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.
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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.