#Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

[fanface]

this needs to be addressed and I'm tired of people ignoring it. I'm so fucking sick and tired of social media "influencers" romanticizing and profiting off of a disability that they clearly don't have. I have suffered so much while they make hundreds of dollars complaining about something they don't even experience, and at the same time, spreading misinformation and lying about it. when a disability or disorder is popularized on social media, my doctors, who have known I have this disorder or disability for years, remove my diagnosis and tell me that I'm just trying to get online attention by faking it. as well as my friends and family doubting that I'm even struggling with these things that I have had my whole life. it's sickening and disgusting to see random 20-year-olds pretending to have Tourette's syndrome hearing loss or Todd's syndrome (allice wonderland syndrome) or autism or POTS or anemia or PMDD or all the other things they can think of to get donations that they spend on designer bags and fancy restaurants. PLEASE don't interact with the accounts or posts of people who do this. of course I know there are people online who do have these disorders or disabilities, but its less than one percent of the people you see who actually have it. its so fucking gross.

[rjalker]

fanface for your free ableist blocklist. Claims that "less than 1% of disabled people you see on the internet are really disabled, the rest are all faking it". Gets mad when you point out that this is just blatant ableism.

[elliott-the-creature]

having a really weird AIWS moment right now and I thought I’d just document it. my hands feel ABSOLUTELY massive—like, the size of grizzly bear paws—and if I stare at them for too long it looks like they’re getting bigger too. my tongue feels way too big for my mouth. also feel 50 pounds heavier and I have no concept of time. also also I’m getting a weird dragon shift with wings and horns that’s kinda species euphoria because I feel like a massive creature, but it’s also super annoying typing because my hands feel big and clunky and I keep making typing mistakes. hopefully it goes away soon, but it’s not horrible

[orbmanson7]

Some more sketchbook pages...

This one is a whole mess of stuff... Some OCs, some stuff for therapy in trying to explain aiws, some doodles from VoiceOfNurse's Rude Awakening (one of the best of many from the fic series What's A Little B&E Between Friends?), and then a little page where I tried to practice more with markers by doodling quite a few things, haha

[velourria]

[lakeville-lolita]

I know who I was when I got up this morning

abandoned hospital

[disease]

Alice in Wonderland syndrome

Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS), also known as Todd's syndrome or dysmetropsia, is a neuropsychological condition that causes a distortion of perception. People may experience distortions in visual perception of objects, such as appearing smaller (micropsia) or larger (macropsia), or appearing to be closer (pelopsia) or farther (teleopsia) than they are. Distortion may also occur for senses other than vision.

The cause of Alice in Wonderland syndrome is currently unknown, but it has often been associated with migraines, head trauma, or viral encephalitis caused by Epstein–Barr virus infection. It is also theorized that it can be caused by abnormal amounts of electrical activity, resulting in abnormal blood flow in those parts of the brain which process visual perception and texture.

Although there are cases of Alice in Wonderland syndrome in both adolescents and adults, it is most commonly seen in children. [wikipedia]

[neuroticboyfriend]

sometimes i forget that i get alice in wonderland syndrome symptoms until they happen again and im like oh great. very cool on everything i look at to perpetually warp and distort. objects will infinitely get bigger and smaller at the same time. walls will close in but never stop.

everything is generally just wonked out. it's like the optical illusion where it looks like an image is moving except its not. but instead of being an image its the entire world around you. very unsettling experience, and totally mindbreaking when actively psychotic. 10/10 would not recommend.

[the-100-percent]

Not us watching the beginning of Alice In Wonderland and thinking "wow that reminds me of Alice in wonderland syndrom- oh" 💀💀💀💀

-👠

[mace-waz-here]

My mom says she hopes one day I don’t have to take the medicine I do, like ma’am this is literally the only thing keeping my grip on reality and keeping me from literally trying to mutilate my body. I’m not even joking, I have Alice in wonderland syndrome and some other shit with derealization, and I’ve tried/thought about clawing my skin off, my eyes out and other stuff when that happens

[chris-wonder]

Shout out to the bitches with weird under researched neurological disorders. We are the badest bitches out here

[bugs-in-the-dirt]

ayo does anyone else have, like, a combination of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome and Visual Snow Syndrome? do ppl usually have one or the other?

so, like, AIWS for me is usually only visual distortion. i've always described it like the world around me looks like its throbbing/pulsating. i've noticed folks seem to describe it like things are simultaneously black-and-white extremes, like for example:

feeling enormous like the Big Friendly Giant but also minuscule like Thumbelina

the space around you is both vastly spacious like a large empty gymnasium and cramped as hell like trying to fit yourself in a dollhouse

objects or people seeming really close like you're seeing them through binoculars or a zoomed-in photo online, but at the same time insanely far away as if you needed to yell from across a football field for them to hear you

even tho i never explained it as simultaneously opposing extremes, it's still exactly spot-on. i remember it only ever happening at night for some reason, and usually after i stare at something for seemingly too long and start to feel self-aware of perceiving reality. i recall as a child seeing the walls on the opposite side of my bedroom simultaneously or rapidly zooming in and out after taking in the size of the walls and focusing too hard on their connecting corners. when i looked away to try and make it stop, if i saw anything remotely rectangular or having flat edges then it would start occurring with that new thing in my sight. it usually stopped if i focused on something round, oddly enough. the worst part of these episodes for some reason was when something incredibly small felt like somehow it encompassed the entire universe? i totally forgot about that til i saw someone's reddit post mentioning it.

though there were nights where it would be so strong and constant it was horribly frightening - floors and walls would start moving like an unstable treehouse balancing on a singular weak limb, rectangles would lean into trapezoid shapes, the ground feeling like a wobbly conveyer-belt. it helped to walk out of my room during those worse episodes, though sometimes i'd walk into the bathroom and still feel like everything was spinning. walking during this time usually felt like time was moving unnaturally fast like is was on x4 speed or smth, but at the same time it felt slow since i was aware it wasnt actually sped-up movement.

that's when i'd start dissociating a bit and see a blurry hallucination of colorful hand-drawn sailboats? it was actually extremely soothing in comparison to the panic-attack-inducing distortion of reality around me, providing a gentle PBS Kids aesthetic of a visual that sailed smoothly across a cutely animated ocean. then when the vision disappeared everything would be normal again. this still happens with me today, which sucks, but the remembering the sailboats and isolating myself in a dark room helps remove all visuals that could possibly be distorted.

then of course Visual Snow Syndrome- i never had any idea what this was, the first time i saw it i was 3 or so maybe? i was, again, about to go to sleep when i saw colorful static making up the entire world around me. that night i was convinced they were an infestation of bugs? but no one else could see them? eventually i just randomly assumed it was this weird ability where i was sensitive to and could see molecules and atoms? but no apparently its a weird fuzzy neurological deviation. the thing about it tho is that wikipedia says the world tends to appear blurry when the static is visible, but my vision stays completely clear if not clearer, i just feel more aware of the visual static thats constantly in the background (its a lot easier to see in the dark or on a plain flat space that lacks luster and texture).

anyways, i've no idea if its common for folks with AIWS to also have Visual Snow Syndrome as well?just thought i'd share my experience with them in case someone else out there is feels they relate and is confused about it.

oh, and here's the reddit post i found that talked about AIWS - they articulate it so perfectly, i was amazed to see someone explain these symptoms that i've had yet had no understanding of what the heck it was:

[tesseractlover]

AIWS

Anybody else with AIWS and ADHD? Like your concept of time is completely nonexistent?  It could be 5pm and you think it’s 10pm. Something could have happened a year ago but you have it in your head as a month. You might even say “the other day…” when it was 6 months ago. Also does anyone else get triggered by elevators like the second it goes down the world is all warped now for ten minutes. I have on average one or two episodes a day but they usually happen when I’m tired or stressed. Anyone else relate?

[elliott-the-creature]

Yeah I got that AAAAA

A-ceflux

A-utism

A-nxiety

A-lice in Wonderland Syndrome

A-lterhuman

[gildedbearediting]

Alice in Wonderland Day

It’s July 4, which for some may be a day of independence. Yet for bookish people, July 4 is Alice in Wonderland Day. It’s said that Alice’s Day is celebrated on this day because it’s when the story was first told by Lewis Carroll. The Man Behind the Curtain Carroll was a mathematician and photographer in addition to being a novelist. However, Lewis Carroll was a pseudonym for the man behind the…

[v4mp1reb4t-sketchbook]

y'all ever heard of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. cause boy is it ever weird, like that shit Fucked Me UpTM as a kid.

I don't experience it often anymore but I remember a couple of years ago it was so bad I couldn't look at anyone's face or their head would like shrink? and get super far away, it was so disconcerting. it still happens now (just another reason to avoid eye contact) but not often, thank gods.

anyways I couldn't help but think that like what if The Spiral from tma could do something like that to people. essentially just mess with their perception so they don't know if what they're seeing is actually how it is (mainly in distance). AiWS can also affect perception of time and how fast it's moving, which I believe the spiral is known to do.

idk just thoughts, but I think it would be really cool if in the Magnus universe it's basically something no one can explain but has happened to enough people that there's a name for it. and really it's just the spiral having some fun