Pickrell has also noticed that the symptoms of AWS and AWLS tend to occur at night (as it happened to me, without fail). He suspects that the syndrome may be triggered by a combination of changes in sensory input—like the ebbing of noise and light at nightfall—and the chemical changes that occur in the brain as we near sleep. For example, we depend on sight and sometimes touch to determine the size or distance of an object, Pickrell explains, meaning that if sensory input is disrupted, our perception of that object changes. “So, if you close your eyes and your arm feels small, and then you open your eyes, you get more input, and that tells you your arm is really bigger.”
Some people Pickrell has talked with say they can control their symptoms by opening or closing their eyes—which is exactly what I did when I grew tired of the distortions. Other times, I enjoyed the sensations, and could prolong them simply by staying still.
Both Pickrell and Liu say some of their patients were reluctant to tell anyone about the symptoms because they were afraid people “would think they were nuts,” Pickrell says. And some, when they did mention the syndrome to their families, found that one or both parents had also had AWS or AWLS.
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