What Is Alice in Wonderland Syndrome?
5. Depersonalization and Feelings of Unreality
Other symptoms of AWS are difficult to describe because they are characterized by an overall feeling of unreality. People report feeling as if they have lost control of their arms and legs and that they can’t control what they are doing. Some feel depersonalization, as if they are not themselves, or even that they have been split in half, a phenomenon known as somatopsychic duality.
In Wonderland, Alice expresses feelings of depersonalization. She asks herself, “But if I’m not the same, the next question is, who in the world am I? I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night?” She temporarily comes to the conclusion that she somehow has been exchanged for another child in her class at school. Later she tells a caterpillar that she does not know who she is, because she has been changed several times that day.
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