In Yunnan Province, China, doctors brace themselves each year for a unique influx of patients reporting an unusual phenomenon. These individuals describe seeing tiny, elf-like figures sneaking under doors, scaling walls, and clinging to furniture.
The Culinary Culprit (yes, we can blame the soup)
The medical facility encounters hundreds of these cases annually, all due to a specific cause: Lanmaoa asiatica, a mushroom found near pine trees in local forests, celebrated for its rich flavor. From June to August, during its peak season, this fungus is prevalent in Yunnan’s markets, restaurants, and home-cooked dishes.
It’s crucial to cook it thoroughly; otherwise, the peculiar visions might begin.
Local Knowledge and Timers
Colin Domnauer, a PhD candidate at the University of Utah and a researcher at the Natural History Museum of Utah who focuses on L. asiatica, remembers a waiter at a hot pot restaurant setting a timer for 15 minutes while warning them not to take a bite until it went off, or risks seeing tiny people. He notes this seems to be common knowledge in that culture.
It oddly resembles those grape concentrate bricks sold during Prohibition, where customers were told not to dissolve the dried fruit in a gallon of water and leave it in the dark for 20 days to avoid accidentally fermenting wine.
A Global Biological Mystery
Aside from Yunnan and a few other areas, this peculiar mushroom remains largely unexplored. Giuliana Furci, a mushroom specialist and head of the Fungi Foundation, mentions that despite numerous stories and inquiries about this hallucinogenic fungus, no one has definitively identified it.
Domnauer is keen on uncovering the mystery behind this fungus and identifying the chemicals responsible for such consistent hallucinations and what they might reveal about the human brain. He first learned about L. asiatica from a professor during his college years.
“The notion that a mushroom could give rise to such fantastical visions across various cultures and times was simply fascinating,” Domnauer reflects. “I found it intriguing and wanted to explore further.”
Who wouldn’t like to have an acid trip with Lilliputs?
Previous studies have provided some insights. A 1991 report by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences documented instances in Yunnan where people consumed a particular mushroom and experienced what psychiatrists term “Lilliputian hallucinations”—seeing tiny humans, animals, or mythical creatures. The term is derived from the diminutive inhabitants of Lilliput Island in the story Gulliver’s Travels.
The researchers noted that subjects often saw these figures moving about, sometimes more than ten at a time. Interestingly, they observed the creatures on their clothing while getting dressed and even on their plates during meals. The visions often intensified when they closed their eyes.
Early Encounters and Missed Clues
Back in the 1960s, Gordon Wasson and Roger Heim—an American writer and a French mycologist—came across a similar phenomenon in Papua New Guinea. They were searching for a fungus that previous missionaries claimed drove locals mad, an experience that an anthropologist later dubbed “mushroom madness.”
Unwittingly, what they discovered closely mirrored the accounts emerging from China today. They collected samples of the likely mushroom and sent them to Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist known for discovering LSD. Unfortunately, Hofmann didn’t detect any notable chemicals in the samples. The group concluded that the strange experiences were likely just local folklore rather than drug-induced, effectively halting their investigation.
It wasn’t until 2015 that researchers formally identified and documented L. asiatica, although details regarding its psychoactive properties remained scarce. The rest is now well known.
