What is this Strange Visual Interpretation Disturbance

Alice in Wonderland is a story written by Lewis Carroll about a seven-year-old little girl with innocent eyes; the novel has been loved and read by people of different age group. Young or old reader, the book traps everyone into the Alice’s world of adventure. It is considered that since Carroll suffers from migraines, he had used his own migraine experience as a source of inspiration for his books. The medical situation which describes some weird sensation and aura involving the shape or size of the objects and body parts is termed as Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. The name of this disorder has been inspired by the novel of Lewis Carroll and his novel hero Alice. In the novel, Alice appeared to experience many body size changes throughout the course of the story. Sometimes she feels her body shrink and on the other condition she grows up unexplainably taller than her actual size. It is an abnormal condition characterized due to recurrent visual hallucinations of bizarre perceptual distortions in size, shape, color, or motion of the objects. The patients with AIWS experience the size distortion either as micropsia (seeing the object smaller than they are) or macropsia (seeing the object taller or larger than they actually are). In some of the cases, the patient may also have a strange visual hallucination in which they see the objects further away (teleopsia) or nearer (pelopsia) than they are. It is usually associated with migraines, intracranial tumors, and the use of certain psychoactive drugs. However, the AiWS symptoms are quite common in childhood and adolescence, they can occur at any age. Some of the patients claim that they have experienced multiple different episodes throughout the journey. Most frequently, the syndrome presents itself in smaller ways sometimes the wall seems curved or move further and further ways, sometimes floor beneath the feet appears moving and in other episodes the patient feels like Alice, the cars or buildings seems larger and they feel the world they are living isn’t the same and it’s a completely different and new world. These are some of the personal experience of the people who are suffering from the complicated neurological syndromes. Other people might have different or perhaps more dramatic episodes as the aura of the migraine disease are very individualized and widely differ from person to person. rnMoreover, the symptoms of this mental health are considered quite bizarre and are similar to the experience of the Alice in the movie. Just as her the individual suffering from the syndrome can experience color enhancement in the environment, a straight line might occur curved, smaller objects can appear taller and vice versa. Moreover, the episodes are different for each person, what one experience may vary from one episode to other and a typical episode can last from a few minutes to half an hour. One with AiWS may experience any of the symptoms including migraines, Size and Perceptual distortion or Time and Sound distortion. Studying the personal experiences of the individual helps the medical experts to have a little more insight into how the syndrome can manifest and what it feels like to actually experience it. Moreover, the idea of such personal experiences of the patients helps the one suffering from it get a much-needed reassurance that what they are going through is a documented symptom of migraine and not a sign that they are losing mind. The exact reason and causes of the AiWS are still not known to the medical experts but the researchers are doing their best in order to understand and find a perfect solution for it. Though some of the researchers believe, unusual electrical activity in the brain causes abnormal blood flow to the parts of the brain that process environment and experience visual perception. While in most of the cases, migraine is considered as the leading cause for the adults and the infection is considered as the primary cause in case of children. Stress, cough medicines, stroke, and brain tumor might be some of the reasons for developing Alice in the Wonderland Syndrome in an individual. rnAlthough there are no proven treatments for AiWS; one can still minimize the symptoms by controlling the migraine attacks. Till now, preventing headache and migraines are considered the best way of treating and reducing it.