Hundreds Of Little Men 'Attacked' 63-Year-Old For Six Months In Rare Neuro Disorder

A 63-year-old man, suffering from the rare Alice In Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS), has been cured after a harrowing six months, characterized by hallucinations.

Doctors said the neurological condition left the man, hailing from the Indian city of Pune, with bouts of hallucinations of being attacked by hundreds of little men, no bigger than the size of his fingers, reports Hindustan Times.

The man, whose identity has not been revealed, first began experiencing the symptoms six months ago. Though his family initially ignored his hallucinations, he began experiencing them frequently, following which he sought medical treatment.

He would reportedly get at least two episodes a day lasting five minutes each, following which he underwent a psychiatric evaluation. "Around 200 people used to attack me. They were very small in size. My family members say that I then used to shout at them loudly," he told Hindustan Times.

He was then diagnosed with AIWS, a syndrome that causes temporary episodes of distorted perception and disorientation. This causes the patient to feel larger or smaller than they actually are.

The syndrome was first identified in the 1950s by Dr. John Todd, a British psychiatrist, who noted that the symptoms resembled episodes that the character Alice Liddell experienced in Lewis Carroll’s novel "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland."

According to Dr. Dharmendra Kendre, a neuropsychiatrist who treated the patient, the case is rare with one in one million.

"This can happen because of the intake of certain drugs like cocaine and cannabis. Metabolic or electrolyte imbalance can also cause this hallucination. We can also see such cases in people with temporal lobe brain tumors, dementia, and schizophrenia. Treatment is offered according to the cause behind the hallucination," he told the news outlet.

Dr. Kendre believes post-traumatic stress might have caused the syndrome in this patient's case. "He has been taking treatment for the last three months. We have prescribed him antipsychotic medicines and counseling sessions. In the case of senior citizens, even post-traumatic stress or prolonged sleeplessness can cause Lilliputian hallucination," the doctor said, Times Now reported.

The man has now fully recovered after several months of medication and counseling. "Now, I can sleep peacefully, and I do not get any thoughts that I am being attacked," he said to Hindustan Times.