What is the neurological disorder known as “Alice in Wonderland Syndrome” and how to identify it

If you suffer from very severe headaches, chances are you’ve already noticed how your visual perception is affected. Perhaps you’ve had episodes where the shapes, sizes, and colors of objects suddenly change; or maybe you’ve heard that this happens to other people, but… why does this happen? These drastic changes in what we see are some of the symptoms of a neurological disorder known as the “Alice in Wonderland Syndrome”, in which your mind perceives things completely different from what they are.

O incredible.club decided to research more about the details of this disease to share them with you, as it never hurts to know information that may be important to your health or someone you know.

This syndrome, also known as micropsia, is characterized by a distorted perception of what we see. During temporary episodes, you see objects of a different size, shape or color from reality. For example, a book could look bigger than it is or an elephant could look the size of a dog. This disease is an alteration of how things look around us. However, it does not mean that vision is affected; in fact, what is impaired is the interpretation that the brain makes when it observes certain things.

If you’ve never seen the movie Alice in Wonderland didn’t even read the book🇧🇷 at least you’ve heard about the story. Therefore, you know that it is based on a fantastic world with anthropomorphic characters and events in which the author of the work, Lewis Carrol, plays with logic. The main character of this story, Alice, changes size frequently after eating something. Therefore, some consider that the writer suffered from micropsia, and this was one of his sources of inspiration for writing this book. Because of this speculation, and due to the similarity between the records of the disease and the character, psychiatrist John Todd named the syndrome after the story.

According to research on this syndrome, the main symptoms are related to migraine and epilepsy, however, they are not limited solely to them, also comprising:

derealization: a temporary change in one’s perception or experience of the outside world; depersonalization: when someone observes himself from outside his body or feels that what is around him is not real; illusory changes: referring to the size, distance, sound or position of objects; fanciful feelings of levitation and changes in time; body image distortion.

A study shows that some of the people who have this syndrome suffer from infections, migraines or traumatic brain injuries; however, there are patients in whom the causes are unknown and further tests are needed to determine them. It was discovered that young children are the most affected by this disease, usually from the age of 6. Other research mentions brain injuries, medications, psychiatric disorders and epilepsy as other causes related to the disease.

There is still no specific treatment to combat this syndrome. First, you need to identify what is the cause of the episodes. For example, if it’s a migraine, the best thing to do is ask your doctor for the best medicine to prevent the pain from triggering the symptoms of the disease. As for other causes, such as infections, it is necessary to seek out a specialist so that they can be treated correctly. In either case, it’s important to get enough rest for a faster recovery. Usually this syndrome disappears with time.

Do you know this syndrome? Do you have any more data about her or about any other disorder?