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Editorial
. 2024 Sep:158:109909.
doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2024.109909. Epub 2024 Jul 13.

Lewis Carroll's personality and the possibility of epilepsy

Ronen Spierer  1
Affiliations
Editorial

Lewis Carroll's personality and the possibility of epilepsy

Ronen Spierer. Epilepsy Behav. 2024 Sep.

Abstract

Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland describes Alice's fantastical experiences so similarly to the actual phenomenology of the eponymous syndrome, that it has been previously suggested that Carroll himself experienced it. The syndrome is mostly associated with migrainous aura, and naturally, Carroll was postmortemly "diagnosed" as a migraineur. However, when considering his unique personality profile, it appears that he might have had temporal lobe epilepsy.

Keywords: Alice in Wonderland syndrome; Epilepsy; History of medicine; Hypergraphia; Lewis Carroll.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.