The proper way to do lexical aliases it through explicit references.

Sadly that means you need an explicit dereferencing step when using the local alias/reference.

On the upside, explicit dereferencing makes it clear that "action at a distance' (changes in local data are propagated to the original data location, and vice versa) is happening. so it might not be a bad thing.

Finally, Lexical::Alias exists (haven't used it yet).