Alice In Wonderland Syndrome Notes:

[rattmice]

mircopsia
macropsia
lilliput sight

http://forum.rikkus.info/simpleforum_pro.cgi?fid=01
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIWS
http://aiws.info/


DRU's Story
http://forum.rikkus.info/simpleforum_pro.cgi?fid=01&topic_id=1170772174
Hi there

As an intro I thought I should tell my story (as breifly as I can) and explain why I titled this post AIWS and Obstructive Sleep Apnoea.

I'm really glad I found this forum too! I came across it when researching for a photography series based on Alice in Wonderland and was suprised to see that I have symptoms of this syndrome!

So here's my story....

When I was much younger (I'm 20 now) I used to get night terrors as well as sleepwalking. This would often be accompanied by symptoms of AIWS and sometimes just AIWS on it's own. I always felt like it was connected but who knows? I know my mum used to bring me out of sleepwalking by asking if I needed the toilet, and I always seemed to have a full bladder which seems like it triggered the sleepwalking in the first place, as if I wasn't woken up to go to the toilet enough to stop sleeping completely.

Symptoms I would get were mostly visual with seeing objects completely the wrong size and having difficulty touching them or picking them up. I'm not sure if I ever felt my own body was the wrong size but I may have done at some point. My parents never believed me so I always thought I was going mad. Until now! It used to REALLY frighten me and I usually ended up crying and wishing it would stop and go back to normal.

The symptoms never went away for me except now I rarely wake up to them, they are always when I am already awake. Usually when I'm sleepy or when in situations where I lack concentration. Most common is when talking to someone for a long time and concentrating on the face or in lectures when trying to concentrate on the person talking. Their head goes all tiny and the perspective of the room changes. It no longer scares me as much as it did when I was a child but I still definately don't like it and it is quite distressing when I can't even explain it to people properly if they have never had it! In fact i never found anyone else that had it until now.

So, the Sleep Apnoea part. Recently my boyfriend told me that I stop breathing a lot in my sleep for several seconds and the cycle goes on many times in the night. I have been reffered to a sleep clinic (appointment in March) to see if I have Obstuctive Sleep Apneoa. I will certainly mention AIWS to the consultant (hopefully he knows of it!) and probably post results of any sleep tests here when I get them if it interests anyone. Maybe there is a link?

Also partly relevant is that I read that AIWS is a symptom of mononucleosis (glandular fever). I recently had glandular fever and in the month running up to knowing I actually had it, I noticed my AIWS symptoms were happening a lot more often than they had done in years.

Sorry this is so long!

Dru

DRU's WEBSITE
http://www.andshewept.net/

Comments

[miz-playa.livejournal.com]

_{I feel sad that I did not know that you had a boyfriend...and HOLY SHIT...I was a little freaked out by the pictures so I can imagine you were like 'W-T-F' when you would look at people and there neck stretched like the friggin weird ass jungle people...you know how they wear those neck braces? They stretch their necks...yeah.}

[hardluckrapture.livejournal.com]

Uhm.... dru is this girl i met through the AIWS forum and just recently talking to in myspace. She's talking about her story. She's on lj as well... you can find her on my page somewhere if you want to see her photography.

Lol sally lol.