Alice in Wonderland Shifting Method: A Step by Step Guide

The Alice in Wonderland shifting method is a sleep method built on a story you already know. You picture yourself resting against a tree, follow someone from your desired reality (DR) down a rabbit hole and fall slowly to a small room with a key and a locked door. Then you lie down on your DR bed and let yourself fall asleep, which shifters believe carries you into your DR.

Spend a minute on our honest page about whether reality shifting is dangerous before you begin, since it sorts the feelings you can shrug off from the ones to take seriously. Alice is also only one of the main shifting methods. If the terms DR and CR (your current reality) are unfamiliar, our page on what reality shifting is has the plain definitions.

What Is the Alice in Wonderland Method of Reality Shifting?

It is a daydream with a plot. Every scene comes from a children’s classic, so you never have to wonder what happens next. You play Alice, someone from your DR plays the White Rabbit, and the little door at the bottom opens onto your DR instead of a garden.

According to Wikipedia’s article on reality shifting, shifting became a social media trend in mid-2020. The Alice method was one of the routines passed around in that wave, and it caught on quickly.

Researchers noticed it too. In their study of shifting in the journal Current Psychology, Eli Somer and his colleagues summed it up: you lie on your back and imagine sitting against a tree until someone from your DR runs past, then chase them down the rabbit hole to a key.

It is usually done as one of the sleep shifting methods, because the last scene has you fall asleep in your DR bed and your real bed at once. The long, slow fall keeps your mind busy right through the drowsy edge of sleep, the same state that newer methods such as SATS (the state akin to sleep) are built around. But you can also stop at the door and open your eyes (see the awake ending below).

○ How the Steps Follow Alice’s Story

Almost every step comes from the first chapter of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a book Britannica dates to 1865. Put side by side, the method is easy to remember, because you already know the order.

In the book	In the method
Alice sits on a bank, sleepy in the heat	You rest against a tree, calm and drowsy
A White Rabbit runs close by	Someone from your DR runs past
She follows it down a rabbit hole	You chase them and jump in
She falls slowly past shelves and maps	You fall slowly, saying affirmations
A glass table holds “a tiny golden key”	A table in a small room holds your key
A little door opens onto a lovely garden	The door opens onto your DR

The tree is the one piece the book does not have, since Carroll’s Alice sits on a bank beside her sister. Our guess is that shifters borrowed it from the Disney film, which Britannica dates to 1951.

Either way, the method keeps the best idea in the book: a long, gentle fall that gives your mind time to let go.

How to Prepare for the Alice in Wonderland Method

You need very little for this method. A bed, a quiet room and a rough picture of your DR are enough, plus two small decisions before you lie down.

○ Your Guide, Your DR Bedroom and a Safe Word

First, decide who your guide is. It can be a friend, a partner, a sibling or even a pet from your DR, because all the method needs is someone you would happily follow. Then picture your DR bedroom, since it is the last scene and you will lie down in it.

Add a safe word to your script, too. Somer’s team found that a safe word, one that can bring you quickly back to your CR, is among the things shifters often write into their scripts. Choose a word that would never slip out by chance, like marmalade (Alice passes a jar of it on her way down).

Our shifting script template has space for your guide, your bedroom and your safe word. For more on using that word, read how to come back from shifting.

○ Getting Comfortable

Try it at your usual bedtime, when you already feel a little tired. Lie down, breathe slowly and let your body go heavy.

Most versions put you on your back. Some shifters lie like a starfish instead, limbs spread so that nothing touches, because they say it keeps them awake a little longer. Any position you can relax in is fine (no version explains why the back matters).

You do not need meditation music or subliminals first, though some people enjoy them. One exception: anyone who gets sleep paralysis is better off on their side (the safety section below says why).

Step-by-Step Guide to the Alice in Wonderland Shifting Method

Go slowly. The fall is the heart of this method, so give it more time than any other step.

1. Lie down and breathe. Settle into your position, close your eyes and take slow, deep breaths until your body feels heavy.
2. Picture yourself resting against a tree. Make it a warm afternoon. Feel the bark behind you and the grass under your hands, and notice the breeze, the bright flowers and the birds calling overhead.
3. Watch your guide run past. Someone from your DR appears near the tree, catches your eye and runs off. Get up and follow.
4. Follow without hurrying. This is not a race. Keep them in sight across the grass and let the chase feel playful.
5. Jump into the rabbit hole. Your guide dives into a hole under a hedge. Jump in after them when you feel ready, and not before.
6. Fall slowly. Drift down the way Alice does, repeating your affirmations as you go. Let your CR float up and away above you.
7. Land in a small room. It is quiet, with a little table, a key lying on it and a locked door. Your guide is already there.
8. Answer the question. Your guide takes your hand and asks, Are you ready to go? Say yes only when you mean it, and if you are not ready, rest and affirm until you are.
9. Open the door. Turn the key in the lock and step through. Some shifters picture a few people from their DR waiting to welcome them before their guide leads them on to their DR bedroom.
10. Lie down on your DR bed. Look around the room, then lie down exactly as your real body is lying. Let sleep come in both beds at once.

Many shifters write into their script that their eyes will open by themselves once they arrive, so there is nothing to check or worry about. If you wake up in your usual room instead, you are in very good company (more on that below).

○ Affirmations for the Rabbit Hole

Say these slowly in your head as you fall, or while you wait at the locked door. Keep the ones that feel true and drop the rest.

• I am falling gently toward my DR.
• I am moving into my desired reality.
• This is the life I have always wanted, and I am almost there.
• This is my true self, and I love it. Thank you.
• My CR is drifting away, and my DR is getting closer.
• When I open the door, I am home.
• I am safe, and I can come back whenever I choose.

If none of them fit, our page of powerful shifting affirmations has plenty more to borrow.

○ An Example Night

Say your DR is a summer at a lakeside camp, and your guide is Biscuit, the golden retriever who sleeps in your cabin. You lie on your back at bedtime, picture an old oak at the edge of a meadow and feel warm grass under your palms. Biscuit bounds past with a tennis ball, looks back once and bolts.

You trot after him to a hole under the hedge, and when he dives in, you follow. As you sink through the dim, soft dark, you repeat I am falling gently toward my DR, and the walls fill with flashes of the lake, a red canoe and a campfire.

At the bottom, Biscuit sits beside a little table with a brass key on it. You tell him yes, turn the key, and he pads ahead to a cabin bunk with a patchwork quilt, where you lie down on your back and let sleep come.

(Plenty of nights end with you waking up in your own bed, maybe with a lovely dream of the lake.)

○ Ending Awake Instead

Not everyone wants to fall asleep. If that is you, stop once you step through the door and open your eyes, expecting your DR around you, instead of lying down. The awake shifting methods page writes out this shorter, eyes-open version step by step.

What the Alice Method Can Feel Like

Shifters describe heaviness, tingling, floating or a soft swaying as they fall, and some see bright shapes or faces as sleep gets close. Our guide to reality shifting symptoms explains how shifters interpret them.

Plenty of people feel the same things on a normal night with no method at all. Cleveland Clinic explains that hypnagogic hallucinations, brief images or sensations as you fall asleep, are common and usually not a cause for concern, and they can include feelings of weightlessness, flying or falling. Enjoy them, but they do not prove anything on their own.

The same goes for a sudden jolt halfway down. The Sleep Foundation describes these hypnic jerks as twitches that often feel like a jolt or a falling sensation, and calls them common and generally harmless. If they keep waking you, our Falling method guide has ideas for softening the drop.

Other Ways Shifters Tell the Story

Because the Alice method has been shared by so many people, guides differ in small ways. None of them is the one right version, so take whatever helps you.

• A pet or an animal as the guide. Some shifters follow a DR pet, or even a white rabbit, instead of a person.
• Pictures on the walls. As you fall, the walls show photos and moments from your DR, much like the shelves and maps Alice passes.
• Choosing at the hole. In some guides the “are you ready?” moment comes at the edge of the hole, and if you are not ready, you simply open your eyes and go about your day.
• Letting go as you fall. Some shifters picture small things from their CR floating past, and let each one go.
• Lying down into your DR self. In one version your DR self is already asleep on the bed in your starting position, and you lie down into them.
• A guided audio. If you would rather be talked through it, guided Alice meditations by creators such as Rayven’s Nest Meditations and Alunir Meditations are on YouTube.
• Any DR you like. The rabbit hole can lead anywhere, and our guide on how to shift to Hogwarts has a Hogwarts take on the chase.

If you love the key and the little door, you might also like the Coraline shifting method, which uses a key, a small door in your bedroom wall and a tunnel to reach your DR.

Common Problems With the Alice Method

Most questions about this method come down to one of four worries. Each one has a simple answer.

○ What If I Fall Asleep Before the Rabbit Hole?

Then the method did its job.

It is a sleep method, and drifting off with your DR on your mind is the point, even if you never reached the door. Shifters on Reddit often remind each other that a sleep method still counts even if you drift off halfway.

If you would still like to get further, begin a little sooner, while you are drowsy rather than worn out, or try the starfish position. You can also skip the meadow and begin at the edge of the hole.

○ What If I Cannot Picture the Tree?

You do not need sharp pictures. Feel the bark against your back, hear the leaves, or simply tell yourself the story in words, one scene at a time.

If you rarely see pictures in your mind at all, look at our shifting methods without visualization. Those are built on words, sounds and feelings instead.

○ Why Did I Feel Myself Shrink or Grow?

Some shifters say that, deep in relaxation, they feel huge, tiny, very far away or zoomed in close. Cleveland Clinic lists bodily distortions among the sensations that can come as you fall asleep, so in a drowsy state this is usually nothing to worry about.

Wide awake is a different matter.

Cleveland Clinic describes Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS) as a rare, brain-related condition that makes things look or feel larger or smaller than they really are. According to Cleveland Clinic, an English psychiatrist, John Todd, named it in 1955 after the very book this method borrows from.

Cleveland Clinic advises immediate medical care for anyone who has never had these symptoms before, because AIWS can be a sign of a serious condition. It says to get emergency care straight away if they come with signs of a stroke, and immediate care if they come with a fever, confusion, trouble speaking or moving, or a seizure.

So if the size changes happen when you are fully awake, come with a headache or fever, or are new to you, tell your parents or a trusted adult and get checked by a doctor, rather than treating them as a shifting sign.

○ What If Nothing Happened?

Lots of shifters report exactly that.

In their study, Somer and his colleagues found numerous posts in shifting communities from people who had tried the methods without success. A quiet night says nothing bad about you.

Keep your normal bedtime and give it a few relaxed nights. After that, try swapping a single piece, such as a shorter story, a new guide or a different method, and see our page on why you may not be shifting for more ideas.

Does the Alice in Wonderland Method Work?

Nobody has shown that anyone leaves this reality through a rabbit hole. Wikipedia’s reality shifting article says that, scientifically, consciousness cannot be shifted to an alternate reality, which is why shifting is generally treated as a personal experience.

But there is an honest reason the method can feel so good. In a study of people with insomnia in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy, those told to keep their minds busy with imagery at bedtime fell asleep sooner than those given no instructions. The researchers thought the imagery took up enough “cognitive space” to keep worries out.

A slow chase, a soft fall and a quiet room is exactly that kind of imagery. To us, the Alice method is a sweet way to drift off with your DR in your thoughts, while many shifters believe it opens the door itself.

So treat it as a bedtime story first. If the story is the only thing that happens, you still got a calm night’s sleep out of it.

Staying Safe on the Way Down

For most people, this method is simply a calm way to drift off. There is nothing to swallow, no breath to hold and nothing to buy, but a few habits are still worth keeping.

• Keep your full night. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, teenagers aged 13 to 18 should regularly get 8 to 10 hours of sleep per 24 hours. Fit the method into your normal bedtime rather than staying up late or waking yourself with alarms for another go.
• Know about sleep paralysis. The NHS explains it as not being able to move or speak while you are waking up or falling asleep. It can be scary, the NHS says, but it is harmless. Lying on your back can make it more likely, the NHS adds, so if it has ever happened to you, do the Alice method on your side.
• Get help if it keeps coming back. If episodes come often and leave you afraid of going to bed or tired through the day, the NHS recommends a visit to a GP (a family doctor).
• Take awake size changes seriously. Feeling yourself shrink or grow while fully awake needs a doctor’s eye, as explained above, and is not a shifting sign.
• Watch how your days feel. Feeling unreal or detached from your body, mixing up what is real and what is imagined, or letting shifting eat into your sleep, schoolwork or meals are all signs to put the method down for now. Talk it over with a parent, a teacher you trust or a professional. Cleveland Clinic notes that hallucinations while you are wide awake can be a sign of a mental health or neurological condition.

For more, including where to turn for help in a hard moment, read our shifting safety guide.

The rabbit hole is not going anywhere, so take it one gentle night at a time. Happy shifting!

Frequently Asked Questions