When the world looks like a real-life Wonderland Posted on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 5:46 PM PT By Jasmin Aline Persch, contributing writer

Like Alice down the rabbit hole, 6-year-old Olivia Watts sometimes sees the world through a distorted lens. Real people look as if they have magnified, telescoped heads or bodies. Sometimes it sounds like the TV’s volume was suddenly turned up. When she has these experiences — sometimes even at school — the kindergartener from Pipersville, Pa., looks as if she’s waking from a nightmare, says her mother Danielle Watts.

Diagnosed with a neurological condition known as Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, Olivia usually keeps her dreamlike visions to herself. She first complained of people and objects getting bigger last year. Her symptoms occur in spurts lasting from seconds to 15 minutes and persist for up to two weeks, and then, they can vanish for months just as mysteriously as they occurred. These occurrences are “mini migraines exploding in [her] brain,” a neurologist explained to Olivia’s mother, who suffers from standard migraines herself.

A rare form of migraine, Alice in Wonderland Syndrome causes people to see their own bodies or those of others or everyday objects askew. It typically occurs without a headache, but is usually associated with personal or family history of standard migraines