The first character that the brothers Walter and Roy Disney worked with was in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Alice in Wonderland . But it was not in a film about her, which would come in 1951, but in a series of shorts where animation and real action were mixed called Comedies de Alicia .
I am not going to relate what Alicia is like or her adventures, which are well known, but about the syndrome that bears her name. Micropsia is also known as Alice in Wonderland syndrome and it is thought that Lewis Carroll, its author, suffered from it and that it was his own disorder that inspired him to write this work.
People affected by micropsia see their body image altered , with body parts of the wrong size, the head and hands looking disproportionate. They also perceive the size of other objects incorrectly . They lose the sense of time, since it can pass for them slowly or too quickly. Some even experience strong hallucinations.
The causes that cause this syndrome are several: an abnormal amount of electricity in the body, which causes a change in the blood flow of the brain where the signals sent from the eyes are disturbed; temporal lobe epilepsy, whose seizures cause reactions of euphoria or intense fear and paranoia; headaches, migraines, or brain tumors; or due to the Epstein-Barr virus, the same one that causes mononucleosis.
Pinocchio the mythomaniac
After The Alice Comedies, Disney Studios jumped into the animated feature film market. And after the success of Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs, they brought Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio to the big screen in 1940.
The endearing wooden doll that came to life thanks to the Blue Fairy, and whose nose grew and grew as he told a lie, is the figure that gives its name to another syndrome, related to pathological lying or mythomania . Mythomaniacs are considered those people who surround their lives with lies to such an extent that they enter a vicious circle from which they can no longer escape. Their lies are spontaneous and unplanned, and once they enter into this dynamic of farce and deceit they cannot stop, often maintaining the same lies for years. The pathological liar knows what he’s doing, but he can’t help it until he finally ends up believing his own fantasies.
Bambi’s syndrome
Apparently anything that includes this cute fawn has to be naturally good. But the reality is that it refers to behavior typical of today’s society that can be highly dangerous. It is said that those who suffer from it have very strong feelings towards animals , wildlife, and an uncontrollable rejection of hunters, arsonists and desecraters of nature. They are city people who idealize wildlife so much that when they finally come into contact with it they seriously risk their lives.
It should be noted that Disney took the liberty of changing Bambi’s species , from a roe deer in Felix Salten’s original story, to a white-tailed deer, as the roe deer does not inhabit North America. As for the roe deer, the zoologist Konrad Lorenz narrates in his book He spoke with the beasts, the fish and the birds , that it is “ one of the cruelest murderers … it is thirsty for blood. Tame roe deer cause more accidents a year than lions and tigers.” But those who suffer from Bambi syndrome are left with the sweet image of the fawn and its little friends in the forest, without thinking that herbivores are more given to gratuitous violence than predators and thus put their lives at risk by not taking the appropriate precautions when mingle with them.
Cinderella syndrome and complex
Poor Cinderella from Charles Perrault’s fairy tale not only leads a miserable life in fiction but is a champion at naming various physical and psychological disorders . Cinderella syndrome may refer, first of all, to the rejection of some children towards their stepmothers in an unjustified manner, even inventing aggression on her part. Other times he tells us about children who feel less loved than their siblings and grow up dreaming that one day they will be the ones to save the family from some trouble and then start to love him as he deserves, receiving the respect and approval that they have always received. denied.
We can also refer to the Cinderella complex to those women who are afraid of becoming independent and who justify themselves by saying that they must take care of their parents. But what really happens to them is that they are afraid of taking control of their own lives and feel an enormous need to be protected. And finally, there are those who call Cinderella syndrome to Cinderella dermatosis , a skin disease where hypermelanosis causes people to develop bluish-gray spots on their body.
Kleine-Levin syndrome
In 1959, Disney’s version of Sleeping Beauty hit the screens, an oral tradition tale with no known author, since the character of the maiden immersed in a supernatural sleep, awakened by the intervention of a lover, has appeared for centuries. in Indian, Greco-Latin, Icelandic, Spanish, and French texts.
Kleine-Levin syndrome, also called sleeping beauty syndrome . It is a rare neurological disease that is characterized by episodes, lasting days or weeks, in which the affected patient presents excessive sleepiness and periods of prolonged sleep of at least 18 hours a day, which is called hypersomnia . Other manifestations include compulsive overeating, disinhibited sexual behavior , impaired mental abilities, disorientation, aggressiveness, and even hallucinations. After attacks, behavior and mental abilities return to normal, although sometimes there is amnesia after the attack and nothing is remembered of what happened. It mainly affects adolescent males and only 20% of patients have stopped having episodes after about six years. Regarding treatment, recent studies point to lithium carbonate as an effective therapeutic tool both in crisis management and in the prevention of new relapses.
