. (Health care and especially HMO's are so ridiculous. I can't imagine the stress & worry we would have experienced if these issues had still been plaguing him all this time)
I hope our experience can help others and I will post again after the MRI and the EEG.
God Bless,
Relieved Mom