環(huán)球英語 — 493：Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

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Voice 1

Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Ryan Geertsma.

Voice 2

And I'm Liz Waid. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1

They felt that the world began changing around them. Things were changing size and shape.

Some saw huge rats.

The room around them increased in size.

Their mothers became unusually large, like giants.

Voice 2

These are the strange experiences of 12 children at a school in Taipei. These were symptoms, warning signs of a more serious problem. The parents of the children brought them to the hospital. At the hospital, doctors said that all the children had Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.

Voice 1

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, or AIWS, is not a disease. It is not possible to catch it from other people. AIWS is a condition that affects the mind. It causes sufferers to see things in unnatural ways.

Voice 2

Like the children in Taipei experienced, objects appear to change size or shape. The object does not actually change. It is the way the sufferers understand what they see and observe - their perception has changed. For example, objects may appear much bigger or much smaller than they really are. Sufferers may see normal people as giants. Or normal vehicles may appear very small. Distances may appear longer or shorter than they should be. Or, a person may know that a road is straight but to their eyes it appears to turn. In this way their minds change or distort what they see.

Voice 1

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome does not always distort what people see. It can also distort what people feel. Some sufferers say it feels like parts of their body are no longer the right size. The rest of their body still feels normal.

Voice 2

For example, imagine a woman. She is reading a book in her home. Suddenly, her hands feel unnaturally large. She knows that this is not normal. So she goes to a mirror to look at her image. Her eyes tell her that her body is shaped normally. But her body feels as if it is unnatural.

Voice 1

Sufferers from AIWS can experience all of these symptoms. Or they may only experience some of them. It can affect their sense of seeing, feeling, or even touching. And it can affect their sense of time, space, size, or distance.

Voice 2

Rick Hemsley began to experience Alice in Wonderland Syndrome when he was 21 years old. He described some his strange experiences in an interview he did with the Guardian newspaper.

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"When I laid on my bed and looked at my hands. It would seem like my fingers stretched for kilometres in front of me...Sometimes as I walked down the road, I saw real cars. But instead they looked like small cars that children play with and I felt very, very tall. Or at work, my chair seemed huge, while I seemed to shrink."

Voice 1

Usually, a person with AIWS does not know when the strange experience will happen. These experiences are called auras. Auras can last for a few minutes or a few hours.

Voice 2

John Todd, a psychiatrist, was the first person to describe Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. In 1955, he wrote about it in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. He connected sufferers' experiences to two particular sicknesses. He claimed that if anyone had AIWS, either they or someone in their family had one of these two sicknesses.

Voice 1

The first sickness is migraines. These headaches cause severe pain in a person's head. They also come back many times through a person's life. Things like light and sound can make the pain worse. AIWS is just one symptom of migraines.

Voice 2

The second sickness Todd linked to AIWS is epilepsy. Epilepsy is disorder of the brain. It is caused when the normal work of the brain changes. It often causes parts of the body to stop working correctly for a brief time. Often, a person's body will move uncontrollably. AIWS is just one symptom of this condition.

Voice 1

Later, doctors discovered another condition related to AIWS - Epstein Barr virus or EBV. This virus was not discovered until 1964, after Todd wrote about AIWS.

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It is not possible to treat or cure Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. Instead doctors must find out which sickness is causing it- migraines, EBV, or Epilepsy. Then they work to treat that condition. This usually helps reduce and ease the number of auras a person experiences.

Voice 1

It was John Todd who chose the name ‘Alice in Wonderland Syndrome' for the condition. He named it after a story written by the famous children's writer Lewis Carroll. The story is about a young girl named Alice. In the story, Alice experiences many strange events. Near the beginning of the story, Alice drinks from a bottle. She finds that the drink causes her to shrink until she is only 25 centimetres tall.

Voice 2

Next, Alice eats a treat, a cake like sweet tasting bread. She hopes it will make her grow back to her normal size. The treat does make her grow. Alice grows and grows and grows until she is almost three metres tall! However, she does not stay tall. She shrinks once again. All through the story Alice continues to shrink and grow.

Voice 1

At another time in the story Alice finds that her neck has become very long. Her body stays its normal size, but her neck grows so much that she cannot see her body below her. The world around her keeps changing too. A cat appears and disappears, leaving only his smile. Insects and animals talk. It is a strange world with very strange events. In the end, Alice discovers that it has only been a dream.

Voice 2

John Todd observes that Alice's strange experiences are similar to the auras experienced in Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. In fact, Todd suggests that Alice's experiences may be from Carroll's own auras. He writes:

Voice 4

"Lewis Carroll suffered from migraines. This new information causes one to wonder if Alice walked the paths of a Wonderland well known to her creator."

Voice 1

To many people, AIWS may seem very strange. And for an AIWS sufferer, the experience of an aura can be frightening. But treating the sickness related to Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is very helpful. Now, it is possible for sufferers to live a normal life.

Voice 2

The writer and producer of this program was Courtney Schutt. The voices you heard were from the United States. All quotes were adapted and voiced by Spotlight. Computer users can visit our website at radio.english.net. This program is called "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome." We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.