great idea, sometimes telling the difference between dissociating and willfully escaping to a safe place is confusing for me too and it was my own treatment provider who helped me to understand the difference.

here is what they told me that helped me to keep the two situations separated in my mind...

Dissociation is something that happens to me - an automatic uncontrollable reaction to a trigger.

Escaping to a safe place is willfully using my imagination, I have full control over what happens when. examples daydreaming / meditating / but still connected to body and mind.

dissociation - I experience something that reminds me of my traumas and suddenly Im feeling numb, spaced out and disconnected from myself. I have no control. it just happens based on triggers. I cant plan for it to happen on purpose and I cant make it happen. its something that happens .....to me. memory issues happen where I dont always know whats going on around me, sort of like that far away, muted sounds of having taken medications but yet no medications involved. my body had muted, slowed, stopped my bodily sensations and emotions. im functioning but more on automatic and when not dissociated cant remember everything that went on.

Escaping to a safe place - I can sit down, close my eyes or not and think about my safe place (a cabin in the woods) and I can control what is going on while I am mentally in this safe place in the woods at my cabin. sometimes its summer, sometimes its winter, sometimes Im collecting leaves other times Im sitting in my chair in front of the fire place. while in my safe place I can still be functioning fully aware of whats going on around me.

by the way I noticed you refer to your feeling as alice in wonderland. there is a physical health problem called alice in wonderland aka todds syndrome. the mental disorder counter part of this is dissociative macropsia. its one of the OSDD disorders labeling for when someone is in dissociation they have dissociation (an automatic uncontrollable response to a trigger) where they are suddenly numb, spaced out, disconnected from their body and mentally perceive things around them as being larger than they usually are. in dissociative macropsia its not like a safe place where you get to day dream / imagine things that feel safe to you, its more like feeling totally shut down emotionally and physically. when it happens to me I know where I am but unable to control thinking or perception. I see that picture over there as very large even though I know it really isnt all that large. I feel numb, just watching, not participating, not imagining being safe elsewhere and so on, just no emotions, no real thoughts, just watching and having the perception sight wise that everything around me is larger then usual. I know many people who call this "alice through the looking glass because they do not realize that there are two different disorders for this one physical (Todds Syndrome) and the other mental (dissociative Macropsia aka OSDD-Macropsia).

your treatment providers can do some testing to figure out if you have either kind. treatment for it is antidepressent /antianxiety/ antipsychosis meds for the mental form of this. and for the physical form (Todds Syndrome) theres medication like epilepsy and other neurological meds that can control the electrical impulses in the brain that is causing the problems. Im on antidepressant/ beta blockers for mine.