Mmmm. The Big-Small thing must be reasonably common and after I first heard the Pink Flloyd song noted above, I surmised it was an automatic side effect of fever. I first experienced it when very young. It's good when you're young, because you observe odd occurrences without censor. So you get the full effect without the the conditioned scepticism of older folk.
I had a fantastic experience during fever when quite young; it consisted of a screen filled with motor bikes racing all over the place in close-up. The sound was deafening. Then the bikes suddenly stopped and a hum commenced. Everything was dead silent apart from the hum or whine noise. Then from the right, a ball or sphere appeared. It slowly rolled across the 'screen' of my vision, growing larger as it grew closer. The perspective was very realistic. Then, still with a background hum, the ball slowly rolled to the right, growing smaller. I think the silence was so profound that it sounded like a hum; not a hum, but impossible to describe. Immediately the silently rolling sphere vanished, the roaring, careening motor bikes began again, filling the screen with wheels, spokes; motor bikes everywhere. Then everything became silent once more, and the tiny ball approached from the right, growing larger and larger, rolling hypnotically and accompanied by the pervasive humming silence; other worldly hum; not human. At the time I'd never seen a screen of any kind; no TV in those days.
The Big-Small thing is quite enjoyable. Usually you're not in a usual mind-state anyway because of the fever. When I was in my late teens and living alone, I had a ferocious fever. Didn't have a telephone and there was no-one to notice if I was ill, so I just had to lie there, drifting in and out of consciousness, with everything enlarging and shrinking. Accompanying all of this was a feeling as if my veins were filled with steel wool (that steel fibre stuff used for scrubbing saucepans). It felt as if the steel wool were trying to push through my veins, scraping and scratching as it went. It produced a feeling of irritation and restlessness so strong that I thought I'd go mad; I thrashed my arms and legs against the bed and rocked my head back and forth rapidly, just to ease it. When I finally recovered and went to the doctor, he investigated my nails and pointed out that the skin beneath them was covered with red spots, like measles. This is an indication that extremely high fever has occurred, apparently.
Another thing I remember from childhood is spinning Tops. Don't know if they have them anymore; they were made of tin and brightly painted in concentric circles with patterns on them. The handle was plunged several times before the top was released; they would have been about 20 cms in diameter. I remember the feeling occasioned by watching these tops as they spun hynotically across the floor. I realise now that they induced an altered state; caused by concentration on the spinning, circular designs and the hum created by holes deliberately cut into the surface of the Top, which, when spinning, created a unearthly humming sound. Very enjoyable, altered states in early childhood .. unforgetable, too.
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