An extremely mysterious variety of fungi has been making people in different parts of the globe see tiny elf-like beings.
Lanmaoa asiatica is the species of mushroom that causes this bizarre phenomenon, and nobody fully understands how. Scientists are yet to identify a psychoactive compound present in the cap or stem responsible for these hallucinations.
Reports of its peculiar effects have emerged from Papua New Guinea, China and the Philippines: three countries where it grows in the wild. It is a particularly popular edible in the latter two nations. The otherworldly experiences occur only when it is consumed undercooked. Doing so can also cause nausea and dizziness.
Although this strange activity has been going on for several years, most have likely never heard about it. The University of Utah is currently completing research that has brought the fungus into the spotlight. A team of biology scholars at the institution are trying to make sense of its otherworldly properties.
Chemical and genomic analyses they have completed have yielded no findings, thereby signalling that a psychedelic compound unknown to the science world is waiting to be discovered.
“Picture this,” said Colin Domnauer, a doctoral biological sciences student at the school, “you’re enjoying a delicious bowl of mushroom soup, when suddenly you notice hundreds of tiny people dressed in cartoonish clothing marching across your tablecloth, jumping into your bowl, swimming around, and clinging to your spoon as you lift it for another taste.”
“You’re not dreaming — you’ve just experienced the effects of a mushroom known scientifically as Lanmaoa asiatica,” he added in his blog posting last month.
According to a hospital in China’s Yunnan province, 96 per cent of patients who have dealt with the after effects of ingesting the toadstool raw say that they see little people or elves around them. This extraordinary experience seems to be universal for those who take it. People say these miniature mythical creatures will dance, march in formation, tease you and even temporarily detach their body parts in a cartoonish manner.
“The consistency of the hallucinations among people and across cultures is remarkable,” commented The Beckley Foundation, an esteemed psychedelics research non-profit.
Does the mushroom open an interdimensional portal?
One social media user presented the interesting but highly debatable theory that the mushroom isn’t producing hallucinations among those who take it but rather opening their eyes to another realm that is always there.
He says it isn’t altering consciousness, it’s just revealing a layer of reality that the brain normally filters out.
“This isn’t a hallucination. It’s a frequency glitch,” wrote Drew Ponder in response to a post about the Utah studies shared by renowned mycologist Paul Stamets. “Three cultures. Three languages. Oceans apart. Same species, same effect, same ‘little people.’ Zero known psychoactive molecules.”
Ponder and others have referenced a Daoist text from the third century that refers to a “flesh spirit mushroom” that would enable humans of the time to see these fairytale-like little people and attain enlightenment. They think those Chinese philosophers must be referring to Lanmaoa asiatica.
“Lilliputian hallucinations” is the proper technical term used to describe visions like these. It is derived from the 18th century novel Gulliver’s Travels.
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