Feeling as if shrinking?

[sea]

:O_o: This is a thing?

I always just thought I was nuts. This happens to me pretty much every time I lie down. I feel like as soon as I am vertical I somehow am shrinking away. When I was a kid I remember I used to shrink so far I would like, fold into myself. It was like I ceased to exist. I remember wondering if that meant I was dead. It's happened my whole life. To the point where will sometimes sleep sitting against a wall corner on the floor because it irritates the living f*ck out of me and freaks me out. I also sometimes get the sensation that I'm a giant. Usually when I'm noticeably triggered. I always assumed that was something separate than this.

 

[Gamereign555]

Does anybody else kind of feel the DP/DR while laying down to sleep in your head, and then you kind of start to feel like you are on a roller coaster as well? It used to happen to me when I would smoke pot and then lay down to fall asleep, I think it would make me anxious or otherwise effect my breathing as well... maybe that is something else or it is just me I don't know. After I quit smoking the pot I stopped experiencing this odd sensation of disorientation , though I still have the DP/DR when I'm feeling real stressed out sometimes.

 

[jimmy-joe]

Like your body is moving, but your real body is still sitting there? I get this feeling where I'm kinda pulling around inside my skin and sometimes move out of it to the side sorta seems like what you are talking about game reign

 

[Gamereign555]

Yes your describing Depersonalization, I have experienced that before. The other problem I just looked it up on the internet is called Rotory Vertigo, only it was only happening when I was trying to sleep, still looking into it. It could also be positional vertigo, not sure because I only ever experienced it when very tired or just about to fall asleep, I experienced it once while nodding off sitting down, it looked like everything was moving up and down kinda fast or something. Kind of like the spins but not the same.

 

[Powder]

My sister and I also get this when we are really tired after a stressful day. I feel that the whole room is getting smaller and further away from me, and I am getting smaller and further away from everything. Yes, I never thought of it as Alice in Wonderland-ish, but it definitely feels like I've had something that said "Drink Me," and changed my physical dimensions of reality. I never used any drugs, so I never blamed it on LSD or anything like that.
In fact, I feel mine is a form of Dissociation. It is like an opiate feeling, and helps me escape the stress of the day. I usually fall right asleep/black out/ right after. It feels like a good disappearing act.

My sister feels the opposite. That everything in the room is getting larger and closing in. Yikes! Hers makes it difficult for her to fall asleep. So I guess it depends on perception and reaction to it.

 

[shell]

I get it a weird sensation when I'm watching anyone on tv being threatened with a knife, or discussions about being stabbed with a knife, my skin crawls, my hearing distorts and my vision distorts where I feel like I'm looking through a tunnel, everything just goes really blurry and hazy, until the tv is no longer visible, it's tiny. I just thought I was going crazy.

 

[jimmy-joe]

It sounds like someone has taken a knife to you, and your mind disconnects from such thing. :D perfectly normal

 

[mawb]

Hopefully this thread can still live! I recently have been gaining interest in this topic. I have had these weird sensations for some time now, though they don't occur often. I never gave it much thought until now. A lot of what I've read on here sounds familiar to what I'm experiencing. I don't believe that I saw someone post about this, but when I start getting these... episodes, it starts with my heart rate increasing. I get this slight feeling of fear or excitement. Then I get an odd sense of rapid movement which seems to be right in front of my eyes. That's when I get the sense of feeling much smaller than my environment, it all occurs while my eyes are closed. It doesn't really happen when I'm about to fall asleep so I am conscious during this. Could it be Disassociation or DP/DR?

 

[Elle Woods]

Hi, I'm happy to find this topic cos I have the same thing happening to me. Recently I have it only when my eyes are closed and I'm lying in bed (once in a few months). For a few sec I'd feel like the room grows to a massive hall and I'm the size of an ant in it.

I thought it was related to the epilepsy that I had as a child. I remember having it once even with my eyes open, when I had a bad flu with a high temperature. I remember lying in bed, staring at the curtain across the room and all of sudden seeing how everything started to grow 20 times bigger. I got scared and said to my mother "Mom everything is big" but she didn't say anything... When I was 6-8 years old and had those "shrinks", I remember also hearing a woman's voice looping a weird word that I didn't understand.

I was 4 years old when I fell on my head an got the epilepsy and I don't remember having those shrinks before that, cos my memories date from my 1 year of age. Those "shrinks" however doesn't really disturb me - as most of you say - they can be even amusing in a way. I'm just concerned that it might be a "leftover" from the epilepsy, that needs treatment.

 

[CLuTcHiT]

Wow, it's so good to know I'm not alone in this. I literally just had an episode of this issue and googled it and found this site. Mine is very similar to what I see on many of your posts. Mine will always start with eyes closed, it will start as if I'm small, the world or feeling as if everything is bigger and far away so far.. It. Almost feels like an out of body experience. Also as I talk in my mind like I'm praying it will almost feel like its echoing back to me, weird right? Like my own thoughts echoing.. This does not happen to me very often but sometimes it will happen while I'm in a dream state and I'll wake up and it will still be happening. Often it helps when I open my eyes and take my hands and rub my legs or something on my body to realize I'm regular size but there have been times I have woken up and it still feels like it's happening even with eyes open. It is the weirdest feeling and it scares me. It does eventually go away after 1 - 4 min but wow it sure is a trip. I have always wondered what this is....

 

[Linebuzzing]

Wow! It's so interesting to read this!
When I was young, I think around 8 I used to get a similar feeling to some of those described above.
It was only when I was in bed with my eyes closed. I would feel like my bed was 3 meters high, then would feel like it was getting sucked back down and become tiny. I would open my eyes and as my eyes focussed everything would become normal again, until I closed my eyes again.
I would also feel like my tongue was huge, bigger than my head, and I would feel (best description I can put in words) was like I was a line, and I would become thicker and thicker, until I opened my eyes and snapped back to being normal again.
I've had it once or twice as an adult, when I've been sick with a fever.
I've had sleep paralysis on many occasions which I get if I'm dehydrated, but this was different.
My sister used to describe something similar happening to her when she was young, and now my 10 year old daughter seemes to have the same thing happen on occasion.
Glad to know it wasn't just me!!

 

[Ella123]

I am so glad that here are more people who are experiencing the same. Shrinking, growing, sound distortion and sleep paralysis have since I remember as a child and now I am over 40 and still have it. My daughter when she was 5 got into our car, when I was picking her up from school and started to look around herself asking "mummy, why is everything shrinking?" Since then she told me just a handful of times (she will be seven soon). She also asks me about 'noise' and where it is coming from, but now I don't hear the same, so I just keep explaining about how noise is being processed in our mind and that it is possible that two people hear the same sound differently and she is fine with this explanation. So it again reminded me myself as a child asking "what is that noise?" and I couldn't find where it is coming from. I was looking for answers to this since I was kid, but that time, there was no internet, so it was difficult to find out and my parents thought that I am just trying to get attention by talking nonsense. Now I think that what I and my daughter are experiencing is Alice In Wonderland Syndrome which doesn't seem to bother her that much and myself, I actually enjoy it :).