confusing feelings on fingers, "thick" and "thin" at the same time, heart beatin

I've had these feelings many times, it usually happens when I am about to fall asleep after being dehydrated for most of the day. I get really bad migraines, then suddenly: everything feels scary. It's like walking on water and at the same time being suffocated by the sheer expanse of everything around me. It feels like I'm someone else, like I can suddenly see the entire universe and then that makes everything feel really superficial and thin. Sound becomes really sharp and crisp but at the same time really piercingly painful. Light becomes really powerful and it hurts to open my eyes. It's like everything is enhanced and twisted to the scary and painful. I remember crying whenever this happened as a child, then I required constant stimulation to try to block out all the information (like watching TV whilst clicking my fingers). It made my fingers feel like they were needles, and everything I touched was really wobbly (and hard, even pillows) so it hurts to put pressure on things. I have the weirdest feelings about it now. I can really focus during these times and don't require a migraine to cause it (although I can get migraines from it) and just by thinking about it, I can get a pseudo feeling of it. It almost feels euphoric: my heart rate slows and beats really hard so much that I can hear it and I feel really energetic and focused. I don't know what it is, if there is a name for it, but I'm starting to enjoy it.

As a child I used to experience the thick/thin fingers and tongue, whenever I would touch something it would adopt this feeling.. I used to see things which were close to me as being extremely far away.. I would also get the sensation that everything was moving faster, I have never been to the doctor about it I just put it down to having a fever with my migraines .. After having epilepsy training for my work it suddenly dawned on me that the things I had been experiencing were symptoms similar those caused by simple partial seizures .. For those of you who are still baffled as to how this is happening to you it may be worth getting checked to see if you have epilepsy as the symptoms are scarily similar to what I have described happening to me.

I am 40 yrs old and I have had these exact feelings. But I don't think I have depression disorder, but I do experience anxiety more than others. I also have a low blood sugar problem which makes me wonder if the two feelings are linked. I wanted to share with you the feelings which accompany the feelings of "very small" and "far away". I have the feeling like my fingers or anything I touch is thin and frail, but at the same time heavy and thick. Its almost as if I could easily brake what is in my hands, but not have the strength to lift a feather. The items which appear far away switch to being disproportional as I look at someones head. I have found that if I get something healthy to eat in my system and also make fists with my toes on the carpet the feelings go away. Hope this helps.

I have had these same odd feelings for at least 18 years now. I have been researching for an answer to this condition for years. I hope this will help some or all of you because I think I have found it! I believe it is called "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome". 

Symptoms: The most prominent and often most disturbing symptom is that of altered body image: the sufferer will find that they are confused as to the size and shape of parts of (or all of) their body. The parts usually mentioned are the head and hands; growth seems more usual than shrinkage. This phenomenon seems to have the medical term 'metamorphosis'.

The second major symptom is the distortion of visual perception. The eyes themselves are normal, but the sufferer 'sees' objects with the wrong size or shape and/or finds that perspective is incorrect. This can mean that people, cars, buildings, etc. look smaller or larger than they should be, or that distances look incorrect; for example a corridor may appear to be very long, or the ground may appear too close.

Other symptoms which have been referred to as part of AIWS include:

• Distorted time perception; time moving quickly or slowly.
• Distorted touch perception, e.g. a feeling that the ground is 'spongy' under the feet or that the sensation received from touching something is simply incorrect or unrecognised.
• Distorted sound perception.

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Well, another to add to the group.  I first recall it happening when I was about 7 or 8.  I just had it happen the other day when I was riding in the vehicle with my brother of whom I hadn't seen in a while.  The thick fingers and everything feels thick, even stuff I just look at.  I have always called it one of my "thickness attacks", though I've never said those words aloud, just to myself when contemplating them.  My brother and I shared something else that was weird, in the same few weeks we both had a series of sleep of phenomena where we'd be asleep and then it's like you wake up but are still unable to move, your body is still asleep but your eyes have opened and your mind is awake, and you're laying in your bed with this feeling that something very bad is just out of your peripherals, freaky stuff even happens, freaky sensations like violent vibrations accomapanied by freaky thoughts.  You'd try to move with all your might but the most you can possibly get with all of your will power is MAYBE a finger to move and a mumble.  My brother described hearing voices in the doorway to his room (he lives alone in a VERY old house; circa 1800).   Off topic, but it goes hand-in-hand with the "thickness attacks".  Sorry that I don't have any medical or psychological data answers to offer on the subject, just another weird-o. :)

 

Ahh yes, I meant to mention, along the same lines, when I was a kid I remember having another sort of attack where EVERYTHING felt like it was moving extremely fast (including and especially time).  If I walked to the bathroom I felt like I was speeding there, if I raised my hand slowly it felt like it was zipping like a bullet, and everyone and everything happening around me moved extremely fast.  I've had anxiety attacks, I know how they feel, this is not that.

I dont know if this is the same feeling that everyone else is feeling but i used to feel it as a kid almost every night before i fell asleep, maybe a few times in high school, and today i kept feeling it all day (24 now). The sensation i used to get was that i would form my middle and thumb fingers in a certain way as if youre measuring the thickness of something (like a steak) and when my fingers would get to a specific (imaginary) thickness i would get a weird feeling in my head. it also happened if i held something with my fingertips that was that specific thickness, like a book or stack of papers. i am not sure how to describe it really. im not sure if it has to do with trauma but i had a dream last night that i was little again and was getting molested and i started getting the weird thickness feeling all day today after that. not sure if ive supressed anything but its weird that this feeling popped up again when i havent felt it in a long time. sometimes i do get the feeling that everything is far away and very small and im very big and that has always happened to me (actually on monday), but the thickness thing hasnt happened in a while. 

I cannot believe I am reading this.. As a child growing up, I used to suffer very badly of these.. My hands and body used to feel fat and massive.. It was so not good.. I used to dread going to bed as a child..

And guess what happend today, in fact about 5 mins ago, the same darn thing. A fat feeling all over my hands and body.. All I was doing was sitting down watching the soaps..

And I thought I might google that.. And now I am here..

I have no idea what it is.. and no idea why.. it happens.. I have suffered from PTSD in the past (10 years ago) but nothing as a child..

Strange.. very strange..

 

Mental Note for everyone.. If it happens and you do like it.. Get up and walk around.. Grab yourself a nice cool drink of water.. And dont forget to make an appointment to see your GP..

 

Lee

Yes i have had these experiences in dreams: as a child and if i recall as a result of being in a fever. i used to call them thick 'n' thin dreams. A very difficult sensation to accurately describe to someone and i have asked many people before when i was younger and told them that the only way to describe them is as thick things feeing thin and thin things feeling thick. Never know of anyone else to have had this dream sensation except for this one web entry i have found. I think though the sensation is alluded to in the pink floyd song comfortably numb when a lyric says when i was a child i had a fever , my hands felt like two balloons. I am 37 now and havent had the experience in a good thirty years but do remeber it from time to time and it remains strange

I too have the same issue! My sister does and my father said he did too when he was younger and so did his dad. I also get the feeling that things look really far away but kinda close at the same time. Like looking through binoculars backwards. Do you have that too? The main reason I searched this tonight is because I just had a spell. You are the first person outside of my family that said the same thing. I'm sure there are many others but I thunk most think It's weird. I will let you know if I find a name for it....or if you do please let me know too. Thanks! Ted

About the sleeping thing, I believe you are talking about "sleep paralysis". It's when your body releases chemicals to stop you from sleep walking when you are asleep but your mind is still awake. It's common to see and hear things during this but it is all just your mind dreaming while you are awake so there is nothing to be afraid about.

I have this a lot too! I try to explain it to people and they look at me like I'm crazy. My tongue feels huge in my mouth and the tips of my fingers feel heavy, as does my tongue. It only lasts for maybe a couple of minutes every so often. What the heck is it

Another to the list. I have had this feeling as far back as I can remember, though only a few times in the last 5 yrs or so. I'll get a feeling as if my tongue, teeth, neck, head, fingers, everything from about the mid ribs and up just gets very heavy feeling, a weird kind of a numb but wavy feeling(not a pins and needles up and down the body type, but similar), I get a weakness in the body(like after doing something incredibly physically strenuous then your body gets weak). I also would have weird visual hallucinations, like everything would become blurry, wavy and sort of whiting out. Sometimes extreme to the point I wouldn't be able to see enough to walk, other times mild, where it was just a little speck in my vision or something. Often, time seems like it's sluggish, I sort of blank out, forget what I was just talking about, and sometimes have a dissociative moment, where it feels like I'm looking at me from behind my body and not coherently in control of myself as if in a trance or hypnotic state.

It seems to be more common an occurance when laying down(tired or not, just relaxing the spine and muscles) but also happened often when in any relatively still position. There were a couple times I think I might have blacked out from it when I was really young but I'm not sure(memory is a bit fuzzy that far back). There have been times that mild auditory hallucinations were present as well(a slight humming, ringing, hearing voices almost as if from a strong memory of someone talking).

I can't remember about when I was younger, but recently they seem to be tied to very severe chronic migraines I've been having the last several years now. Like today. I have been having horrible migraines all day long, every single day for the last 2 months, save the last few days, they've been minimal. Then, today, I had that familiar thick, sluggish, numbed feeling in my face, mouth, back of head and hands. I figured I'd google it and this is what I found.

My symptoms now seem to be related to Alice In Wonderland Syndrom combined with multiple traumas(spine injuries, concussions, etc). I was fresh and unharmed when I had them as a young child so it's not all related to that.

What i am feeling everything seems heavier and i feel like it us going to go away but i know its not i cant even understand the feeling it is extremely annoying

Its 4 in the morning ,and I am experiencing this once again ,fever,thick and thin,also this happened more frequently as s child followed by faster and slower time,I'm wondering if its Alice in wonderland but this happens mostly with fever.I'm 17 years old.from Serbia