When the Mind Plays Tricks: Exploring Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

Sarah_Wilson

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Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) is a neurological disorder characterized by size illusion, time-space dissociation mainly associated with migraine, infection, or stress. Although episodes are transient, they can be quite confusing at times. Analyzing the concept of AIWS provides a view on human perception and how the brain defines reality.

Introduction:

Picture that you are in a room one moment and everything around you makes you feel gigantic while your hands shrink to the size of peanuts the next. Or being on foot in a street that has buildings that are bent in ways human structures should not. It is not a movie or a dream: a rather strange and very rare nervous disorder, known as Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS).

This strange condition, which derives its name from Lewis Carroll’s wonderland, gives us an unprecedented look into how and why human thought misconceives reality. To know more about AIWS let’s take a closer look at its definition, signs, causes and cure.

A Curious Name: The Origin of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

In the context of AIWS, it is named after Alice in Wonderland; Carroll’s character experiences hallucinations of distortion of size, time, and space. The term was first used in 1955 by a British psychiatrist Dr John Todd. At this, it is a known fact that Lewis Carroll likely suffered from migraines - which is a well-known symptom of AIWS - for this reason, we may infer that might be because AIWS that Carroll himself had attacked him that he could vivid imagination and strange description in the book.

That Carroll has woven his engaging narrative is not a question; his story is more than a literary delight; it is a gateway to explaining how much the human cortex distorts our interpretation of reality.

What exactly is Alice in Wonderland Syndrome?

AIWS is a neurological pathophysiology that is, largely, related to reception alone. Patients with AIWS experience brief episodes in which objects or limbs appear to have different size and distance from the individual as they actually are. For example, their hand will appear big while the opposite sex’s hand will appear small or a passage will look very long. They are most frequently of moderate duration and rarely serious but can be confusing and, occasionally, at least somewhat shocking.

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