"It Sounds So Impossible": The Mushroom That Makes You See Tiny People Might Reveal A Totally New Hallucinogenic Compound

As such, we decided it was well worth exploring the topic of psychedelics in more detail while also speaking to the researcher who has made it his mission to learn more about this particular fungus species. 

How do psychedelics work?

Before looking into L. asiatica in more detail, it is worth discussing what we know about psychedelics more generally. This recently scientifically described mushroom’s remarkable characteristics only stand out when we understand the context in which its peculiarities are set.

Once upon a time, if you'd told people you researched psychedelics and their effects, you might have been courting suspicion. At best, you risked your colleagues seeing you as an eccentric, but at worst, you could lose your credibility and even your job. 

However, that is no longer the case. Rather than being a means to “tune in, turn on, and drop out”, psychedelic research has become a serious matter.

Over the last 20 years, the so called “psychedelic renaissance” has seen a 1,300 percent increase in yearly publications related to substances like psilocybin (the active compound in magic mushrooms), lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), N.N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and ayahuasca, greatly expanding our understanding of how these substances affect our minds.   

Far from being recreational tools for a quick high, psychedelics could be a new pillar upon which future mental health strategies rest. Clinical trials have repeatedly shown positive therapeutic outcomes for a range of traditionally difficult-to-treat disorders, including forms of treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and anxiety. 

There is also emerging work looking into their potential role in treating addiction and substance use and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Some have even explored their use in future palliative care.

All these developments have added to the excitement for what is a rapidly emerging psychedelic industry. In the last decade alone, psychedelics have become a multibillion-dollar sector, and it is likely to continue growing. 

Although research is ongoing, it’s likely that in the coming years psychedelics will transform mental health care for conditions that have generally been difficult to address. So how do they work?

Although the different psychedelics have differing potencies and durations, they all act on our brains through a common mechanism. 

At the molecular level, the chemicals target the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor, which is found in high concentration in the cerebral cortex. As serotonin agonists, psychedelics mimic serotonin's behavior, so they bind with 5-HT2A receptors where they can change how neurons communicate in areas of the brain that typically regulate mood, perception, attention, and cognition.

This means that that psychedelics can actually increase communications between parts of the brain that wouldn’t normally interact. This process, known as an increase in functional connectivity, explains why people may become more creative under the substances’ influence, gain novel perspectives, experience intense colours or even “hear” them (synaesthesia).

Psychedelics also induce significant changes to consciousness by reducing activity in the brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN). 

This is an interconnected group of brain regions that are associated with inwardly directed thoughts, introspection, self-reflection, and self-criticism. Effectively, it's responsible for how we maintain our personal narratives. But psychedelics disrupt these networks, which may explain why people who take these substances experience ego dissolution while also feeling a deeper connection with nature or the universe.

Research also indicates that psychedelics can temporarily induce neuroplasticity. This is the nervous system’s ability reorganize its function and structure over time. It allows us to learn, to remember things, adapt to life experiences, and even overcome neurological damage. 

Scientists believe psychedelics, which they classify as “psychoplastogens”, quickly stimulate a period of powerful neuroplasticity that forms new synaptic connections and the growth of dendritic spines – the ends of neuron’s dendrites that receive signals from synapses. This neuroplasticity may make these substances an effective treatment for serious depression, addiction, and PTSD.

This is the science behind psychedelics. It explains how these chemicals act on our brains to create the range of well-documented experiences people have while under their influence. 

But it is important to note that while the mechanisms are the same, the subjective experiences are far more fluid and idiosyncratic. 

This is because psychedelic experiences are sensitive to both set and setting – two people taking psilocybin can have drastically different personal experiences and hallucinations due to their personalities, their individual mood, their intentions and expectations, as well as the physical environment surrounding them (a trip accompanied by mellow music will produce a different experience to one in a busy night club).

Hunting the little people

This sensitivity to set and setting makes psychedelics unique compared to other psychoactive compounds. While some patterns are common, users don’t tend to report the same, clearly defined hallucinations. This is why L. asiatica is so bewildering. 

Rather than producing vastly difference experiences, people who consume it repeatedly report hallucinating small, humanoid figures that dance about, climb objects, or just hang around. 

And this is another point of distinction for the mushroom: the trips it produces last far longer than those produced by other psychedelics, sometimes for up to a few days and, in rare cases, a week. 

Every year, hospitals across Yunnan Province, China, anticipate a spike in patients reporting this very hallucination. The problem isn’t that people are ingesting the mushroom deliberately for this weird experience (though that may change as knowledge of the mushroom spreads), but because it tastes great. 

According to the BBC, hundreds of cases occur every year, especially between June and August after people accidentally intoxicate themselves with the mushroom that is sold in markets and restaurants across the region. If it’s cooked well, perfect. You’ll enjoy a nice strong umami-flavored meal. If not, then your dinner will soon be accompanied by the "xiao ren ren", the tiny hallucinatory visitors. But why tiny people?

“The consistency is remarkable and indeed not seen in other psychoactive substances which have more idiosyncratic effects,” Colin Domnauer, a doctoral candidate in biology at the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah, told IFLScience.

It's as if we started digging in the ground looking for buried treasure, and within just the top centimeter we've already discovered precious gold and jewels; wouldn't you want to keep digging?

Colin Domnauer

“One hospital report from China said that 96 percent of patients reported seeing little people, colorfully dressed like elves, all around them. Although these ‘lilliputian hallucinations’ have been reported sporadically throughout history and across cultures from other various causes (neurological disorders, alcohol withdrawl, spontaneously), nothing we know of reliably and consistently makes you see little people. Except this mushroom now apparently does, and that makes it uniquely valuable.”

Domnauer is actively seeking to explain why this is the case. In particular, he wants to know the exact identity of the mushroom, how it produces its bizarre hallucinations, and just how widespread is the knowledge of its remarkable effects.

Although there are references to a certain mushroom that causes "lilliputian hallucinations" – a term used to describe the experience of seeing Gulliver’s Travels-like tiny people or animals – in the scientific literature dating back to the 1960s, L. asiatica itself was only formally described in 2015. This analysis revealed it to be related to the common porcini mushroom, making it a bolete mushroom.

These mushrooms, Domnauer said, “are characterized by having a sponge-like layer of pore under their cap”. This differs from other psychoactive mushrooms, which have gills. 

So, L. asiatica isn’t just distinct for its psychoactive effects, it also comes “from a completely different branch of the fungal tree of life than all other psychoactive mushrooms”.

Despite being a newcomer to the scientific scene, knowledge of the mushroom’s potency has existed for much longer. In fact, it is possible that it was being discussed in Daoist texts from the 3rd century CE. In particular, there is mention of a “flesh spirit mushroom” that, if eaten raw, allows people to “attain transcendence immediately” as well as to “see a little person”.

Given this deep cultural significance, is it possible that people see little people because they expect to see them? Domnauer doesn’t seem to think so.

“For decades, other scientists were skeptical and even dismissed these anecdotes as nothing more than exaggerated folklore or cultural constructs because it sounds so impossible. But I felt it was unlikely that everyone was making this up. I'm now confident this is more than a fairy tale; this is very much a real phenomenon,” he explained.

It's all a good reminder that traditional cultural knowledge knows things that science doesn't, even things so mind-bending and impossible sounding that scientists spend decades dismissing it as mere folklore.

Colin Domnauer

“Why? Because three completely different cultures have independently discovered and reported seeing little people after eating a wild mushroom. And my research confirms that in two of these cases (China, Philippines), they are actually caused by the exact same species of mushroom. And in the 3rd case (Papua New Guinea), the species remains uncertain, but it is at least in the same family as the other two.”

Domnauer’s investigation of the mushrooms in the Philippines is a great example of a scientist’s personal journey, and it is well worth quoting in full. As he explained to us: 

“When I travelled to the Philippines to investigate the third independent cultural reports of seeing little people after eating mushrooms, I didn't know what to expect. Was it the same as in China, or different? At the time, Lanmaoa asiatica was thought to only exist in Yunnan, China. And no one knew what mushroom species existed in these remote mountains of the Philippines.”

“After spending days with the local guides searching the forest for this psychoactive mushroom, I finally found it. But I couldn't tell what it was, so I had to wait for DNA analysis back in the lab to identify it. The most surprising part of my whole research was when I discovered that the DNA from the mushroom from the Philippines that makes them see little people was the exact same DNA as the mushroom making locals in China see little people.”

“They were both Lanmaoa asiatica. It was so exciting because it showed that these two different cultures, without knowing each other, attributed the exact same specific hallucination to the exact same mushroom- a mushroom that scientists didn't even know existed there.”

The fact that these hallucinatory responses are so consistent and independently reported across distinct cultures does add weight to the idea that they are not manifestations of cultural expectations or simple coincidences. It also suggests, as Domnauer claims, that “the hallucinogenic compound(s) work differently from other psychoactives”.

And on this score we are, alas, at a loss as things currently stand. 

Domnauer has conducted chemical and genomic analysis of the mushroom and found no known psychoactive compounds. This demonstrates a challenge scientists have when it comes to investigating the novel effects of something like this.

“It can be difficult, but we can work with the crude extract of the mushroom which contains hundreds of different compounds,” Domnauer said. “This isn't ideal because we can't accurately attribute the effects we see to specific compounds but that's where we start.”

This discovery also suggests that there may be other psychoactive fungi that have, like L. asiatica, eluded scientific description to this point.

“[T]hink of all the amazing things we know about fungi, all the revolutionary discoveries from antibiotics to magic mushrooms. Then realize all that comes from the 5 percent of fungi we know of, while 95 percent remain to be discovered.”

“It's as if we started digging in the ground looking for buried treasure, and within just the top centimeter we've already discovered precious gold and jewels; wouldn't you want to keep digging? And wouldn't you be convinced this endeavor is certainly worth pursuing and protecting more? Moreover, of the 5 percent we know, only the tiniest fraction of those have been seriously explored for medical potential.”

As it currently stands, the search for the causal compound or compounds behind the lilliputian experiences is ongoing. And while there is not a presently an answer to how it influences our minds, it is clear that whatever is going on opens up a new line of inquiry in our study of psychedelics. 

This whole story is also a valuable example of how determined and sensitive research can not only offer us insights into a natural specimen, but also give voice to communities of people who have lived among them for generations.

“It's all a good reminder that traditional cultural knowledge knows things that science doesn't, even things so mind-bending and impossible sounding that scientists spend decades dismissing it as mere folklore. But, as my research has shown, perhaps ‘mere folklore’ has a lot more to teach us about ourselves and this strange universe than we suppose.”