Lilliputian Hallucinations

Abstract

Many French psychiatrists have described a particular variety of visual hallucination to which M. Leroy has given the name “Lilliputian.“ They are found in many types of insanity and also have been known to occur in normal people. Their character does not vary in that the patient sees everything in miniature. Little men, little horses indeed little animals of all kinds, sometimes not any larger than one's finger, disport themselves under his gaze, all relatively proportioned, perfectly made little people who seem to him to belong to a world of their own, and to have stepped out of it into this big one of ours. There is a condition known as micropsia, in which the patient sees objects around him several sizes smaller than they are in reality, but this must not be confused—as easily it might—with true Lilliputian hallucinations. It might be put into the category of illusion, for there is a perception of an actual object, seen very much reduced in size, like the reflection in a convex mirror.