Migraines And Migraine Art Drawn By Patients

By Sarah Chapman

Those of you that have experienced real migraines know that the terrible side effects can make normal functioning in daily life hard, if not impossible to deal with.

Classic migraines start with a warning sign called an aura. The aura often changes the way you see things. You may see flashing lights, or temporarily lose some of your vision, such as your side vision.

This is what an aura is like to one migraine sufferer.

You may also feel muscle weakness on one side of your body. You may have trouble talking or feel depressed and irritable. You could feel restless.

Auras last about 15 to 30 minutes and may occur after, before or even overlap the pain of a migraine itself. The head pain of a migraine may occur on one side of the head or both sides.

Common migraines don't start with an aura. They last longer and interfere with daily activities more than classic migraines. Usually, these are on one side of the head. The pain can last from 4 to 72 hours.

A person having a migraine may have trouble eating normal foods they usually like or keeping food down during an attack. Light and sound bother them. If you want to know more Migraine Action is a good place to start and get help if you need it.

Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice In Wonderland had classic migraines. He also had a syndrome named after him because he suffered from a very rare type of migraine aura called Alice In Wonderland Syndrome.

Now doctors are finding out that by looking at drawings done by patients having classic migraines they can learn a lot about these terrible headaches and get an insight into what migraines might be like to each patient. These stunning pictures are from different artists who experience migraines.

 

Classic migraine art takes place during the aura which changes the way a patient see's and feels things. Doctors are continuing to study this type of art to better understand migraines and how patients feel when they have one. This way new and better migraine medicines are being made to relieve the side effects of auras and migraines.

Only 1% of us escape headaches altogether. 16 to 17% of people get a migraine headache sometime in their lives. There are over 20 million migraine attacks happening every day. Some migraines are mistaken for sinus headaches. (These numbers change each year.) 

People with migraines will look at these pictures with recognition, as they know how they suffer. I hope migraine patients get some relief from these studies that are being done. New therapies are being discovered every day.

I find the art troubling yet it's beautiful too. One can pick out similar threads that each patient feels in the artwork.

I am lucky to be in the small percentage of people who don't have headaches often and I've never had a migraine that I know of. When I do have one it makes me miserable. Mine are usually from my sinuses.

The holidays are here and there's no escaping them so I hope no one is having headaches of any kind right now! Enjoy your Friday!

One more example of aura's from a patient's point of view.

Tenniel's Drawing Of Alice Was Not Correct

When Lewis Carroll had John Tenniel draw Alice for him he had a model and girl in mind. Alice Liddell was a neighbor girl who Carroll had photographed before. He was quite taken with her and based his heroine's name on her, starting his book with her name.

When he first saw the drawings that Tenniel had done he was mortified that it didn’t look at all like Liddell and he had drawn her body totally out of proportion. The artwork stayed in the book and became a part of history, even though Carroll proclaimed his dislike for it publicly.

Alice Pleasance Liddell was born May 4th, 1852 in Westminster, London.

Tenniel's pictures of Alice are not pictures of Alice Liddell, who had dark hair cut short with straight bangs across her forehead. Carroll sent Tenniel a photograph of Mary Hilton Badcock, another child-friend, recommending that he use her for a model, but whether Tenniel accepted this advice is a matter of dispute. That he did not is strongly suggested by these lines from a letter Carroll wrote some time after both Alice books had been published. The letter is quoted by Mrs. Lennon in her book on Carroll;

"Mr. Tenniel is the only artist who has drawn for me, who has resolutely refused to use a model, and declared he no more needed one than I should need a multiplication table to work a mathematical problem! I venture to think that he was mistaken and that for want of a model he drew several pictures of "Alice" entirely out of proportion-head decidedly too large and feet decidedly too small."

In "Alice On Stage," an article cited in the first note on the prefatory poem, Carroll gave the following description of his heroine's personality:

What art thou, dream-Alice, in thy foster-father's eye? How shall he picture thee? Loving, first, loving and gentle: loving as a dog (forgive the prosaic simile, but I know no earthly love so pure and perfect), and gentle as a fawn: then courteous-courteous to all high or low, grand or grotesque, King or Caterpillar, even as though she were herself a King's daughter and her clothing of wrought gold: then trustful, ready to accept the wildest impossibilities with all that utter trust that only dreamers know; and lastly, curious-wildly curious, and with the eager enjoyment of Life that comes only in the happy hours of childhood when all is new and fair, and when Sin and Sorrow are but names-empty words signifying nothing!

Hearing Carroll describes his creation, "Alice" in his own words is such a treat!

Although many people think Carroll a pedophile that couldn’t keep away from 7-year-old girls there is no proof that he ever took advantage of Liddell or any other young girl. He was a photographer, writer and a true artist that based his fiction on fact like many others before him and had a great interest in children and childhood.

Through the many years since his writings "Alice" has held the imaginations and fantasies of more people than even he could ever have imagined. Through fan art, movies, books and video games "Alice" has had many personalities and faces and will continue to be with us forever.

Lewis Carroll has taught me that everyone has their own Wonderland that resides in each and every one of us in our imaginations.

 Keep On Bloggin'!

Will The Real Alice Please Stand Up?

Lewis Carroll had many talents besides his famous books. He was a mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon, poem writer, a good artist and photographer. Lewis Carroll is the pseudonym of Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. 

Before Lewis Carroll wrote his books about Alice In Wonderland he already had a girl in mind for his character. She was actually a neighborhood girl he was infatuated with and her name was Alice Liddell.

Alice Liddell was not at all like the “Alice” we now are used to seeing with golden locks of hair brushed back from her blue eyed face. When Carroll thought of his Alice he pictured Alice Liddell. And his book was to start with her name.

Even thought Carroll was an artist and did his own drawings for the very first book that he presented to Alice Liddell, when he finished his book to be published he had John Tenniel do the artwork for it.

John Tenniel was a cartoonist and his work was satirical, often radical for doing a book like Carroll’s but he did the drawings for Carroll’s works nonetheless and Carroll was not happy with the results.

Tenniel's pictures of Alice were not pictures of Alice Liddell, who had dark hair cut short with straight bangs across her forehead. Carroll sent Tenniel a photograph of Mary Hilton Babcock, another child-friend, recommending that he use her for a model, but whether Tenniel accepted this advice is a matter of dispute. That he did not is strongly suggested by these lines from a letter Carroll wrote some time after both Alice books had been published. The letter is quoted by Mrs. Lennon in her book on Carroll;

"Mr. Tenniel is the only artist who has drawn for me, who has resolutely refused to use a model, and declared he no more needed one than I should need a multiplication table to work a mathematical problem! I venture to think that he was mistaken and that for want of a model he drew several pictures of "Alice" entirely out of proportion-head decidedly too large and feet decidedly too small."

From The Life Of Lewis Carroll by Florence Becker Lennon

The symbol at the lower right corner, which you see on all of Tenniel's drawings, is a monogram of his initials, J.T.

I must say that I can see what Carroll means about Tenniel’s drawings. It does look like a “caricature” of Alice although I rather liked the strange drawings from the books. When I first read Alice In Wonderland I had no idea that a “real” Alice existed nor that Carroll didn’t like the art in the book.

The comparison with the fictional Alice has been a very controversial one. There are at least three direct links to Liddell in the first two books. First, he set them on May 4th, (Liddell's birthday) and November 4th, (her "half-birthday") and in Through the Looking-Glass the fictional Alice declares that her age is "seven and a half exactly", the same as Liddell on that date. Second, he dedicated them "to Alice Pleasance Liddell". Third, there is an acrostic poem at the end of Through the Looking-Glass. Reading downward, taking the first letter of each line; spells out Liddell's full name. The poem has no title in Through the Looking-Glass, but is usually referred to by its first line, "A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky".

A Boat Beneath A Sunny Sky

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily In an evening of July--
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear--
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantom wise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream--
Lingering in the golden gleam--
Life, what is it but a dream?

In "Alice On Stage," an article cited in the first note on the prefatory poem, Carroll gave the following description of his heroine's personality:

What art thou, dream-Alice, in thy foster-father's eye? How shall he picture thee? Loving, first, loving and gentle: loving as a dog (forgive the prosaic simile, but I know no earthly love so pure and perfect), and gentle as a fawn: then courteous-courteous to all high or low, grand or grotesque, King or Caterpillar, even as though she were herself a King's daughter and her clothing of wrought gold: then trustful, ready to accept the wildest impossibilities with all that utter trust that only dreamers know; and lastly, curious-wildly curious, and with the eager enjoyment of Life that comes only in the happy hours of childhood when all is new and fair, and when Sin and Sorrow are but names-empty words signifying nothing!

Hearing Carroll describe his creation, "Alice" in his own words is such a treat! Through the many years since his writings have been out "Alice" has held the imaginations and fantasies of more people than even he could ever have imagined. Through fan art "Alice" has had many personalities and faces and will continue to be with us forever.

Keep On Bloggin'!