Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS) is a disorienting neurological condition that affects human perception. The term refers to altered bizarre perceptions of size and shape involving a patient’s body or other objects. People affected with AIWS can experience alterations in perception involving the senses of vision, sensation, touch, and hearing. They can also experience hallucinations or illusions of expansion, reduction, or distortion of body image. These are also called Lilliputian hallucinations or metamorphopsia. This entry discusses the signs and symptoms, etymology, etiology, and prognosis of AIWS.

The illusions and hallucinations perceived in AIWS resemble the strange phenomena that Alice experienced in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. AIWS is an important entity for clinicians to recognize because it can occur in a vast range of common ...