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Weird Psychological Thing Re: Big/Small

Like many others, I had the big / small thing, mostly when I was a kid and fell ill. I've had it a couple of times since, very mildly, but only when I'm tired. In my case it was something like a vast slab in an infinite space, and the slab was rough like stone but somehow soft at the same time, and it was also incredibly small. And when it was "in my head" I couldn't visualise anything or think about anything else. If I tried to think of an object or a place, or replay a past event in my head I couldn't, there was just this impossibly huge / small slab and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

There is a neural effect called Alice In Wonderland Syndrome (sorry if it's been mentioned, this is a long thread!) which can be brought about my migraines, epilepsy, extreme tiredness or... other things (I don't have the book to hand). It can cause people's idea of size to go completely awry (not visually, just in the mind) so that things can seem infinitely small or large. It's common in people with migraines or epilepsy, but can also be brought on with extreme tiredness or illness. What we are experiencing is probably this or something similar.
 
Wow! Thanks for that Desperado. Alice In Wonderland Syndrome, it fits.:D
 
i get migraines, but i see no rabbits,,,,it seems to me that whilst in "wonderland", the brain is "showing" us Quantum Physics.....but i haven't experienced this since i was about 10, so ????
 
naSTEe maybe you're one of those people for whom it only occurred in childhood. I get migraines, hence my interest, but I don't get the feeling during them. It's possible that the neurology of people who experience migraines, epilepsy etc. is conducive to this experience.
 
like landing on an aircraft carrier

that looks the size of a postage stamp the first time you do it, though you know it will be much easier once you commit.
 
god knows what it is

Thats weird, I thought I was the only one who had this - thought it might be some kind of extremely weak synaesthesia, it happened much more strongly as a child, when I could close my eyes & visualise whatever-it-was (kind of like a mix of texture and size and shape and space, all rolled up into one sensory perception); bloody hard to describe.
 
clearly the scientific name for this should now become "the big/small thing".
it has a nice ring to it no?
 
I used to get this as a child, and at 26 I'll still get it when i'm really tired (having ME, this is a cinch ;) ). I find it's most prominent when I'm watching TV late at night, and all of a sudden the TV will seem to be half the distance away, where it actually is, and two feet further back. All at the same time. But as soon as I realise this, it stops. Then it starts again as soon as I stop thinking about it.

Wierd.
 
Creamstick said:
I'll still get it when i'm really tired (having ME, this is a cinch ;) ).

Ooh welcome to the club, our ranks are swelling (rather like our neck-glands)
One of us, one of us, etc.... :p
 
Count me in as one of those who still gets it as an adult.
I get cluster migraines and suffer with postural hypotension, although, I've never done any non prescribed drugs.
Do any of you also get the Intense edge and colour thing, like the world has suddenly become all hard bright edges and colours are more saturated ?
And the Left- Right swap where you touch something with your left hand, but it feels like your right hand has done it?
Now I admit I'm vaguely ambidextrous, but this is a definite crossover feeling, even down to reaching out for my coffee with the wrong hand.
 
Re: like landing on an aircraft carrier

ruffready said:
that looks the size of a postage stamp the first time you do it, though you know it will be much easier once you commit.

Except the Invincible class, which were bought on the cheap and really are the size of a postage stamp...:hmph:
 
Alys said:
And the Left- Right swap where you touch something with your left hand, but it feels like your right hand has done it?

I get something like this when I'm very tired, except it's more like if I pick something up without looking at it, I can't tell which hand it's in.

My balance also gets thrown off by jars of Swarfega. You know that wierd feeling and sound when you shake a large plastic tub of swarfega? That causes me to loose balance and I get very confused.

Sorry, that's just plain frightening to read back. :)

[edited for awful spelling - I'm tired! ;) ]
 
rite place?

when i was younger i used to imagine squezzing a "setee shaped" object (behind my eyes with my 1st finger and thumb) until i sqeezed it so small it went into "infinity?" i v v rarely do it now

but as far as i know i havent had/done the big/small head thing

but i also have mental health probs
 
I remember an attack of the big/small thing when I was in Koln. I looked at the people in the square, looked at the Cathedral, and nearly keeled over backwards 'cos my head went all weird.
 
The big/small thing I get is sometimes whilst walking or driving I become aware of being far too big... Like I'm looking down on people from above or driving a huge car towering above all the other little cars, then once I realise that I've become aware of it, it goes away.
 
By chance the other day I found out my housemate gets this feeling too. And at the same time we seem to have discovered a way to induce it. We were messing about juggling and started using various objects of different sizes and weights. My housemate tried two juggling balls and a Smint, and after a few seconds stopped abruptly and said 'I can't do this any more; it's giving me the big-small feeling." He was quite freaked out and worried he wouldn't be able to sleep that night.

I was very surprised to find out that he'd had this before, and asked him about it - like me he associates it with terrible childhood nightmares and fever dreams that are thankfully getting rarer nowadays. I tried the trick and found out that after a few seconds it does indeed create a mild form of the sensation we've been talking about, in me at least. So if any of you can juggle, try doing so with two heavy-ish juggling balls and a small, light breathmint or something, and see if it works for you.
 
Big things/Small things

Wow.
I always thought it was just me. I used to get this a lot when I was a kid, and into my early teens. I think it is the same thing, although I find it very hard to explain, even to think about. Its kind of like when you wake up and you can't quite remember what you were dreaming about. So apologies if this makes no sense.
I remember, when I was a kid, trying to go to sleep (I don't recall being ill, I've just always had trouble sleeping) and lying there I would get this really wierd sensation of, like, small things really close up, right in my face, and big things a long way away, and no distance between them. It was accompanied by a sort of vertigo sensation. What was even wierder was I had this Alice band, made of three strips of material knotted together and for some reason the sensation of that brushing past my ear as I was putting it on used to trigger flashbacks to the feeling that went with the big things/small things. I never worked out why that should be.
I have not, as far as I recall, had this in adulthood, but something happened to me recently that reminded me of it. I was suffering from a really heavy cold, and had retired to my bed. I was having even more difficulty sleeping than is usual, but I was half asleep, when I was attacked by this really odd feeling. It was the same vertigo-like sensation, but accompanied by this feeling like there was too much stuff in my head, too many thoughts and ideas, and they didn't all fit in anymore, any they were all leaking out and sort of floating away. It was seriously unpleasant. I blame the Lemsip.
 
Not sure if this is the same thing but when I'm having one of my bouts of insomnia, ie lying in bed thinking must..get..some..sleep I get this weird sensation that (and this is the only way I can describe it) of having a huge bubble inside me. I can practically feel it inside my mouth but at the same time can't feel anything. I used to have this a lot as a kid and it started up again in the last couple of years. I wish I could describe it better but even when it's happening I can't say for sure what it feels like - I just always get this impression of a big bubble. :confused:
 
I, too, thought I was the only only one. It was the worst, and the only recurring nightmare of my early childhood - say 3 to 7.

As I was falling asleep I would find myself looking at - or being aware of - a huge object. No particular shape but very solid.
Then, with a sickening lurch in the chest and stomach - as if I were falling - I would realise that it was in fact an absolutely minute object, but very, very close to my eyeball.

What was worse was that I knew it was looking at me - so closely that it was almost inside me. It was charged with a malevolent intensity that I couldn't fathom: I would just have to bear the feeling of being in its grip for a minute or two until it went away.
Even now I can still sometimes - like now, thinking about it - faintly taste the unique flavour of its menace.
 
I became aware of this thread a couple of hours ago when I read the "Meaning of Life" thread started by birdie.

Anyway, I read this thread through and then began to ask my wife if she could remember me telling her about my experiences of the big/small thing. At which point my 15 year old daughter looked up from painting her toenails and said "Oh, I get that quite often".

She tells me that at times she also feels simultaneously huge and microscopic, and that when it happens, the duvet also feels extra-ordinarily heavy.

She also experiences what she describes as 'explosions' inside her head, just as I do.

There is definitely a phenomenon worthy of an article in FT here, anyone care to have a go?

My daughter then threw in the killer comment. She asked me if I had ever felt as though I could 'see' through my closed eyelids. Well, I almost fainted! I've had this for years. It always happens as I wake up. I am fully aware, able to move about etc, but I can 'see' through my eyelids. And I don't mean it as a sort of visual memory, I can actually see! And so can my daughter!

I have two other daughters and I'll ask them tomorrow evening if they have ever experienced anything.

The odd thing is, I thought off posting something along the big/small phenomena a few nights ago, ie before seeing these two threads, but thought it might be a bit too freaky even for FT. I've learnt my lesson! Don't get me on about synchronicity.
 
Cavynaut said:
My daughter then threw in the killer comment. She asked me if I had ever felt as though I could 'see' through my closed eyelids. Well, I almost fainted! I've had this for years. It always happens as I wake up. I am fully aware, able to move about etc, but I can 'see' through my eyelids. And I don't mean it as a sort of visual memory, I can actually see! And so can my daughter!

That used to happen to my friend when she took ecstacy.
 
Marion said:
That used to happen to my friend when she took ecstacy.

Becky tells me that she read somewhere that 'seeing through your eyelids' is the first stage of an OOBE or astral projection. Which again is odd, 'cos she doesn't have any interest in Fortean subjects at all.
 
I am fully aware, able to move about etc, but I can 'see' through my eyelids. And I don't mean it as a sort of visual memory, I can actually see!

This happens when you're awake but in a hypnogogic or hypnopompic state (e.g. going to sleep or coming out of sleep). Your mind wakes up but your body is still asleep and feeding you dreams. I used to get that a lot, at least once a week (no drugs involved). At first it just looked like I could really see my room, but when I realised that was obviously impossible, I started to try and imagine different things, like the sky, or mountains or people, and they just appeared like they were really there. I don't get it much now, just once in a while.
 
Desperado said:
This happens when you're awake but in a hypnogogic or hypnopompic state (e.g. going to sleep or coming out of sleep). Your mind wakes up but your body is still asleep and feeding you dreams. I used to get that a lot, at least once a week (no drugs involved). At first it just looked like I could really see my room, but when I realised that was obviously impossible, I started to try and imagine different things, like the sky, or mountains or people, and they just appeared like they were really there. I don't get it much now, just once in a while.

Thanks for the reply Desp, but it's not hypnogogic/hypnopompic. I can roll over, move my head around etc, and see things such as curtains, moving in the breeze. I know my eyes are shut but I can 'see' the bedroom.
 
Hey, I know it's almost impossible to believe you're not really seeing it, so I probably won't convince you. :D I tried the same thing, but when you move your head (I actually "sat up" a few times, too) or move around you aren't really moving. You just think you are and it's so realistic you can't tell. I once "sat up" and was looking out of the window with my eyes closed and then I really woke up and found I was lying down.

I know you won't believe me, but next time it happens try this and you'll prove it to yourself. Put a clock right by your bed and next time it occurs, have a look at the clock with your eyes closed. Then force yourself to wake up fully and open your eyes, then check the time. It won't be the same, I promise!
 
AndyX said:
For me it's more like.... imagine holding a small object between your first finger and thumb and 'rolling' it slightly so you can feel the texture. The weird thing is that this little stone or whatever is simultaneously tiny, huge (planet-sized), light, heavy, sharp and angled, soft and fuzzy. It's almost like been in two places at once and experiencing two different things at the same time somehow.
There's also a kind of 'pins and needles' sensation for some reason.
Ugh! I know exactly what you're talking about. I get a cold shiver (almost 'electrical') just reading this thread or thinking back about it. Focusing on the thick, or even just thinking about, the circular tables in the school library in grade-school used to do it to me and I forget what else. eek! The tips of my fingers would feel all tingley and tickly and funny...electrical.:blah:

It was like I wanted all opposites to be unified but was afraid of it at the same time.
 
I remember this feeling very vividly from when I was a young child, it was very strange. I havn't felt it for a long time but the last time I did, I was on tricyclic antidepressants which didn't agree with me and that funny feeling was one of the side effects.
I threw them away after a fairly short time.
I also get the feeling that I can see through my eyelids when I am falling asleep, it only ever lasts for a minute or so.
 
Desperado said:
I know you won't believe me, but next time it happens try this and you'll prove it to yourself. Put a clock right by your bed and next time it occurs, have a look at the clock with your eyes closed. Then force yourself to wake up fully and open your eyes, then check the time. It won't be the same, I promise!
That's only because when you astral travel you travel not only through space but through time as well. :cool:

I'm half-joking when I say that, but only half. Often when I do this seeing-through-the-eyelids trick (which I can only pull off if I am sort of half trying/half not trying), I am reliving a past event; I really feel like I'm returning to the past because it's so vivid. I can add things that I know weren't there originally, but that creates a feeling of disruption because it takes a higher degree of conscious effort on my part. It feels almost like I'm violating the scene when I do that; it just destroys the sense of flow and continuity. In other words, I wake up.
 
I don't get the same feeling as you all seem to be talking about but I sometimes get a weird feeling of 'backward hands'. It just feels as if one or both hands are on backwards - like on the wrong wrists.

When I was a kid I could have sworn I'd floated down the stairs on a regular basis. I would stand at the top and would just lift off and float right up to the ceiling then down the wall and land gently at the bottom off the stairs. It wasn't till I was old enough to realise that this was impossible that I started to find it strange and stopped doing it (or imagining I was doing it). But it remained in my mind for a long time as a real memory.
 
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