Alice in Wonderland Syndrome: The People Who Can't Comprehend Space and Time

Play Enlisted for FREE on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PS®5: enlisted.link/.... Follow the link to download the game and get your exclusive bonus now. See you in battle!
Got a beard? Good. I've got something for you: beardblaze.com
Simon's Social Media:
Twitter: / simonwhistler
Instagram: / simonwhistler
This video is #sponsored by Enlisted.
Love content? Check out Simon's other KZbin Channels:
Biographics: / @biographics
Geographics: / @geographicstravel
Warographics: / @warographics643
MegaProjects: / @megaprojects9649
SideProjects: / @sideprojects
TopTenz: / toptenznet
Today I Found Out: / todayifoundout
Highlight History: / @highlighthistory
Business Blaze: / @brainblaze6526
Casual Criminalist: / thecasualcriminalist
Decoding the Unknown: / @decodingtheunknown2373

[@IntotheShadows]

Play Enlisted for FREE on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PS®5: enlisted.link/intotheshadowse.... Follow the link to download the game and get your exclusive bonus now. See you in battle!

[@countofdownable]

Have you ever done Fake Memories, especially ones caused by hypnosis?

[@dweezytheguy61]

Is it kinda like Raid Shadow Legends? lmfao

[@ferg5666]

Enlisted is actually really good tbf

[@cowboybeebop3451]

I like enlisted but this advertising makes me not want to play. Anytime something is an ad it's like saying avoid me.

[@Alaybaba]

@@dweezytheguy61 no, it's a console WW1 fps and it's actually pretty good. You spawn as part of a squad where you are the player and the other members of your squad are AI that follow you about, when you die you take over one of the squad members of your choice

[@SanguineUltima]

I had a slightly different but somewhat similar experience as a kid. Any time I laid in the dark, I could see the darkness as if it was actually expanding and contracting- like it was breathing or something. Later I would begin seeing bizarre fractal geometric patterns when I closed my eyes, which would transform into exceedingly vivid dreams which I can still remember to this day. Those dream recollections are actually more memorable than almost all my memories of waking life.

[@baaadgoat1091]

I had this. Shadows would dance sometimes and other times I could see when I closed my eyes an infinite place of a perfectly smooth material, like pastry dough but it would undulate or take texture as my thoughts moved about or I willed an emotion. If I'm very focused I can still make it happen. The out of body experiences and time loss still happen from time to time.

[@Cassiterit3]

I absolutely had this particular thing as a kid. Wild to think about.

[@dylanbrewer8605]

That moving darkness thing used to happen to me all the time when I used to pull frequent all-nighters.

[@sneggron]

Sounds Like hypnagogia. I use it for lucid dreaming

[@AlyGlows]

I have this still and what's bad for me is as a kid those weird geometric patterns I would see in the dark would twist into scary images and I wouldn't sleep because I was to busy hiding under the covers while my body shrunk. My psychiatrist said that I had a naturally high dopamine level and that caused the 'seeing in the dark' but I still get very weird things at night happening. I also always see things, sometimes hear distant music, but its worse if I'm stressed. But the poor people who suffer in this video have it way worse than me and I seldom get migraines too. Its a bit comforting to know I'm not alone!

[@purcascade]

As a kid, I'd see a weird distortion at night... kind of like sand falling in an hourglass. I tried to tell my mom, and she just said I was dreaming. I pushed the issue so she forcefully was like "the house isn't haunted, there's no such thing as ghosts." I got very calm and locked eyes with her: "I didn't say anything about ghosts, I said I'M SEEING THINGS" Yeah, now as an adult, I have an official diagnosis of migraine and a strong feeling of resentment.

[@hammerbobber]

i forget for some reason but i used to have somthing to do with sand at night when i suffered from migranes n alice in wonderland sydrom im

[@purcascade]

@@hammerbobber I forgot too for a long time! I remembered out of nowhere a few years ago, like "wait... wasn't there some sand thing when I was a kid?!?"

[@fruityfloss9437]

migraines... i hate them to an incredible degree. The auras are (personally) more scary than the pain of the headache *Edit: spelling

[@concorde3980]

Given only the style of your writing, I'd hazard a guess and say the resentment you feel towards your mother is mutual.

[@ae86hachi]

@@concorde3980 You know what they say about assuming...

[@fabricdragon]

Today I Found Out.... so apparently the "fish eye lens" and "distortions" and "arms feel too big" that i have COMPLAINED about as a primary symptom (other than pain) of my migraines FOR YEARS... are "rare" and have a name that not ONE of my neurologists told me.. joy. thanks Simon and writers, i will make a note to show my neurologists this one...

[@no_peace]

Mine is that my hands are drastically the wrong size and sometimes like my feet are way too far away. Sometimes i can't understand people's faces. Sometimes I feel like I don't know where I am as well. Haven't had that in awhile though

[@no_peace]

Oh a couple of times I've thought the road was upside down at night Anyway I'm sorry, I hope you find any care you need.

[@CarrionCrow993]

I'm so glad I don't suffer visual distortions as well as pain with my migraines. That fish-bowl lens thing would have me hanging onto the ground for dear life, too motion-sick to know which way is up.

[@jellydarling1008]

Any updates?

[@mausilw]

I was diagnosed about five years ago, and unfortunately there’s no real treatment plan for this condition. Some people manage to get it under control with diet changes and migraine treatment, but many others just never stop experiencing this.

[@andrewcombe8907]

I suffered these problems as a child. I was constantly feeling disassociated from the reality and the reality I saw was distorted as to space and scale.

[@Cec9e13]

The one and only episode I have had, as an adult, I took to be derealization, as in "crap oh crap my anxiety is now bad enough I'M HAVING DEREALIZATION." This is much less menacing.

[@steffanofumo]

Depersonalization or derealization is some of the scariest thing you can ever experience, I experienced it from severe panic attacks, it feels like you’re piloting your consciousness from the back of your head like some sort of robot, my first episode was the strongest and it took weeks for me to normalize, also realized caffeine is a huge trigger.

[@Hellakiddie]

This!! I always slightly joke “I’m not piloting my Eva idk who is”

[@HumanimalChannel]

I hate Psnic Attacks ...theyre so distressing, and especially as a child, ir anytime youre extra vulnerable.

[@steffanofumo]

@@Hellakiddie unfortunately we don’t get cool shit like AT fields, vibro knifes etc for our troubles lol

[@AlexBrowningPX]

This is a perfect description for how I experience depersonalization. It's awful when it happens. It's rooted in my issues with PTSD and always triggers when someone is upset or angry near me. It makes relationships really hard because you can't actively participate in an argument without getting stuck like this and having to fight against it just to be there in the room. it's incredibly exhausting

[@nisrinaprihadi2754]

i used to be a heavy coffee drinker, but stop once i realized that it would trigger my anxiety, i still got some episodes and panic attacks sometimes but not as often as it was

[@WinterOfMen]

As someone that's suffered from migraines, dissociative seizures and visual distortions his whole life, this video was very helpful, thank you

[@buffster948]

That must be tough. I hope you get the support and help you need, to help you on your journey.

[@WinterOfMen]

@@buffster948 Thank you, for the longest time I just assumed everyone saw throbbing colours everywhere or saw shapes shifting, distorting or vibrating. It was only recently, and partially thanks to Simon that I realized it was just me.

[@The-Shadows-Lair]

@@WinterOfMen not just you but many migraine and epileptic suffers i suspect. It's just fear of being told we are crazy may be in part why so few actually talk about that aspect of having migraines and epilepsy. I too see colour distortions and also suffer intense visual snow. When I'd mention it to my parents as a child they took me to a psychiatrist when it probably been more helpful if they'd taken me to a neurologist.

[@WinterOfMen]

@@The-Shadows-Lair agreed, and even when you get the courage to mention it, if you aren’t acting like Alice herself, tripping over yourself and freaking out, most people just assume you’re lying because they don’t experience distortions. I’ve heard ‘you seem fine to me’ way too many times while watching the walls bubble and move

[@secluse]

Look for my comment, there is a lot of great research on migraine and epileptic aura and cortical spreading depression. AIWLS for both of those conditions is most often caused by that. There are even some fairly effective medications that have been studied for it, primarily Lamotrigine. I have a family history of migraine with complex aura, previously labeled Basilar Migraine, and a good number of my auras are AIWLS. When another medical condition made my migraines and auras intractable Lamictal was the only thing that worked and it reduced the auras to near zero and migraines back to a handful a month at most. It was a godsend while the other disease was being diagnosed and treated. The data also is significant and at this point repeated in multiple studies.

[@devarious5004]

I had my mind q little bit blown as your description of children feeling themselves growing or shrinking before sleep sent me whooshing years back to countless hours laying in bed as a kid. I was never scared of the feeling, always just assumed it was some weird pre-sleep dream sensation, never even mentioned it to my mom, and forgot about it completely a few years into adulthood, but god -damn- it was jarring to be so abruptly reminded of an experience I'd entirely forgotten having so regularly in my youth.

[@theConquerersMama]

Same

[@vanlifecrone4618]

I feel so seen!!!!!!

[@GlorifiedGremlin]

I don't know if I ever grew and shrunk, but as a kid I'd regularly feel like I was floating and feel momentum like my body was flying around. Never cared though, it felt kinda cool. I don't know if that's AIWS tho, cuz that's literally the only thing that happened and still occasionally happens to me as an adult

[@jokuvaan5175]

Same for me but I never forgot it. I just occationally though about it and ehy I didn't experience it anymore. I had it sometimes just before falling asleep or waking up at night. I'd just lay on the bed and feel like everything I saw was moving away from me or that I was getting smaller. I was never afraid but it felt a bit annoying sometimes. I just thought that it must be some half asleep thing and so never told anyone about it.

[@delightbydelusion]

For me it was mostly the dimensions of the room being stretched and distorted, but yes!

[@lilacsmile4321]

It’s so affirming to look through these comments and see so many people who had the exact same experiences as a child that I had :) Makes me feel a lot less crazy. Specific instances that really stuck with me includes a time when I was having these symptoms so I went to my mom to tell her and I could feel and see myself growing taller and taller. I remember so distinctly looking down on my mother sitting at her desk as I grew as tall as the ceiling. It really freaked me out. Another sensation that really stuck with me was having a nightmare in which I pinched an entire mattress into a small ball with just my finger and thumb, and that same sensation continuing as I woke up. I can’t really describe why but it was so terrifying to me.

[@amazinggrapes3045]

A lot of times the emotions in dreams don't match up with what's actually happening

[@totalyblu]

So when I first saw this video title I got really excited because I recognized the name. The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome was named by my grandfather Dr John Todd. I spent the first few minutes thinking "ooh, is Simon going to mention him?" So this was super interesting, I never actually knew all the symptoms. I never actually met my grandfather because he died before I was born but he was what could be termed as a "character", my mum is full of funny stories. Anyway, if Simon is looking for another video idea my grandfather also named the Othello syndrome, something to do with insane jealously. Sufficiently dark? ;)

[@beanoneya]

That's really neat!

[@liabarbour1852]

Wow!!!! That’s Fascinating

[@JatPhenshllem]

Damn. That's very cool

[@samanthamartin1407]

Your grandfather sounds like a rad guy. I'm glad that you've gotten to hear many wonderful stories about him from your mom, and apparently any content creators that have heard about his work!!!

[@victor_silva6142]

Your grandfather got taste for names (and books).

[@embernocte]

This reminds me of when I was sick as a child. I would dream and feel like "everything was too small", I would touch the tip of my thumb and forefinger together and feel nauseated and disoriented by how "small" the contact felt. My dreams would be me falling through giant rooms, like I was the size of an ant.

[@badnames2169]

I had the exact same feeling! It started after I got really sick with a high fever at 7 or 8 years old. I dreamt that aliens abducted me and placed me in a giant strainer in space and I shrank as the strainer got bigger. The moment I fell through the hole I’d start drifting through space for a bit before the dream would start over. The feeling of everything being not the right size followed me for about a week. Then it occurred less frequently and more sporadically. The nauseating feeling that things were the wrong size would last from a few minutes to a few days. The last time I experienced this I was 15 and it lasted about a day. I haven’t had the feeling since and it’s been nearly a decade

[@haydenb8911]

SAME THING!!! Reading for long periods of time on my phone will bring it out, all the letters look so small and feel so far away

[@azareth_]

crazy i had the exact same thing.. whenever i had fever and closed my eyes i imagined white balls that got smaller and smaller

[@soepsoep6445]

i had the same thing as a kid !!!! it wouldnt happen just when i was sick, but mostly any time i was at my dad's house? i still get it sometimes but very rarely

[@Justinjss]

I was scrolling through seeing if anyone had something similar to what I vaguely remember. You described it so well that I can imagine/ feel it now. I’d always touch my thumb and finger as a way to check if it was happening. My hand would feel so far away and the feeling of them touching just wasn’t right

[@potat_ohs]

When I was a kid whenever I would lay down and close my eyes in the dark I would feel like I became tiny. I could physically feel myself shrinking and feel the room become huge. It only went away when I opened my eyes and put my glasses on. I'm 21 now and it still happens on occasion when I'm extremely anxious or having a migraine while laying in bed at night.

[@Magna_Carta5]

Me too! I don’t have migraines, I’d grow or shrink, everything getting bigger or smaller. It happens less now, but it was very common. I used to experience dissociation A LOT but didn’t even know what it was until someone described it like two weeks ago. I’m in my 30s and just figuring out that my mental health was worse than I thought for many years.

[@aleishamoon3869]

DUDE YES. ..I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THIS WAS A THING... Except I, or whatever I'm imagining, gets super small and then milliseconds later, infinitely large , over and over

[@havshkamusic2733]

Oooh I used to get this a lot when I was younger. It's like I cannot 'grasp' the difference between small and big anymore? When I try to grasp it, what's bigger immediately becomes smaller again and what's smaller becomes bigger and it goes back and forth for a while. In a way, it also kinda feels like I'm falling? It lasts for a few seconds, maybe half a minute at most. It makes me feel really strange, almost dizzy and light in my head, and it's extremely uncomfortable. When I was little, like when I was a baby until I was 6 or something, I got this very very frequently. Often, I got visions with it of an object (usually a baby stroller that I was pushing for some reason) that was changing in size and volume. Now I'm older, it only happens a few times a year. I don't get visions with it anymore, it's just a feeling when it happens now. And I cannot really pinpoint if it's caused by factors like being tired or being under a lot of stress.

[@XWierdThingsHappenX]

When I was little I was convinced I could switch my legs so left would become the right. I would "switch" them all the time when in bed.

[@Kmar7012]

I experienced this as well, but also that I was becoming larger. Also when I would be sitting talking to someone, their head would slowly start to shrink and become farther away from me. No matter how much I would try to blink it away or rub my eyes, it wouldn’t stop. Was so uncomfortable to focus on what the person was saying. Never knew it was a thing other’s experienced. When I learned about AIW I was shocked to hear others experienced this as well and it’s not just in my head!

[@NadonRay]

This is wild. I experienced this pretty regularly as a kid. It would feel as though I was a giant and everything around me was small and moving in slow motion, OR I was small, and things around me were on fast foreword. I tried explaining it to my mom but it was so weird and unexplainable, that she just assumed I was tired and disregarded it. But it would happen pretty regularly until I was at least in my late teens/early 20s. Since then it has happened occasionally, but it's been pretty spontaneous.

[@Goldenretriever-k8m]

Me too. Although usually it would feel like my hand is suddenly growing to the size of universe. I actually liked it because it made me feel big. I still get it sometimes with my hand or my head, various body parts

[@manfmalachi]

Those are actually womb dreams or womb sleep paralysis

[@Indy_Bendy]

Sure

[@margotchekan7467]

I thought it was vertigo

[@haleon4708]

I definitely gave my mother a heart attack when I was younger because of this phenomenon. I’d been sick in bed with an illness that was probably the flu, but on the third day I just couldn’t wrench my eyes away from the corner of my bedroom. Once I started describing what I was seeing, my mom was FRANTICALLY packing a bag so that she could rush me to the doctors office. At first, I was only casually observing that the corner of the room seemed darker than usual. Then, the darkness started to feel almost magnetic. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t look away from the expanding pocket of darkness. It gave me a wicked headache and of course, the experience of watching your 8 year old become completely entranced by what appears to be a completely normal corner while crying in agony and clutching her head will definitely raise a parent’s blood pressure. I didn’t break eye contact with the corner until I begged for my mother to take me away from the corner before “I can’t ever get out”. Even as she picked me up and threw me over her shoulder, my eyes were locked on the corner. But the second it was out of my sight, the headache went away and I felt so much better. I used to have a lot of trouble discerning what was real and what was imaginary, but I was very young and didn’t know how to express it so I kept it to myself. I remember one time when I was around 10, I’d gotten off the bus and realized that couldn’t find my house keys. I was stuck outside, which would have been okay until I walked to the end of the driveway, looked back and saw what appeared to be a huge black wolf standing right by my door. My vision wasn’t great, but what convinced me was that the shape seemed to be constantly moving. I was fully convinced that there was a wolf preventing me from getting into my home. I stayed outside in the dead of winter for 3 hours until my mother came home from work.

[@Some1outthere]

That must have been so scary for you! But what a great story now that you understand. Thanks for sharing

[@mineduck3050]

Interesting. I left my accounts above as well, hope you have a look.

[@inthelandofmorethansmall7582]

I've experienced that same thing. And I've seen the geometric patterns like a kaleidoscope when Ive tried "meditation". I did that stuff all the time as a kid and she's quite a few rides as an adult. But what REALLY upsets me is something I've never heard anyone else say: Why am I me" I remember looking into my bathroom mirror as a 3yr old (and +), and I wondered if I was an experiment where everyone else were just background people. And I believed that they all knew what I did when no one was around and I believed they all knew my thoughts. Looking back now, I was a scary kid. When The Truman Show came along, it took me right back there to that moment. After that is when it REALLY got dark. You see, I did an experiment to see if My Mom and Dad did actually know what I was thinking. And when they didn't, it left me with another, far scarier question. Why me? Why was I born into THIS body? Or Into THIS family? How can I hear my thoughts but I can't hear anyone else's thoughts? How come I can see through MY eyes and feel THIS body when no one else can? I could've been anyone. Why was my specific DNA, MY personality, born on April 11, 1983? Why am I in this body? Does it mean I'm special? I mean, I do have a very specific viewpoint for me to create an assessment/overview and reach a very unique conclusion... But why wasn't I born into my friend Tera's body? Or my friend Brooks? Why was I born at this SPECIFIC time I'm THIS specific body? Was I something else before? Have I lived before and I just don't remember if? If so, does that even really count as a "reincarnation"? Bc if I don't remember at all, then that means that no current part of us experienced THAT akternate part of us. It would make sense if here was a God and he put me here for a reason. Bur I soon cane to realize that there is no meaning and there are no answers. Would I have known if I had never been born? What about those who never got to be born? Did they just never exist? What if they were people who would've been very important? What if I had never been born? What happens when I die? What was the point of it all? Just hundreds of Trillions of individuals who live a conscious life si ce the begin9nng of time... But again, why am I me? And what happens when I go to sleep and the next morning into doesn't come? Was my existence even worth it? Then I go back to, but why am I me? Why do I look like this? Why was I born into this body? Why was I born to this family and these circumstances? Whu me? Why can't I read YOUR mind? Why am I not you? And if one day I will be forgotten (the galaxy began... therefore it must have an ending as well. So what was the point? We are all going to be obliterated and lost to time or memory. And what if the u overseas restarts? And what if it already has and I just don't realize it? !

[@inthelandofmorethansmall7582]

O.g I want to apologize for such a l9ng comment It's the first time I've ever told anyone besides my Mom and my Husband. I guess I got carried away. So, TLDR: Why was I born on that date at that time to that family?. And why am I the only one who can be inside my brain? Why am I me?

[@Freqsheux]

I had a fear that I was schizophrenic when I was young, lol. Turns out I'm just a writer. I had such a strong imagination mixed with an extreme introverted personality. So I would create worlds to live in, characters and histories, entire languages and codes, mythologies and wars. I would have entire conversations with my characters and formed real relationships with them. I think I came to a realization that a tinge of madness makes for an entertaining story teller.

[@stephaniebillman5673]

It's becoming less common for me but I thought everyone felt sometimes much larger or much smaller. Sometimes my body feels like it no longer exists and I'm just a head or I'm a ghost. When I heard someone describe Alice in Wonderland syndrome I realized that these were not in fact normal. Now I realize that it's not just severe episodes of depersonalization or dissociating (which I do often experience as a result of a trigger). These episodes are always unprompted and thank God mine now almost exclusively happen at night when I'm laying in bed.

[@lawrencefrost9063]

Yes it's apparently common, perhaps even universal. No one ever talks about this shit coz...youre a goddamn kid.

[@statistical-cats-sophia]

Same!! About half the time when I close my eyes I start to feel like my hands are growing until I could fit my bed between my pointer finger and thumb. Sometimes it's like my head falls through the mattress or my feet stretch far away from me. They used to be very distressing but now I just need to open my eyes for a couple seconds to calm it down

[@recyclednew]

Me too! As a kid I didn’t realize that it wasn’t normal. I thought everyone experienced this! And I once asked my mom how do you cope with this because I don’t know how I’m supposed to cope with feeling like this all the time anymore! That’s when I realized that this really was not normal! Also I think she really believed it was just my imagination so I never saw anyone about it. I just fairly recently learned about this condition. After getting really sick I started having a lot of these experiences again and trying to find answers I learned about this! For a while I legit thought I was in a different reality or something! It was insane! It has improved a lot since I started seizure meds. They did tests on my brain waves and I have abnormal brainwave activity all the time like there’s brainwaves when I’m awake that should be happening when I’m asleep. Anyway the meds have helped a lot. I wonder if there are brainwave issues in all or most cases of this. Like a waking dream. I don’t know for sure. But I’m glad it’s becoming less common for you. Hopefully it will go away completely! Good luck!

[@Bard420]

I’ve definitely felt larger before while walking, like my body was suddenly gigantic and everything around me felt smaller than it was the day before. It was weird. I don’t experience it often at all. But with the mention of migraines, I’ve definitely been experiencing them lately whereas I have never had them before

[@czcrossman]

Me too as a youth I just assumed it was a normal thing that happened to people.

[@pirobot668beta]

Forgot to mention the 'missing time' incidents. Once drove nearly 80 miles past my destination because I forgot what I was doing. I have no conscious memory of that drive, or the drive back home, but I do remember asking for directions several times. Entire months gone; the passage of time being marked by writing rent-checks and paying bills. Wait two minutes for the bus? Eternity of suffering.

[@Metallica4Life92]

this sounds absolutely terrifying and horrible

[@judethaddeus9856]

Huh

[@kerrynicholls6683]

I’m so sorry, to have such extreme problems, Is horrible, I know. Though I do not have this syndrome I do suffer from depression PTSD brain damage hallucinations etc. I’m very lucky that medication can help me.

[@AboyM96]

That actually sounds like just a classic case of derealization

[@sythiadawn]

Have you ever been checked for DID? Missing time is one of the main symptoms.

[@updowndiscgolf880]

Had this once as a child. Crazy how vividly I can remember it considering i was probably around 7 years old, which was about 20 years ago. I was laying in my parents bed and I could feel myself shrinking/everything in the bed becoming massive. Felt sort of cool to me. Always thought it was a dream or my imagination until I watched this

[@ashleyashleym2969]

Oh yeah same when I felt myself shrink/the room get bigger, it was a very positive feeling, euphoric I would say.

[@Goldenretriever-k8m]

Yeah, it was a pleasant feeling, it made me feel big and important maybe, or maybe the sensation was kind of like being on a drug so there is euphoria

[@lastmanstanding5423]

completely forgot about it until I read this comment. but yes... I've had exactly this experience a few times as a kid. it was fun

[@RachelleBeyer]

As many others have commented, I too have experienced and occasionally still do experience this syndrome. Happened most when I was a kid. I have chronic migraines as an adult and apparently that is a common comorbidity with Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. It is such an awful feeling. I used to cry out in my bed as a child in hopes of getting it to “go away.” My parents used to think I was nuts because they would come into my room to check on me and ask what was wrong, I would tell them “MY HANDS/LEGS/FEET/HEAD (etc) WONT STOP GROWING” and they’d be like “your hands are growing at a normal rate please go to sleep and stop shrieking.” And then I’d say “NO YOU DONT UNDERSTAND ITS IN MY HEAD!” And they’d say “exactly so just stop it.” Always an unproductive conversation. Lol

[@oakenmaus]

I remember running to my mum crying when I was really little. She just assumed I was having a nightmare. I remember being very frustrated, knowing that it wasn’t.

[@SpecialBlanket]

that's very uncool of them. if someone is in distress that's the important part.

[@supme7558]

I mean pretty mild for a (syndrome)

[@andrewkoster6506]

@@supme7558 feeling like you're tripping balls when you're a child and you haven't taken any drugs doesn't sound very "mild", it sounds like it would be pretty scary actually, especially when you don't know why it's happening or whether it will ever end

[@Crystalkitzoku]

​@andrewkoster6506 especially when adults around you dismiss it like that.

[@msoda8516]

As a woman with migraines the idea the writer of Alice in Wonderland suffered them also makes so much sense.

[@naval-rn96]

@@audiodood It's not even something that is offensive and is also right there for you to read, why did you reply with what?

[@xathridtech727]

I'm a guy with migraines and this honestly explains most of the symptoms that are hard for me to explain

[@themagnus2919]

So having migraines makes me crazy?

[@r.m.5548]

We all get headaches. Back to work

[@clintonm2357]

I never had any of these symptoms until I had brain damage in Iraq from an IED. Now I get migraines and understand your understanding!

[@jaredhess4102]

I used to call it that "fast feeling." I felt as if everything around me was moving so much faster than me; it was brought on by sounds that I would unconsciously focus on and would seemingly be amplified in my head.

[@kams7571]

Omg i had this a lot of running water taps in the distance as i tried to sleep

[@TheAechBomb]

I have a similar thing, but with loudness, except things don't sound *louder*, per se, just somehow more intense

[@thedanitone]

@@kams7571 I would have something similar. It usually started while dreaming. I would hear the sound of rushing water and it seemed to keep getting louder as if I was under Niagara Falls. I would suddenly wake up, but I would still hear the roar of rushing water. It would then take what felt like hours to return to normal. Truly terrifying

[@joannaedssay5988]

YES! This describes perfectly what I would experience regularly. Even now as an adult I experience it, not anywhere near as often tho.

[@kaweenis]

YES i had the same thing. it was this weird sensation that everything was moving at 1.2x speed and i couldnt catch up. i would call it time vertigo lol. i think its related to my anxiety.

[@RigGames4]

I had the version where objects appear larger, but I mostly felt it. It looked normal, but felt big. So imagine holding a book in your hands, visually everything is fine, but it felt absolutely massive. It was more of a sensation for me rather than visual thing.

[@madhuriramesh2875]

Omg I used to feel the exact same thing and with distance as well .. I sometimes felt really far away or really near … tried telling my mom and she didn’t believe 😢

[@ellehan3003]

Same here. I also got the loud fast aggressive shouting inner monologue too. It's called tachysenia. It was horrendous and now as an adult, its starting again. Is also like my subconscious becomes loud. It's like a weird distorted symphony is playing in the background and a ball is bouncing/slamming in a rhythm against walls in my head. I have a terrible headache now a day later. It just wouldn't end.

[@gregoryferraro7379]

When I was a kid about 4 or 5, I would frequently experience a weird dream-like journey. I would be lying in bed, when it would suddenly feel like the bed was gently rocking side to side. My head would register the feeling of being sideways on a swing. I would turn roll over on my tummy and look between the wall and the headboard, where I would see treetops, like I was flying low over an evergreen forest on my bed. The whole experience was really fun, and I enjoyed my little trips each time, looking forward to the swinging feeling that led to the magical flight. Eventually they went away. I miss those journeys.

[@SSalivavilaa]

I can say the same thing. I would feel as if the bed i was in, was like a swing at a playground. Perhaps it was my imagination

[@Krumplebumble]

Same, I used feel like I was on a swing or a boat swaying back and forth at night. Before seeing this video, I thought it was god's way of putting me to sleep. Even still, I think that way.

[@belindamoore3518]

Astral projection maybe?

[@0xsergy]

I had flying and falling dreams when young..i wonder if it has anything to do with being picked up/thrown in the air as parents do to entertain kids. Havent had a falling dream in forever tho. The swaying might be related to being rocked to sleep?

[@salmahernandez3142]

Same dude, as Simon described the syndrome my mouth dropped and stayed like that till the end. Peak period 7 - 13 yo with at 8 having such a large sphere of what can ony be described as gravity and my gargantuan hand holding this rasengan thing of power 😅 11 - 13 I had the most fantastical out of body experiences that would make sleeping whole cinematic masterpieces Ever so often get head aches that perhaps might be migranes (i hate daylight and always op for having yellow/brown tint shades self treatment?) however not overtly awful to make a point of getting diagnosed.

[@doclewis8927]

As a migraine sufferer, can I just say that not all of us have "one-sided" headaches. Most of my migraines involve both sides of my head while other migraines simply make the skin and muscles on the right side of my face hurt to the point that I can't touch it nor sleep on it. Since migraines are attacks of the central nervous system, you can experience all kinds of issues that are migraine related. I've only suffered from auras a few times which causes you to see things or distort your view. My sense of smell and my hearing get super sensitive to the point that I can smell things that you wouldn't normally smell and hear things that you wouldn't normally hear like the hum of my television when it's off but plugged in. It's weird and painful.

[@cassieleonard6522]

Wow. Thank you. My husband thinks I'm crazy when I have a migrane and "hear" our appliances.

[@Vee_of_the_Weald]

Same here. I get super senses when having a migraine attack - most smells make me nauseous, unfortunately.

[@lucretialee3691]

For me I get pain based migraines that can be in one or both temples or what feels like my whole head, and painless migraines that affect my eyesight, sometimes like a snowstorm but most often it fractures into prisms. I didn't even know you could get painless migraines until a few years ago, concerned I was losing my eyesight I went to my doctor. Besides the pain and vison problems, is the feeling my head is heavy and I can barely hold it up.

[@dayc801]

Wow so same with me my sense of smell gets super sensitive to the point where I can smell what someone had for lunch from 15 feet away if they washed their hair that day it was cool at first but then it just got too much to the point of needing to be away from people and food and anything really and then the auras are really unpleasant things become so bright even a little sunlight looks like a white hot blinding light and being in near dark I can see just fine also cool at first but quickly became debilitating

[@fabrisseterbrugghe8567]

I see little black things running by. I've had migraines with no pain, but a quarter of my field of vision is missing. Fun! 😋

[@thevfxwizard7758]

I had this once as a kid at night when I had a cold. The entire room felt like it was expanding to the size of the universe, and when I moved my finger, it felt like it was traveling miles. I’ve never experienced it since, it was very strange and not fun.

[@usmc1379]

I had similar experiences when sick with chickenpox. The ceiling where I was looking would get real far away. Also floating when I closed my eyes. I actually enjoyed these feelings though.

[@enderaqua15]

I've had an experience like that when I had a fever, I don't remember if I had a flu or anything. I would close my eyes and feel a tight, infinitely small string on my pointer finger. I also felt weird things in my pre-sleep imagination feel off, like a flower just feeling wrong. Noises were distorted and images were strange. I descended then, still imagining, into a dark space with large gears producing loud noises. It was terrifying.

[@veranet99]

@@usmc1379 Wow, I experienced something very similar, also when I had chickenpox. There was nothing joyful in it for me though. After closing my eyes I felt like I floated into a head-stand position and it was awful. I've never know of anyone describing something similar before this.

[@PixelPuppy2004]

Oh I did too! When I had a cold at one point, I looked at my dad and his head kept growing and shrinking... I never said anything just turned away to watch TV XD

[@avah4455]

Oh my god. I’ve had this experience twice or thrice in my life, and I had no idea how to describe it but this is so well put. I remember feeling like the room was expanding so fast, but like, it was also not the room, my brain felt like my body was shrinking. I remember also when I moved, it felt like I was traveling miles… and super fast, I had a dizzy sensation from it. I wasn’t sick or anything either time, that I can recall. I was around 6 the first time and 10 the second time.

[@freecountry3544]

25 years ago I had a "fit" which got diagnosed as a Panic attack. But I could hear light and see 360 degrees. The roof did become closer and the floor closer even though I was tall with a big head. Never had that hallucination ever again. I had multiple breakdowns after that.

[@ellehan3003]

Yeh definately not a panic attack. I also get seizures and think their is a link. I have frontal lobe disturbance according to a neurologist. Also as a child I would feel shapes at night as a sensation I always wanted it to continue. Similar to you hearing light. It was the only pleasant part of these weird episodes I've ever experienced. I experienced synesthesia yesterday which was hell on earth. Anyway I really think many people who experience these bizzare things may have similar brain abnormalities to me.

[@morgan9005]

I’ve experienced this! For me, everything looks small and far away. Even my phone in my hand can look miniature and distant. It’s been happening all my life. I did tell my mom when I was a child, but she assumed it was a vision problem and took me to the eye doctor. I remember when I first heard of Alice in wonderland syndrome I thought that everything made sense, that it was exactly what I was experiencing.

[@PerSC]

Happened to me also when i was a child. Happens still and im 30 now. The "distant phone in my hands" makes me usually feel slight motion sickness. But thats also the way i trigger that to happen. Nowdays I kinda like that feeling when everything is completely far away and i still know they are really just fine. Like to play with that feeling. Its almost the forget everything and just enjoy state of mind. I have to be slightly tired and lay on bed, reach my hands over me while holding a phone. Room almost dark, just a ambient light coming from door or window. I mean really dim light. Then stare your phone, stare eyes wide open. Just stare like a lunatic and and over focus your eyes to it to the point you almost or slightly cross your eyes. 10-20 secs usually makes it happen. I was literally scared when i was a child when that room got bigger suddenly and the feeling in my throat felt like its shrinking. Nowdays it feels like motion sickness, the way how it feels after spinning around.

[@HeliRy]

My son was diagnosed a few years ago. It came on the heels of him also being diagnosed with having silent migraines, also called aura migraines. Thankfully these are painless, but they trigger intense hallucinations. For him they would manifest as menacing red orbs of light. At first he thought they were fun, chasing them like a cat after the red dot of a laser pointer. Then they became a living terror as they’d haunt him and follow him and seemingly taunt him. Then along came Alice, and yikes! Poor kid. He would perceive the entire world rapidly growing and shrinking all around him. Anything he looked at would ballon in shape one moment, then deflate to nothingness the next. Then inflate again, deflate again, and on and on. We taught him to freeze in place and grab on to something to keep from falling over from the dizziness it would bring. Thankfully once diagnosed the fix for him was a simple medication that virtually eliminated all symptoms. Don’t recall a single visit from the orbs or a trip down the rabbit hole so far this year. A brain scan showed no signs of epilepsy either… phew!! He’s fortunate though. I feel for those who are unable to get relief from the symptoms.

[@7337blackwolf]

I've had "regular" migraines since puberty, then I started having aura with my migraines at around 17. For me, I slowly start going blind in my right eye for about an hour before the pain of the headache really gets started. I can also get bright white lights or sparkles in my vision similar to when you've looked at a light for too long. But then around 19 years old, I started having these really odd episodes that were very clearly neurological but had no identifiable source. I would feel weak and limp and eventually unable to even hold my head up. If it was really bad, breathing would take effort, and I couldn't speak. I'd feel dizzy and too hot and too cold at the same time. The later episodes even got to a point where I could think straight but couldn't get sentences out that made any sense. My thoughts were totally normal, I just couldn't get the words out in the right order, I'd repeat or swap words or syllables or forget common words even if I used them a minute before. Then came the laughing! Everything became just so funny in the moment, and I just couldn't stop laughing. These episodes started as only 5 minute things that were just the weakness with a few minutes recovery after, but progressed steadily for over 2 years until the episodes were lasting an hour or more and needed the rest of the day to feel fully normal again. We could never identify a trigger, there was no pattern. I had an MRI, MRA, head CT, EEG. We tested blood sugar and blood pressure. Stress tested my heart. Nothing made any sense. It took us years to realize...... silent migraines. You can have multiple kinds of migraine disorder! I get normal migraine headaches, but as it turns out, sometimes my brain decides to do other random nonsense. I haven't had another episode yet this year luckily (knock on wood), but at least now I know what the heck they are next time it happens. Tell your bub he's not alone!

[@HeliRy]

@@7337blackwolf Wow, that’s crazy!

[@jeandiehl5074]

What kind of medication is he being treated with?

[@HeliRy]

@@jeandiehl5074 Cyproheptadine. It’s a antihistamine but was found to help with AIW too.

[@jbear3478]

I've had aura migraines as well as my mom and people tell us we are having acid flashbacks. I'm like.. I haven't done acid, this is just a weird medical thing.

[@spacequeen2046]

Oh wow I totally had this as a kid. When I was falling asleep in around kindergerten/first grade, I'd get this feeling like I was getting huge AND the room was getting huge. I was growing in proportion to the world around me but but me & the world were enormous. It was a weird feeling, but it didn't worry me, and I'd snap out of it as soon as I became alert and focused and more awake. I think that at the time I assumed that the weird "world growing huge" thing was was just part of the falling asleep process. Eventually it just went away for good. But there were a couple of times in my life where I've had a really bad migraine or a fever or something where the "growing huge" thing would happen again, and I'd be like "oh yeah I remember this." Even then, if I focused on "real life" or became more alert, the feeling would go away again. I don't know if this is related, but at around the same time as a kid, while falling asleep, I'd sometimes hear a bouncing ball in the hallway growing bigger and bigger as it got closer and clsoer to my room. Again, this didn't bother me and I knew it was in my head, and assumed it was just a normal part of falling asleep. I actually found it kind of pleasant and relaxing. I've had very vivid dreams my whole life and I think I probably just thought that sometimes your brain starts dreaming a little before you're actually asleep and that it was fine.

[@crwydryny]

Same. It would feel like the world was being stretched away from me and everything would sound distorted like I was under water

[@padamouse4]

Damn. Totally felt this as a kid. Felt like my hands and my tongue would swell up. Out of nowhere. I could see that they were not actually changing. It was a purely physical sensation, but it was weird enough that I have often remembered it and wondered about it as an adult. It was so hard to describe! It has happened a few times in the past few years as well. I’m very grateful that the experience is limited to physical sensation and that it goes away quickly. Thanks for enlightening me to the fact that it’s a real thing!!!

[@andyw8984]

That’s exactly how it was for me.

[@y968lcptubby9]

I had this as a kid (I'm now 21) and my dad always thought I was faking it, every year (around March) I would have the same nightmare/daydream/sights before bed and it regularly lasted from bed time, 7, till midnight. And I thought it was just me. I'm soooooo glad I wasn't alone in this Edit: I had my last episode aged 19

[@jwalster9412]

I've had this for years now, I've currently just graduated highschool, and it's still a minor thing, but I definitely feel it was worse when I was younger (I once got a high fever when I was younger, and that was a confusing night when I went to sleep. But it's mostly just walls shrinking and growing, occasionally some things I look at appear to "dance" around (it's usually specific colors, or shapes in an object) I was looking at these wood planks one time, and only the dark in-between the wood was distorted and looked like my eyes were Crossed, but the lighter parts look fine.

[@ensignmjs7058]

Did your dad slap himself for not believing you?

[@y968lcptubby9]

I haven't actually told him yet. Bit he probably will

[@noat8306]

To my memory my cluster headaches have never caused anything like this, but as a kid I remember consistently falling asleep to the feeling of falling. It was weirdly comforting, and I was fascinated by the sensation because I knew it wasn't real.

[@saraperlstein]

I had the same thing! ... Except, half the time I had actually fallen out of bed 😂

[@TheJLH]

If you haven’t already, I hope you try psilocybin mushrooms for your CH. some angel on the clusterbusters forum back in the day sent me a few capsules out of the goodness of his heart because I didn’t know how to buy drugs. It was astounding how quickly and thoroughly they cured my ex-husband of such an intense, frequent curse that was with him for 22 years at that point. All those years he refused to try the shrooms out of principle. Dumbass. I still remain glad I was able to help him though.

[@batubop651]

I developed migraines and cluster headaches as an adult (apparently caused by autonomic dysfunction) and also experienced AIW sensations as throughout childhood, but not as an adult. Reading through all the comments, it’s striking me how common this seems. I’m wondering if childhood AIW is possibly an early warning sign of a higher likelihood of developing migraines or cluster headaches in adulthood? I also happened to develop peripheral neuropathy in early adulthood too. In fact the neuropathy and migraines and cluster headaches began around age 18-20, roughly the same age the AIW symptoms stopped. I guess I’ll have to jump down the rabbit hole (pun intended) to see if such studies have been done. Edit: I actually have a diagnosis of EDS. So both the autonomic dysfunction and peripheral neuropathy and migraines all fall under the EDS umbrella. So I guess I should really be wondering if childhood AIW is higher in the EDS community.

[@hachiko9]

I think I might have had mild symptoms as a kid. I would often feel my fingers growing or shrinking before falling asleep. My family on my dad's side has a history of migraines, and although I luckily have never had migranes (yet) I do suffer from headaches quite often. I stopped feeling like my fingers were weird with age, and at the same time my headaches increased. I never thought there could be a correlation 😲

[@transcowboy9932]

Type B sounds like something I used to experience all the time as a kid!! I would mainly see an army of bugs crawling towards me after waking up in the middle of the night, but if i concentrated hard enough I could change it into bubbles or fairy lights instead. I was always confused about those memories because I've never had any other issues with hallucinations.

[@DarkZodiacZZ]

That could've also been lucid dreams. I remember few times when I entered lucid dream from nightmare. Oh how the tables turned in those instances.

[@lauriepenner350]

Sleep paralysis perhaps? I only get minor hallucinations with mine, but I can sort of control them if I try.

[@DarkZodiacZZ]

@@lauriepenner350 No. That was different from sleep paralysis. I only remember getting that one once. I woke up, couldn't move and saw the shadows and felt malevolent presence.

[@jtspgs1986]

Holy cow, i have epilepsy, and will occasionally go through this. i just assumed it was part of my seizure activity and never even thought to mention it to my doctors. i never realized it was anything special or unique. i have an appointment coming up this week so i will be sure to tell my doctor what i experience. 36 years of living and i am just now finding this out LOL.

[@karmich6735]

Seizures and migraines cause this.

[@ellehan3003]

I experience regular seizures... not 20 a day or anything. Sometimes i go quite some time withought a single one, so I often feel like a fraud, but I get the tachysenia part of this alice in wonderland thing to this day (it stopped at 18 and started again at 25. Im 35 now). I'm going to get it all investigated as I realise it's not normal... all of the weird things put together. I did get it the seizures investigated years ago but I didn't push much further than a few appointments and eeg's. Thought it was normal for everyone growing up. Only discovered what tachysenia was yesterday. Look up the simulation of it. Its not far off. Things seems big and surreal when it happens too as well as fast loud aggressive sounding things/thoughts, but other than that I'm not sure I fit the profile enough for AIWS. I just get parts of it I think.

[@iron_side5674]

No wonder kids don´t report that kind of stuff. I thought being unable to read from the chalkboard in school was just something normal. I never knew what other peoples sight was like, like the absolute majority of people, and therefore just assumed it was normal since it was just how things were for me.

[@asmrtpop2676]

Same!! What I can’t excuse though is how I vocalized to my teacher the reason my notes were bad was I couldn’t see the board. She never all heard though to tell my parents to get my eyes checked…

[@OnAcidTripping]

When I was a child, I had those distortions often in class, but on people. Their head was tiny on a normal body or even huge on a shrunken body. It still happens from time to time, but now it’s more the distances that feel different. I do suffer from cluster headaches and sometimes migraines (once a year instead of once a month), so I guess it’s all related

[@sleepymipa]

Yeah same I've been doing really bad since the start of highschool and often couldn't see the writing on the board then my mom noticed how bad my eyesight was and apparently my eyes had needed glasses with lens of around 420

[@emmanarotzky6565]

I also didn’t realize how bad my vision was for a while, and it makes no sense because obviously the classroom is designed so that an average person can see the board from anywhere in the room, but I never really *noticed* that I was the only one who could only read it from the front of the classroom lol

[@jaimlawson]

I still remember the shock after looking through lenses,

[@LiveTUNA]

When I was a young child i was diagnosed with Alice in wonderland syndrome. It was the beginning of a lifetime of epilepsy issues. I remember the first experience was even I was laying in bed and i felt like i was a small as a tiny bug and my blanket was so extremely massive feeling in my hands. I always had issues with out of body feelings, falling through my bed, right before seizures or when I knew when one was going to happen.I also would get pulled into portals and still do quite often during hypnogogic hallucinations while laying in bed.

[@paulriggall8370]

I have similar experiences. Not so much now but as a child it would happen often, like you said tiny as a bug! I also have episodes where I feel like I'm a giant. I prefer the smaller feeling. It is usually accompanied by a strange, peaceful feeling.

[@-TheDogOfWar]

I've had this since I went through a really traumatic event in my childhood. Ever since we left home in a hurry and moved to a new place, leaving everything and my Father behind, it began happening. That was at the age of 6-8. I don't recall what happened as a kid, but my Mum explained that I walked into her bedroom and sat on her bed. She asked me what was wrong and apparently responded by telling her I don't feel right. According to her, the next thing I said was: "if it doesn't go away, I'm going to stick my head into her mini refrigerator." She laughed about it because it was such a strange thing to say. I'd not encounter it again until a few months ago, Now I'm 32. This time I searched the symptoms and straight away I saw the image of alice sitting on a tiny bed, and everything else around her was small. Upon seeing the image, I got emotional. All these years I've never been able to explain what it was, but the image was a perfect representation of how I was feeling in the moment. It brings about a worrying feeling and nothing around you feels right. My hands/arms felt out of whack, disprortionate. And the scale of everything around me was shifting. I've not had it since, and I hope I never do again. I feel sorry for anyone else that has to deal with this. I can't even imagine it on a daily basis.

[@ashb7846]

It’s fascinating what we can experience as children and shrug off as just annoying until adulthood when we come across a plausible explanation. It makes me wonder what other neurological or psychological things children possibly deal with that people are unaware of because kids think it’s normal, and if they vocalize it adults attribute to standard child nonsense.

[@Inquisitor_Vex]

I actually forgot about that happening to me until you described it. I used to think my hands were giant but couldn’t understand how I could still pick things up with my giant hands. Press buttons on the TV remote or something.

[@joywebster2678]

My sisters and I had some of these experiences during high fevers. I remember my own, and I remember listening to my sister yelling out about her growing so big, open the window. Once Tylenol existed it was easier for mom to control our fevers, along with more antibiotics. I find it strange that those experiences are so clear 50+ years later.

[@wykydytron]

@@joywebster2678 it's common for high fever to cause hallucinations, it's normal and expected along with high fever. It's actually a lot more scarier that apperantly you and your sister often experience high fever, thats more cause for concern as majority of people never get high fever in entire life.

[@r.m.5548]

I'm sorry for you that your mother failed you. And that she took your father away. I hope she apologized.

[@oakenmaus]

I used to experience this as a young child but the main feeling was that time was going incredibly fast and incredibly slow at the same time. It used to freak me out pretty badly. I grew out of it at some point.

[@Nyachan7]

yes, use to experience something like that, people talking or other sounds would feel either extremely sped up or slowed down, It felt like when I talked it didn't fit the speed, fortunately it usually only lasted about 5 min or so.

[@66NinetyNine]

When I was young whenever I got a fever I would lose sense of my size, sometimes I'd feel giant and could barely fit on my bed or sometimes I was small and worried I was going to drown in my enormous blanket. My perception of distance was altered as well, when feeling small it would feel like the tv was hundreds of meters away, my 13" TV was like a drive in! It was strange but it happened often enough when I was young I kind of thought it was just one of the symptoms people got when they were sick.

[@PanthereaLeonis]

... I didn't have the same symptoms as you, but whenever *I* got really sick, my skin would feel like there was three inches of crumbly foam between where the skin *actually* was and where I felt it was, going inward. I, like you, also just thought that was a normal symptom of the flu. Goddammit.

[@ClosetPanda]

I would also get this! Whenever I had a fever (3-8 yo) I would always have the sensation of either my hands changing size or the items I was touching changing size. My glass of water would feel enormous one moment and the next I felt like I would accidentally crush it with my enormous hands and clumsy long fingers. The bed was a mile long when I wanted to climb out of it just to suddenly stumble over the edge. Textures felt weird and not quite right too. The blanket felt weirldy abbrasive and sometimes cold but like wet-cold not normal cold? Not sure if this is AIWS. I always thought it was just random effects of a fevered brain?

[@yomama...isaverynicelady]

Yeah i had that when having a fever too. Even do sometimes as an adult. Fevers and even worse, nyquil can cause severe hallucinations. So I think in that case it has an obvious cause. Then again all disorders or dysfunctions have a cause but we are taught to say "okay cool. i have blah blah blah disorder!" and never even pause for a second to wonder why we have it and what causes it and can we overcome it!

[@debbiehenri345]

Fevers too and pressure from countless childhood ear infections were my trigger. Then, once my ears were finally sorted out, I went through a stage of migraines being the trigger. I'd feel stretched, like I was bread dough or being spaghettified down a black hole along with whatever room I was in. Deeply unpleasant as I would start to lose sensation in different parts of my body, some going completely numb, some becoming over-sensitive. I thought it was some sort of sickness-linked sleep paralysis all these years. Never heard of Alice In Wonderland Syndrome before.

[@ikkuvaljo]

Yep. Sometimes rarely and randomly when going to bed I got a feeling like some limb of mine was so huge it barely fit the room. It always went away after a while, luckily! Brains - weird.

[@saturationstation1446]

there was a couple years of my life where i experienced this. i'd lay down and close my eyes and feel like im shrinking to the size of atom and growing to the size of a galaxy repeatedly for at least 20 minutes before it would fade. was pretty cool really. also a bit scary tho because you do kind of lose the feeling of being human while its happening. you no longer feel like your body has a specific shape. it just keeps morphing into really big and really small shapes

[@xslite300]

exactly what i feel

[@codumus]

Wow I get this exact sensation when trying to sleep, so weird when my body goes from feeling infinitely small then infinatly big or far away. I also get this when imagining things while falling asleep, like a car but its size keeps changing in the same way. Do you get this outside of the perception of your body? I don't get migraines or anything so it doesn't bother me. Although I do find it difficult to judge distance and size somtimes, like when waiting for a car to pass when I'm crossing an intersection

[@xslite300]

@@codumus i also get everything you mention, and the image that keeps getting larger its impossible to picture

[@selinaw.9751]

@@codumus This happens to me when I try to sleep sometimes also! Usually starts with my hands and feet feeling too big and then super small.

[@frocurl]

Exactly!!! Holy shit I think its just your brain building the right connections! Everyone goes through some degree of it.

[@MolassesLover]

I go through this sometimes, I'm a migraine sufferer. It was pretty horrifying at first but I've gotten used to it over time

[@IanAlcorn]

Same here. Once I got used to it, I started to find the experience fascinating. Once the pain stopped, that is.

[@krisg8874]

What in the world. I was diagnosed with an unspecified psychosis and heavily medicated in my teens to mid 20s, but the diagnosis was later changed as we thought my symptoms were caused by extreme stress and overstimulation at the time. AIWS was never brought up - but I was struggling badly with the feeling of growing like a balloon, floating up to the ceiling and popping. I also kept experiencing the world going small and far away from me, as well as a few visual hallucinations of small animals and human limbs in my peripheral vision. As a child I also had a lot of trouble falling asleep because of similar sensations. As an adult I’m still digesting being wrongly diagnosed and medicated much of my life, but this video is just further blowing me away.

[@Elemarth]

I'd get this when I was trying to fall asleep when I was a kid, exactly like you said. It would look like I was looking at my bedroom from the wrong side of a pair of binoculars, meaning everything was smaller and farther away. I actually thought it was pretty cool. In contrast, I hated derealization, which came more often when I was tired and walking around. I don't remember the experiences overlapping, though.

[@Timmycoo]

Yeah same here. I still randomly get it but always when I'm overtired. That's why I was wondering if insomnia would be one of the causes listed.

[@Gloopster999]

Exact experience with the binocular comparison, felt like my pov was shifting behind my head because of that zoom out feeling.

[@TalenkauenTV]

I used to feel that zoom-out distortion when I was asleep, as a child. Now I only seem to get it when I'm inebriated, as if alchohol reverts my inner brain components to a more primal child-like state

[@timaflanigan]

This used to happen to me when I was a kid too! I was 6 or 7 and always when I was trying to fall asleep. I used to call it "flipping" because I would feel like I was flipping forward and every rotation would changed between the size of an ant (smaller really) to bigger than the solar system. I never knew this was a thing that other people went through. I thought it was fun and when I grew out of it, I would try to make myself do it again but it never came back.

[@Kaasschaaf1991]

Same here! Exactly

[@msdaphne]

I used to try to describe this to my parents when I was a kid. I told them that somehow my body was blown up like a hippo and as fragile as a toothpick at the same time. Migraine sufferer (who also has MS) here.

[@kristinehansen.]

This was so freaky. Thought I was going to hear of something weird and beyond my comprehension. But I suffer for migraines a lot and never thought about it since but I did experience something like this in my childhood. I remember feeling everything was wrong and the wrong size. And the room I was in used to get huge. And then things got back to normal and I feel a sleep. I haven't even remembered until now. It used to freak me out but just one day I never experienced it again and forgot about it.

[@LordHrivnak]

I had similar experiences as a kid, all the way through being a teenager. Everything would be big and small at the time and it was honestly horrifying at the time

[@Bigtin666]

I probably had this as a kid. I can remember feeling the room get really big and sometimes I would feel my body get bigger as well. It normally happened when I was asleep or when I was trying to fall asleep. As an adult I can report it doesn't happen anymore

[@redwanhossain5181]

same it also happened to me when i had fever

[@kevinkadrmas3260]

You described it just like I would've! The same thing, lying in bed, looking at the ceiling. It felt like I was shrinking and falling away from the ceiling.

[@ROMAQHICKS]

@@kevinkadrmas3260 This is exactly what I experienced a few times as a child. I didn't know it was actually documented phenomena,. Even as a child, I thought it was just something related to the sensation of falling asleep, kind of like the falling sensation right at the moment you drift off. So, I never told anyone or thought anything about it since then.

[@kenji214245]

I think i figured out how to trigger the feeling as a kid i have vauge memories of using this feeling to pretend to be a giant attacking a town "a lego set i built up with some toy soldiers" XD

[@victoriandino]

I got this too! As old as 14 as I can specifically remember, I would close my eyes in bed and feel like all my limbs were buzzing (like pins and needles) and growing/shrinking intermittently. I also felt kind of like my head had flipped inside out, not exactly that but that’s the best way I can describe it.

[@vintagedesert]

I had Epstein Barr as a kid, and have had weird auditory processing issues my whole life. For several years in my teens, I'd go through periods where human voices sounded like electronic/robotic voices. It hasn't happened in years, but it was very strange, and I wonder if it's related.

[@dexorne9753]

Did nitrous oxide a couple times, and that was an effect that happened every time

[@Fenrir1]

When I have a fever I can experience some weird spatial distortions, but not every time. It would be hard to deal with on the daily I imagine.

[@yrtott]

Yes! Me too, I was looking for this comment. It must be when you've got a fever, the bloodflow increases in your brain, I would assume. I would feel like I'm watching a reel, like a cartoon reel, and someone put a magnifying-glass ontop certain parts and they would get bigger or smaller, and it would only happen when I was sleeping, or trying to fall asleep while having high fever.

[@NyraBrowniez]

I as well suffer from this during fevers, but also during blood pressure migraines, and severe anxiety.

[@dadavidov5108]

I always assumed it was normal to have the kind of feeling that you're growing bigger at night, it's a feeling I reflected on whenever I experienced it. Looking up at the ceiling and it just feels like your head is taking up so much room, I could tell that nothing was moving, and yet an impossibly large amount of the space in my bedroom was being taken up by me, and the occupied space kept getting bigger and bigger.

[@Goldenretriever-k8m]

I think it is normal, and that the term syndrome is way too dramatic sounding. I think it is a normal reaction to trying to relax at night, it’s probably just some chemical thing in your brain. There doesn’t seem to be any adverse effects.

[@Dzonnyg]

Yooo, I've had the one with lying in bed and feeling my size "change" as a kid. I only now, 15 years later learned what it was. I honestly liked the trippy effect and sometimes I was even able to trigger it by playing with my thumb and bending it with my other fingers(weird I know). I was pretty disappointed when it stopped happening and didn't know what it was until today, thanks Simon and the crew.

[@Chroniknight]

Nice. I like that you 'played' with that feeling and tried to identify it etc. as a kid

[@FEARLovingGirl]

As a child I would perceive the TV or people talking to me to move further and further away from me and it was very distressing. No amount of blinking, rubbing my eyes or focusing on something else would help. It just went away after maybe 10-20 minutes. It's become less common with age but still occurs from time to time and I'm now in my early twenties.

[@lfay8177]

Thats exactly what happened when I watched TV in the dark as a kid. Like I had bifocals or something. I didn't even bother telling my parents because I couldn't even describe it. I guess it didn't seem to strange to me since I used to hallucinate whenever I had fevers

[@drewc1197]

Had this happen a couple times in my early thirties. At one point I was leaving work with a backpack over one shoulder and suddenly felt so short that I thought that the backpack should have been dragging on the floor. A couple days later it happened while I was driving, feeling like there was no way my arm could be way up on the armrest, and there was no way I could possibly see over the dash. Both times I knew what I was experiencing was impossible, but when your perception and logic disagree it's terrifying. I had just started a new medication a couple weeks prior, and stopping that med ended that, thank jeebus.

[@lazlolorintz-independentre459]

Thank Jesus We're 10 years into the last days now No need to bullshit anymore

[@no_peace]

My aunt had a disorder that made her think she couldn't see even though she knew she could. We have a lot of neurological issues in our family. I think people thought it was a mental illness, meaning like behavioral health, but it was something like this, like electrical maybe. I have a similar but very very very very mild feeling sometimes. Anyway like you said it's impossible and you know it's not true but it's also very much happening lol

[@undercomposition]

I occasionally have a sensation where I feel smaller or that the world around me is bigger. It can even be accompanied with the sensation that objects feel physically bigger or thicker than they normally feel. Sometimes I would feel as though I was thinking faster, almost like time was slower. I named it Alice in Wonderland Syndrome without having any indication of anyone else having a similar sensation.

[@Zanthorr]

That's a good way to put it, I wouldn't say that things get bigger, it's that I feel incredibly tiny but my body and everything else feels massive in comparison. It's never visual.

[@noface-vc3sw]

All this with sounds changing like it was softer. Pretty sure a lot of children have this, think it's something to do with chemistry changes and subconscious memories of being in the womb of are mothers.

[@oneminuteofmyday]

I had encephalitis as a teenager and have had non-stop migraines- all day, every day -ever since. AIWS was part of the experience until my late 40’s, which is when I started seeing a neurologist who has been quite aggressive in treating me. I’m not sure which of the medications stopped it, but I’m happy it’s gone. The most common sensation I had was of one of my arms or hands significantly increasing size. It was such a feeling of relief when I heard about AIWS, as it meant I wasn’t crazy.

[@wilhelmvonkatastrophenburg469]

I had this as a child. Really intense. Was never able to explain the feeling. Later it disappeared. However I had 4 occasion of sleep paralysis. That was much more scary. Now everything is okay. None of them is a part of my life anymore. Thanks for this video. Was an eye opener.

[@Suxipumpkin]

Wow, I'm one of those who only realised now that this is what I was suffering when I had migraines as a teenager and young adult. Makes me feel a little more sane. I suffered from feeling like a was growing, looking down a long corridor at everything and distorted vision (a bit like those weird circus mirrors). It only happened while had the migraines and fortunately I stopped having them around about the age of 30. It's very reassuring to know that it wasn't just me being weird and that others have experienced this too.

[@bigmilk13_]

I've had a very similar experience to the one you've described, except im 23 and still in the throws of it. Glad to hear that you've outgrown it, gives me some hope

[@Suxipumpkin]

@@bigmilk13_ Stress management helped immensely. I don't think stress was the direct cause but it was certainly a trigger. There are also certain foods I avoid and I don't drink as much as I use to either as that was a trigger too. We go through so many changes and transitions in life, particularly as young people and young adults (and that's when I suffered migraines the most) and it's always a difficult time. It's not stress reduction I needed but learning to deal with the stress we experience. Mindfulness has also been helpful. I've not been taking any medication for years now, as I no longer need it. I hope your symptoms start to improve soon.

[@kovanova9409]

I actually have a friend who has this on the more severe end and while I'm simultaneously fascinated its honestly such a disrupting condition. Your bedroom door can feel unreachable.

[@SuperNesus]

As a kid around 8 years old my mother would take me to the doctor a couple of times to get it checked out. We referred to it as binocular vision, far away objects felt like they were in my face and near objects as if they were very far away. It most often came back when I had fevers or as a teenager very very bad hangovers.

[@henram36]

Seems like this is more common in childhood than one would think. I'm going to chime in with my and my brother's experience with these lucid "dream-states" that were very frightening and and quite hard to explain as kids. We decided to call these dreams "The Big-Teenies" because you'd feel this sense of overwhelming largeness and then in the next minute be attacked by overwhelming smallness. It was terrifying and to this day, I've never had a more horrifying lucid dream-state. Even being crushed and killed in some dreams, while also terrifying, I could at least wake-up from those. These other things, were different altogether. Thank-you for this video, and thanks to all the other posters here. I wasn't alone in this.

[@Firellius]

I suffered Macropsia when I developed a burn-out in high school. It's a very unsettling thing. I never actually saw anything be 'too big', but all the alarm bells went off in my brain anyway, leaving me convinced that whatever or whoever I was looking at was 'too big'. It caused me to be at war with myself a little too.

[@renatatostada3318]

As someone who has never experienced this, I thank you for bringing it to the attention of myself and people who _have_ experienced this but did not have an explanation for it

[@andreas1794]

As an optometrist working with an ophthalmologist, this was a literal eye opener in one of our recent cases. New to us both... Thank you.

[@philby1]

I remember going through a time in late childhood when I got the feeling of not being in my body quite often. A very disconnected feeling. I felt like I was looking in from somewhere else. I would even say to people ‘I feel like I am not really here’. After a few years it went away but it was very strange.

[@marenjeworowski9859]

Have you heard that according to some people, that we are not here, the earth even the universe is not real. There is neither space nor time. That we are consciousness having a human experience. Each of us creating our own. For someone (me) who has always felt totally real (human), I am intrigued by your experiences!

[@ot4lfe104]

Sounds like disassociation. Mainly happens under extreme stress when experiencing the same thing.

[@melindahall8724]

This sounds like depersonalization or derealization to me, I also get moments of this sometimes it lasts line and sometimes it doesn’t but it’s usually from feelings of anxiety

[@PfunkNH]

One of my most terrifying childhood experiences. As a kid i just assumed it was a ghost trying to take my body. Even now its hard to explain. The world just wasn't as it is and it was different. Then it would just go away. It happened too many times to count.

[@MultiSciGeek]

Might be sleep paralysis?

[@lamppuu1]

Disassociation?

[@Saffron-sugar]

Life is totally different as a child. Those of us with long memories all have really strange stories to tell

[@RobertGotschall]

When I was 10 years old I had a massive Staph infection. I was delirious for a week with temps in triple digits. I remember sitting in my folks living room thinking I couldn’t go out the front door because my body was too big. Watching this video made me realize that I too had felt, “just like Alice”. I had flashbacks of that episode periodically for years. The last was when I was 18 in Boot Camp in San Deigo.

[@bethnielsen1120]

This reminds me of the fast feeling I get and others have described. It’s like everything is sped up all of a sudden, and you end up moving really slow because you’re trying to slow down. There’s a subreddit about it if anybodys interested.

[@robroskey6515]

I had that shit along with what this video is describing. I would usually seem to get it at school and lay my head down so it would go away and end up getting sent to the principal for "sleeping" in class and then get yelled at by my parents. I never tried to explain it though and luckily it went away

[@corey8519]

Beth this has no context at all to the video but your beautiful. Lol. Hope that's not a serious medical issue you dealing with

[@XBret64]

Yeah, when it happens it feels like the world around you is moving at x1.5 speed. Even people's speech. Slowing down didn't ever seem to help.

[@shewho333]

I remember having this too.

[@postrachsmietnikow]

Yeah I remember always joking that we're in a sims game and the creator just turned on 2x speed xd nobody ever understood what I was talking about

[@Jupiter-T]

I don't experience this myself, but I do have migraines, and I can totally see how those two things would be connected. Migraines alter perception in weird ways already. Light is brighter, sounds are louder, everything looks a little trippy - almost as if the image is repeating in bands around the edge of your vision.

[@snobbingas189]

I get this very easily if I try to focus on something with tired eyes, usually things look to be growing but it's weird because they don't really get bigger, like they don't occupy more of my field of vision but there's a sense of outward motion to them. Also I get waving patterns in sand and carpet when staring at them and when I lay in a dark room I get the room growing in size effect as well as a feeling as if my bed was a boat at rough sea.

[@andrewkoster6506]

my sibling in Christ, what you've described is LSD (i'm serious, i've never heard a more accurate description)

[@snobbingas189]

@@andrewkoster6506 LMAO maybe I was born with acid in the brain 😂

[@shrimplyobsessed]

I believe I may have suffered this as a child when falling asleep. I went through a traumatic first 3 years of my life, had hallucinations, frequent nightmares, sleep walking, and night terrors where I would run around the house sleepwalking. Eventually I outgrew it, but it had to be hard for my mother to see me like that.

[@stopandlisten6070]

I did have that as a kid, when trying to sleep. Many nights I felt like I was shrinking indefinetely and my body getting further away from me. That doesn't describe it properly though, the feeling is just so weird.

[@JaneAxon123]

Yes me too, I remember trying to describe it to someone and it was kind of impossible. I wouldn't have used the term shrinking though, but a sensation of distance was involved for sure. Didn't have migraines but twice I had a weird thing happen where the whole right side of my body went numb and tingly for a few hours. Just one half, even the right side of my tongue and not the left. Very odd.

[@frocurl]

Yes exactly!!!

[@Just1Nora]

Finally a name! My bestie and I both have had this since childhood and when I've tried to describe the warping room sensation to my psychiatrist and multiple neurologists they've all just gone, "Huh...that's weird. No idea what could be causing that." (Thanks Doc, super helpful...) I've also had migraines and tinnitus since early childhood as well as fibromyalgia, and oddly enough my bestie shares many of the same illnesses. She was the first person I was able to talk with about the sensations and be understood. It can be such an unusual experience; fortunately it's not painful, but it definitely makes driving difficult to downright dangerous. The other thing we both share is vertigo issues. I'm going to share this video with her so she knows that we have a name for it.

[@NyraBrowniez]

Warping sensation is what ive called it as well and i also have some of the same illnesses you listed. It is great having a name for it finally

[@rtmclean484]

I used to get this as a kid, mostly when I was trying to fall asleep at night, I would start to feel like iI was tiny and everything around me was stretching real far into the distance like my walls were 100ft tall. It stopped happening to me when i got to my late teens but I remember it was trippy af and anyone I ever brought it up to had no idea what I was talking about/never had it.

[@RoNiobium]

I've been dealing with this since I was a teenager, especially in times of major stress in my life. It doesn't happen as much as it used to.

[@jessicaandtrains7768]

Given what I once experienced I would guess the stress causes your blood pressure to rise and hormones to change which could lead to it.

[@coolin44]

I am speechless right now. I would have never known this was a thing other people experience without this video. I had type B as a child and outgrew it (thank god) but I'm just in awe that it wasn't just something strange about myself. Thank you for covering this topic. I have to ask my friends who's experienced this now!

[@supme7558]

Every feels it i wouldnt even call it a syndrome

[@andrewkoster6506]

@@supme7558 have you ever asked anyone else whether they feel this way? you might be surprised to find out that your experience of the world is somewhat unusual

[@jaelilo8028]

when I was younger, I would wake up every morning and start screaming because I thought the sun was hurdling towards me. But I was watching myself from outside my window. This is so crazy to learn about.

[@nadiamarie9833]

I have experienced derealization and depersonalization since high school. I used to experience the sensation of my "self" floating directly behind my physical body. Your explanation of both was spot on!

[@B-Lue.]

I have never heard of this before. I had this problem when i had a period with much migraines. I felt that I was small and my kitchen had been bigger, sometimes the opposit. I felt unsure when i interacted with everything. It was so weird and my husband were confused when i talked to him about it. I also felt like I was a small kid in height outside, everything was so huge! The cars around me felt like monstertrucks. Im glad i don't have migrains anymore, and it was a long time since i felt like this.

[@maenad1231]

I got Alice in Wonderland syndrome quite a bit as kid. But I only got the symptoms related to perception _(self & environment growing and shrinking around me)_

[@bodamian_bg]

Yup. Me 2, but accompanied with the migraine. These days rearer happily.

[@WahrheitMachtFrei.]

Me too, if I sat still for a while, I would perceive my own body to be that of a giant, and my mind's eye shrinking as if becoming microscopic.

[@loolfactorie]

That size distortion is something I still get today when sitting in a chair or laying in bed. It's like a hyperfocus on one area, maybe someone talking and it feels like I zoom in, yet their head becomes really small and everything around blurs away. In bed it feels like I am being forced down like in a plain or a space-ship, I always enjoyed this feeling and still do!

[@pirobot668beta]

When I work on some projects, the tiny bits seem to grow huge while I work on them, but 'shrink' to normal size when I'm done. I see a long-sleeve shirt that I know fits me just fine, and marvel at how big it is! "Really? That fits me? It looks like the shirt off a giant!" Yeah, Alice in Wonderland is very good description of my daily life. I have migraines almost daily, but they are limited to 'auras' and don't bring pain or nausea like they used to.

[@mizage2255]

I once hat Macropsia while under high fever! I distinctly remember the kitchen counter growing bigger and bigger and me losing conciousness from the shock it gave me 😂 In the moment it was no fun but in hindsight it seems rather amusing... glad it was a one time experience!

[@SSebson]

I actually remember having similar experience as a kid, when i was laying in bed, in the dark, sometimes walls of my room would seem very far away, like cliffs in a distance, other times i felt like i could grab objects from the shelf on the opposite side of the room. It always passed as soon as i got upright or even made significant move. I treated it more as a fascinating curiosity, rather than symptom.

[@flushedphoenix81]

I have AiWS it is a major head f***. I have it along with 6 types of migraine. Sitting reading on my tablet and my arms feel a mile long or the iPad feels like it is a brick in my hands. Thank you for this lovely informative video on a rare disease

[@flushedphoenix81]

I got diagnosed when I off handedly mentioned to my neurologist some of the symptoms I got as part of my on going migraine. He just said oh you have Alice in Wonderland syndrome. I have had symptoms for as long as I can remember but was diagnosed in my mid 30s. When you don’t know what it is it can be very disconcerting but when I got a name it made things easier

[@TheTotallyRealXiJinping]

Liars

[@FernandoTorrera]

What treatment do you take. I have similiar problems

[@flushedphoenix81]

@@FernandoTorrera for AiWS nothing there are no specific treatments but for my migraine and other health issues I am on 24 different medications including propranolol, Ajovy, mirtapizine, melatonin, Avamys, sumatriptan, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, oramorph, prochloroperizine to name the major ones they are either specifically for migraine or for the comorbidities I have developed because of the 5.5 year intractable migraine

[@genreofstubby]

i have it too.... who needs drugs? get a good migraine going... and ill trip for a week. it dont scare me anymore. i enjoy the colors and strange effects now.

[@langtonmwanza6689]

When I was a kid I had pretty bad tinitus, sometimes when it got really bad I could feel myself distort shrink and grow at the same time....it was extremely strange... extremely uncomfortable..... thankfully it's gone

[@mjcampillo]

From early childhood, up until around my mid-30's, I experienced episodes like these I could never clearly explain. As I watched your video, I began ticking off boxes as you began explaining the symptoms of AIWS. Thank you for finally giving me an explanation on what I experienced for most of my life.

[@jamesdaly83]

I've had chronic DPDR and suffered from AiW syndrome since I was 10 years old (still now). I tried to report it to my parents and then my doctors over the years, but they've all just dismissed it entirely out of hand.

[@rushthezeppelin]

Crazy, never had migraine issues but I've had the room growing/me shrinking when trying to go to sleep thing since I was a kid. It wasn't exactly even a me shrinking, more like my eyes shrinking. And it wasn't exactly what I call visual, it was a "feeling", especially when my lights were out and I couldn't see much. Really hard to describe. It happens extremely rarely now in my late 30s. Never realized this was a thing....

[@jarnine9803]

Sort of the same thing use to happen to me in my very young days 5-6 years old, But it only happen to me when i was sick or got the flu. When i was going to sleep the walls would pull away from me and i would get pins and needles in my hands. When i did get to sleep i would wake up in a dream with my eyes open walking around in real life but stuck in the dream. Three times it happen to me, the 1st time was massive meteorites hitting the earth with fire walls over 700 meters high sweeping towards me. The 2nd was massive earthquake's with the ground opening up. The 3rd was a massive tidal wave. The funny thing is we did not have a TV or any of that kind of stuff to put the pictures in my head. Some other strange things happen to me around that age as well, i used to get a bad feeling the day before something bad happen, One of my good friends moto bike crash, allmost killed him. car crash we had on a holiday and a few other things.

[@CharliMorganMusic]

I know this feeling but it only happens when I close my eyes, and it rarely happens, but I do know this feeling. The room gets...BIG in my mind's eye. It feels just...big.

[@DaveLennonCopeland]

I remember as a kid seeing weird spacial distortions and sometimes feeling like "the incredible shrinking man", at night just before sleep. I never mentioned it to my mum though. Later in my teens, I developed migraines with visual aura and hideous pain in my head... Over the years, I'm middle-aged now, I just have very mild migraines quite rarely. I guess these afflictions are related.

[@trash_panda3145]

I have this due to an avm. My first episode was terrifying to me. It started as seeing myself being swallowed by a whirlpool in my bathroom. I then floated up to the ceiling seeing myself and I have a 360 view. My husband had been calling my name but I couldn't talk. I then stop understanding language. After that I went into depersonalization which was even worse than the aiw and it went on for the rest of the day.

[@formulacloth9971]

I remember as a kid I would look at the sidewalk and if I stared at it long enough then I could see the cracks wiggling or moving. The worst instance I’ve had of this as a kid was when I became extremely dizzy; picturing the house in the middle of the ocean moving with the waves while I lay on the kitchen floor, trying not to puke. I would also see symbols behind my eyes when I closed them hard enough, never got a good enough look at them. Edit* I forgot to mention I have a diagnosed dissociative personality disorder, no idea if this contributed to the disorder or was possibly caused by it.

[@AnnaMBanana]

That's wild, I know exactly what you mean! As a kid I thought it was so cool how I could see the lines between tiles start to wiggle back and forth if I stared long enough! I've tried it as an adult and can't seem to make it happen anymore so I just wrote it off as something weird kid's brains do? But maybe it's not normal? 😂

[@kaylahukkinen9293]

I’ve had that happen heaps as a kid, I guess sometimes now? And werid shapes when close eyes

[@iotaku]

Bro this is literally happening to me right now. Like if I stare long enough the roads start wiggling around as if it was made of liquid

[@shelby6867]

I love how you brought forth the information about this disorder I have seen other videos about aiws where they make the suffers seem like thwy are crazy or they're this spectacul to behold but to me you presented this information how it is. they're people suffering bc of a malfunction in the brain. there's no "isn't that bizarre" or "thats so weird" it's just the facts and I know if you were talking about my disorders I would appreciate the way you present it

[@w1k652]

This finally answered a question I've had for years. When I was a young kid, my parents had a painting in their bedroom, where I'd often sleep. From time to time, at absolutely random, whenever I would focus on that painting I would notice the images on it begin to take life and move, looking like some weird real life screensaver. This was often accompanied by the feeling of the room I was in changing in size, alongside the feeling of walls moving, this last symptom I still get to this day whenever focusing on a building's roof. I've brought the story up to other people who have recounted similar events in their childhood who couldn't explain it either, and this video finally answered what was likely going on.

[@antilikka]

Hey I’ve had that!

[@TuxraGamer]

I haven't experienced this ever again since I was 13, now I'm 22 and it started happening again after a peak stress situation. I just hope it goes away soon lol.

[@Dom-Perignon]

Wow that’s interesting, I’ve had hallucinations with painting and pictures as a child too. My dad had pictures of navy ships he sailed on, and I remember laying on the couch falling asleep when I look at the navy ship and the ships slowly moving across the painting aswell as the water moving it was very strange but I didn’t think too much of it

[@dorian7661]

The Dawn Treader syndrome.

[@drowned309]

Guess that explains the occasional waking nightmares I had as a kid. Stretching hallways, sounds of matching armies, whispering voices etc...

[@bigmilk13_]

it was at about the 5 minute mark in this video when things started to click in my head. I've long suffered from daily headaches and occasional migraines, and as a kid, I often had this recurring image in my head as I tried to fall asleep. It was like I was floating in a void, and seeing one object (sometimes a broom, an hourglass, a bed, a horse even) in front of me as it grew and shrank. I can't explain the exact feeling that it gave me. It was as if I had no idea whether it was the object changing size, or myself because I had no reference point. It could sometimes make me feel dizzy and it freaked me out the first couple of times it happened. it's worth noting that migraine naps have led to bouts of sleep paralysis including some mild hallucinations of friends and family members coming to speak to me. not sure if this is mild AIWS, or if I just have some overlapping symptoms Edit: never happened to me except while falling asleep, seems I've probably outgrown it by now. I didn't tell my parents about it much, or if I did I just called it a nightmare. At around the same time, I found that I had the coxsackie virus (funny name, less funny condition), which I also outgrew (most people do). Perhaps that could've been the trigger?

[@jwalster9412]

Yeah, same here, I was very surprised when I heard the symptoms I have been experiencing for years. Especially the room shrinking and growing thing. Sometimes it feels like my feet could be against the wall (which is a good five meters away) sometimes when I look at my phone for a long time the screen feels like it's grown. That could just be my focus changing, but idk. And about the sleep paralysis, that's also something I've experienced. Honestly I got used to it after the first time and after five-six times when I was younger, it just doesn't happen.

[@whiskeytangofoxtrot1006]

I had two of my kids years apart hospitalized with Coxsackie virus and believe me when I say I've seen a connection

[@nealrcn]

As a migraine suffer I am amazed how some people can experience anything but debilitating pain

[@lauriejones4507]

Same. I feel like sometimes the term migraine gets thrown around to mean a severe headache, which is bad, don't get me wrong, but an actual migraine to me means being in bed in a dark, dark room throwing up in the trash can next to my bed. Anything less than that (in my opinion) is a bad headache.

[@daduzadude1547]

@@lauriejones4507 yup had them since childhood. Very debilitating

[@jlbay1]

@@lauriejones4507 this is why I never referred to most of my migraines as migraines -- they were just headaches. I knew people with migraines, they did exactly what you do. I could go about my day as long as I had a steady dose of ibuprofen and didn't need to see much (for the really bad ones with an aura). Then I went to a neurologist and she told me that it's not normal to have headaches 24/7. It's not normal to need ibuprofen 24/7 (and it's quite bad for you actually). And that most of my "headaches" were, in fact, migraines. I still don't usually need darkness or a bucket handy (though I do occasionally), but my migraines often result in a need to sleep -- my entire body is just too exhausted to think or move; the pain is too much to move my head or eyes; so I go to bed. The other "headaches" are still generally manageable, but constant. My neurologist said that, like many things, we experience them differently just like we can have different triggers (mine are generally weather/air pressure related rather than food/drink, though dehydration is a big one).

[@Serenity_yt]

I get tension headaches and migraines and they feel similar on the pain level side of things but they affect different parts of my head e.g. for a migraine the entire left half of my face is extremely painful, there are almost like pain streaks going though until the very tip of my teeth and I feel just on the edge of throwing up (with or without light btw, noise is much worse) Tension headaches are mostly just a tight neck+ shoulders and pain high up on my forehead and at the back of my head. And which kind of pain med works is also different a tension one is fine with ibu and lots of sleep, for the migraine I need the ibu and then take triptane on top. I think when Im having migraines I also get Alice Syndrome or at least my body feels tiny and my bed huge. It's also the only way I can tell Im getting a migraine bc my feeling of time is just non existant for that day like Ill sit somewhere and hours have passed but it feels like I just sat down or it feels like Im walking in Slow Mo with 0 control over my own body while Im actually walking quite fast.

[@no_peace]

@@lauriejones4507 i have "migraine aura without headache." A lot of people have it. I get really bad scintillations plus other issues, some in the video. One time I couldn't see directly in front of me in one eye for about a week. There was a rainbow-lined gray blob in the way. My doctor called it ophthalmic migraine but there are several names and aspects.

[@Treblaine]

I remember having this strange sensation like everything had been scaled up hundreds of times, like a table that was 1m tall and 1m away was hundreds of metres tall and hundreds of metres away. And I was scaled up as well. This often coincided with time appearing to slightly slow down or sped up like there was a slight pause after every syllable. I tried to explain this to grownups but they never seemed to care.

[@hmltwin]

I have had migraines since I was 12 years old. When you were describing the symptoms, I realized that I have this along with those. Thank you so much!

[@PrinceBoo21]

Wow, I may have had a couple symptoms of this a long time ago. They were so weird to me that I may not forget them. When I was little and trying to go to sleep, it would seem like things close to my eyes were shrinking as if they were moving dozens of feet away from me. And sometimes when I would wake up, sounds and music would always seem to be in a higher pitch and tone for around 10-15 minutes before sounding normal again. Thanks for doing a video on this, now I may have an answer for those weird sensations!

[@rodsprague369]

I have always had inner ear balance problems caused by allergies and the occasional ear infection. As a child, inner ear attacks made it feel like the bed and I falling or tipping at an angle, often at the same time. One time in early adolescence while in bed I thought I was having one of these inner ear episodes, it felt like the bedroom was the size of a sugar cube with the contents and myself at the the same scale of size as the apparent size of the room. Somehow, I always knew these sort of things were not literally happening to me and I felt no fear. I had a friend who had experienced numerous different recreational drugs told me I was quite lucky to have experienced getting small while most trying to do that with drugs never do.

[@no_peace]

Whenever people mention what drgs do to them it's always something that happens to me randomly for free but non consensually

[@rodsprague369]

I simply lucked out by being precocious enough to not let the non consensual trips freak me out too badly.

[@trybunt]

Yeah, I've definitely had this a few times in my life, maybe hundreds. I would be in bed and feel like the room was suddenly small, and I was huge, my face inches away from the roof, then I would look at my hand, and my arm felt stretched out, my arm as far away as the moon. It's like my brain stopped being able to distinguish the distance between things, the wall would feel long, like I'm looking down the side of a huge cavernous hallway, then compress around me. Certainly weird, but not as scary as my brain waking up when my body is still asleep for the first time. I thought I was dead.