A rare combination of symptoms that convinces children the size of their bodies and other objects are changing before their eyes might be more widespread than previously believed.

Children with what's called "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome" (AIWS) and its allied condition, "Alice in Wonderland-like Syndrome" (AIWLS), see their bodies as different from others.

Like Us on Facebook

Those with AIWS, also called Todd's Syndrome or lilliputian hallucinations, is a disorienting neurological condition that affects human perception. Sufferers experience dysmetropsia (micropsia, macropsia, pelopsia, teleopsia) or size distortion of other sensory modalities.

These people perceive parts of their body to be changing size. Some might see their hands much larger than a few moments ago or their feet appear smaller and farther away.

Those with the closely related AIWLS misperceive the size and distance of objects. They perceive these objects as frighteningly smaller, larger, fatter, or thinner than their natural sizes.

Grant Liu, a pediatric neuro-ophthalmologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia who began studying children with AIWS, said their most common symptoms were micropsia (when objects and body parts appear smaller than they actually are) and teleopsia (when objects appear much farther away than they are).

AIWS is rare based on current medical literature and not has been written about this syndrome. On the other hand, Liu believes it might be more common than the literature indicates based onb his experience with the syndrome.

"There are a lot of kids with this," he said. "I think it's a lot more common than we think."

Liu suspects the syndrome's obscurity may be due to the fact that AIWS and AIWLS are usually harmless. They disappear on their own and are rarely debilitating. There's also no treatment for the condition.

Persons suspected with having the syndrome don't receive medicine and no surgery is prescribed. Those with the syndrome live with the symptoms until they subside, often in the late teens.

Liu did a small study about AIWS published in 2014 in the journal Pediatric Neurology. He found the average age of his young patients at diagnosis was eight years old.

Liu followed up with 15 of the patients. He found the symptoms continued in one-third of them, and four of the 15 also developed frequent migraines.

Now, Liu and other researchers believe migraines and other conditions like epilepsy and viral infections might be associated with AIWS.