You’re at work and suddenly you’re hit with a blinding headache.
Your head throbs and you blink away the confusion.
But it doesn’t blink away.
You see colors, your hands looks distorted, you might even have double vision.
It’s troubling, but you know it’s just temporary.
Wires crossed, misfiring neurons, you’ll be fine, right?
And if you have an enterprising mind, you might even write down what you’re seeing and turn it into a story later on.
After all, you heard that Lewis Carroll did the same thing when he wrote Alice in Wonderland.
Alright, the year is 1955.
British psychiatrist Dr John Todd has described something strange he saw in his patients
who suffered from severe headaches and migraines.
Objects like cups, lamps, or even patients’ own body parts would grow or shrink,
and some patients even reported that their entire bodies were changing in size.
But aside from their headaches, the patients didn’t have anything wrong with them—
no tumors, dementia, damaged eyesight, or any kind of mental illness that could explain these strange visions.
In fact, when patients reported the symptoms, they were fully aware that they were seeing things differently,
as opposed to hallucinations where patients aren’t quite sure what’s real and what’s not.
Dr Todd wasn’t the first person to write about this phenomenon,
but he was the person who gave it the name that has stuck with it for decades:
Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.
OK, let’s take a quick step back.
Lewis Carroll, whose real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson,
wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass in 1865 and 1871, respectively.
This prologue from the first book is referred to as “All in the golden afternoon”.
The poem is a recollection of how the stories of Alice were conceived in the first place: during a rowboat trip on a summer’s day.
In the boat with him were four other people: the Reverend Robinson Duckworth, and three girls—Lorina, Alice, and Edith Lidell.
While it’s clear where he got the name Alice from, there’s some speculation that some of the story was inspired by his own maladies.
Dodgson’s diary entries state that he had migraines that were often preceded by auras, or—as he called them—moving “fortifications”.
Researcher Caro W. Lippman suggested in 1952 that Alice’s bodily changes were reflective of Dodgson’s own body distortions.
But Dodgson’s doctor said there was basically nothing wrong with him,
and none of the diary entries suggested that he had these visions before telling the story or writing the books.
It’s an interesting story to whip out at parties and tell your friends, but it’s mostly speculation.
Anyway, back to facts.
There’s no known definitive cause for Alice in Wonderland Syndrome,
but it’s often associated with migraines and headaches, sometimes head trauma and even viral encephalitis.
Although most common in children, adults can experience it too.
And aside from seeing things as bigger or smaller, subjects can also see things as closer or farther away,
they can feel like they’re floating, like time is speeding up or slowing down,
they might see everything in a certain color, or any of about five dozen total symptoms.
The duration of the visions can be minutes or days, with some patients reporting they continued to experience it for years.
And while diagnosis of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome itself is very rare
(though for people who suffer from migraines it’s estimated to be about 15%),
individual symptoms aren’t actually that rare.
Two separate studies found that in adolescents, between 4 and 6% experienced seeing their body parts as larger or smaller,
and up to 30% experienced even just one of the 58 symptoms at least fleetingly.
In fact, a study focused around adults found that nearly 40% of individuals experienced at least one symptom and over a third experienced two.
All this is to say that if you ever catch just a quick moment where things look a little off to you—
it may even startle you and be strange to witness—it’s actually normal, common, and usually benign.
So if you’re having headaches or migraines, it might be good to have that checked out,
otherwise you’re probably fine and not going crazy.
But maybe pass on random foods that say “eat me”.
Thanks for falling down that rabbit hole with me.
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We’ll see you next time.