WE DON'T INDULGE ALL DYSMORPHIA :

Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS) affects the way people perceive the world around them and can distort how they experience their own bodies and the space it occupies. These can include distortions in vision as well as time. Imagine seeing people's faces change into dragon-like faces all your life. This symptom is only one of the 40 types of visual distortions characteristic of Alice in Wonderland syndrome. Some patients also describe seeing different body parts added to the people in front of them, such as a shortened arm attached to the face of the person sitting in front of them. Other symptoms include seeing people or objects moving in slow motion or moving unnaturally fast or not at all. Their hearing can also be affected - sufferers can hear loved ones speaking oddly slow or unnaturally fast. And they report seeing objects or their own body parts shrinking or swelling in front of their eyes, creating the sensation that they are themselves changing size, just as Josh experienced.

It is this last symptom that led to the disorder's name, after Lewis Carroll's fictional character, who shrinks after drinking a potion and then grows after eating cake. Carroll himself may have even been inspired by perceptual distortions himself, perhaps brought on by migraine auras - temporary visual disturbances that often occur in migraine sufferers. Others have suggested the author could have suffered from Alice in Wonderland Syndrome that was triggered by epilepsy, substance misuse or even an infection.

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