Match-stick and boxing glove hands when I wake-up. What's the condition called?
August 10, 2009 1:16 PM Subscribe
As I'm waking up sometimes my hands feel as if they're as small as match-heads, compared to my head. Other times it's the inverse -- my hands feel as if they're as large as boxing gloves. The feeling usually goes as soon as I open my eyes. What's this condition called?
I don't know what it is either, but I got it a lot as a kid (usually the big hands -- like catcher's mitts) and I still get it occasionally, usually when trying to fall asleep. Favoriting because I didn't even know I was interested in knowing if there's some rational explanation until I saw your question. I always thought I was just weird.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:45 PM on August 10, 2009
posted by rabbitrabbit at 1:45 PM on August 10, 2009
This is probably not the same thing, but I used to wake up with throbbing hands, which kind of made them feel extra large. It was due to blood pressure. After getting meds for it, it stopped.
posted by lazydog at 1:57 PM on August 10, 2009
posted by lazydog at 1:57 PM on August 10, 2009
I came in here looking for the name for that feeling of lost limbs, like when you wake up and have no idea where your left arm is... until you move it, anyway, and then you "find" it.
I used to milk this, to see how many minutes I could go without being able to figure it out before finally moving.
posted by rokusan at 2:00 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
I used to milk this, to see how many minutes I could go without being able to figure it out before finally moving.
posted by rokusan at 2:00 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
This article could be of interest to you... outlines a method of home therapy using mirrors, and talks about limbs that feel too large as well phantom limbs.
“I was raking leaves out in the yard and, all of a sudden, there was an explosion of pain and my left arm wasn’t responding to my brain,” H. said when I visited him at home. Once the swelling subsided, a neurosurgeon performed a tricky operation to remove the tumor from the spinal cord. The operation was successful, but afterward H. began experiencing a constellation of strange sensations. His left hand felt cartoonishly large—at least twice its actual size. He developed a constant burning pain along an inch-wide ribbon extending from the left side of his neck all the way down his arm. And an itch crept up and down along the same band, which no amount of scratching would relieve.
...
The account of perception that’s starting to emerge is what we might call the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception: perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. The mind integrates scattered, weak, rudimentary signals from a variety of sensory channels, information from past experiences, and hard-wired processes, and produces a sensory experience full of brain-provided color, sound, texture, and meaning. We see a friendly yellow Labrador bounding behind a picket fence not because that is the transmission we receive but because this is the perception our weaver-brain assembles as its best hypothesis of what is out there from the slivers of information we get. Perception is inference.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande
posted by xammerboy at 2:15 PM on August 10, 2009
“I was raking leaves out in the yard and, all of a sudden, there was an explosion of pain and my left arm wasn’t responding to my brain,” H. said when I visited him at home. Once the swelling subsided, a neurosurgeon performed a tricky operation to remove the tumor from the spinal cord. The operation was successful, but afterward H. began experiencing a constellation of strange sensations. His left hand felt cartoonishly large—at least twice its actual size. He developed a constant burning pain along an inch-wide ribbon extending from the left side of his neck all the way down his arm. And an itch crept up and down along the same band, which no amount of scratching would relieve.
...
The account of perception that’s starting to emerge is what we might call the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception: perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. The mind integrates scattered, weak, rudimentary signals from a variety of sensory channels, information from past experiences, and hard-wired processes, and produces a sensory experience full of brain-provided color, sound, texture, and meaning. We see a friendly yellow Labrador bounding behind a picket fence not because that is the transmission we receive but because this is the perception our weaver-brain assembles as its best hypothesis of what is out there from the slivers of information we get. Perception is inference.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande
posted by xammerboy at 2:15 PM on August 10, 2009
I was just talking about 'the infinitely big and the infinitely small sensation' with my son. Both he and my daughter experienced this feeling. This wasn't a body part but a concept that I felt. It was agonizing to feel them both at the time. Anyhow, my son commented that this sensation could be a true picture of the world.
posted by JohnR at 2:18 PM on August 10, 2009
posted by JohnR at 2:18 PM on August 10, 2009
I had this as a child. And thinking about it I can come up with the actual sensation again. And here I was feeling like I was the only one.....
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 3:04 PM on August 10, 2009
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 3:04 PM on August 10, 2009
(My pet theory about this is it is a longterm long lost memory of childbirth-as in actually experiencing it from the point of view of the baby. The small feeling feels small and restricted while the large feeling feels like the restrictions are totally taken away....or at least that's how I have thought of it.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 3:07 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 3:07 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
I had similar experiences as a child one time when I had a high fever, and occasionally for some years afterward, including boulders rolling down the hallway towards me, which I'd forgotten about. I also had a vivid hallucination of a yellow TV screen with black dot in the middle with little black trails crawling out from the dot -- I suspect this may have been related to the pattern of blood vessels in my retina.
posted by The Tensor at 3:09 PM on August 10, 2009
My hands felt just like two balloons.
I had similar experiences as a child one time when I had a high fever, and occasionally for some years afterward, including boulders rolling down the hallway towards me, which I'd forgotten about. I also had a vivid hallucination of a yellow TV screen with black dot in the middle with little black trails crawling out from the dot -- I suspect this may have been related to the pattern of blood vessels in my retina.
posted by The Tensor at 3:09 PM on August 10, 2009
I have TOTALLY had this and sublimated it because it was just too creepy to think about and now xammerboy associates it with the "and all the way into her brain" article?!!
Noooo!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by Space Kitty at 3:33 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Noooo!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by Space Kitty at 3:33 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Wow. I haven't given this a thought in many years, but I think I've experienced something really similar. I think I tried to ask an adult about it when I was a kid and got little more than a shrug in response.
For me, it felt as though my body was as thin and scrunchy as a stick-man made out of bread ties--while simultaneously feeling like the stay-puffed marshmallow man. It seems like I had this sensation pretty regularly when I was a kid.
-
posted by General Tonic at 3:48 PM on August 10, 2009
For me, it felt as though my body was as thin and scrunchy as a stick-man made out of bread ties--while simultaneously feeling like the stay-puffed marshmallow man. It seems like I had this sensation pretty regularly when I was a kid.
-
posted by General Tonic at 3:48 PM on August 10, 2009
Here's an abstract about this very phenomenon. (Apologies for my multiple posts; I got interested and looked into it further.)
posted by Wordwoman at 5:04 PM on August 10, 2009
posted by Wordwoman at 5:04 PM on August 10, 2009
I felt something like this as a kid when I was feverish- "something" getting impossibly tiny and then smotheringly huge, again and again, growing and shrinking. It wasn't my hands or my head, it was just images of giant roaring destructive things and teeny delicate hopeful things, back and forth. It was kind of scary. Friends have agreed that they had dreams/hallucinations like this, too, when they were feverish children. Here's a forum I found where other users discuss the phenomenon.
I love St. Alia's theory above.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 5:21 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
I love St. Alia's theory above.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 5:21 PM on August 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Hypnogogic refers to hallucinations that occur while falling asleep, while hypnopompic refers to those that occur while waking up (though the former term is sometimes generalized to both).
I get them waking up a few times a year, but they're strictly visual. The hallucinations appear over my normal vision, and last about 5-10 seconds before fading. The form they take varies, but it's often something like veins or threads that appear/fade with a regular rhythm (~0.5Hz).
My personal theory is that the rhythm represents a kind of visual artifact of delta brain waves from slow-wave sleep. That wouldn't explain proprioceptual hallucinations, however.
posted by dephlogisticated at 6:48 PM on August 10, 2009
I get them waking up a few times a year, but they're strictly visual. The hallucinations appear over my normal vision, and last about 5-10 seconds before fading. The form they take varies, but it's often something like veins or threads that appear/fade with a regular rhythm (~0.5Hz).
My personal theory is that the rhythm represents a kind of visual artifact of delta brain waves from slow-wave sleep. That wouldn't explain proprioceptual hallucinations, however.
posted by dephlogisticated at 6:48 PM on August 10, 2009
Ha. That's an odd feeling I've got right now: pseudostrabismus, you just described - to a tee - something that I had only experienced in such private and quiet circumstances, just before sleep, that I have hardly recalled the experience in my fully waking life. Let alone discussed it with anyone.
As discussed in interviews with him, cartoonist Jim Woodring had these experiences as actual, full, high-potency, highly aggressive hallucinations. "Giant things like pork-chops spinning in the sky", he saw. I had to email him and ask; He replied: "Yes, the pork chops spun too fast."
posted by krilli at 3:42 PM on September 2, 2009
As discussed in interviews with him, cartoonist Jim Woodring had these experiences as actual, full, high-potency, highly aggressive hallucinations. "Giant things like pork-chops spinning in the sky", he saw. I had to email him and ask; He replied: "Yes, the pork chops spun too fast."
posted by krilli at 3:42 PM on September 2, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by ViolaGrinder at 1:40 PM on August 10, 2009