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'They saw them on their dishes when eating': The mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of tiny humans
bbc ^ | Rachel Nuwer

Posted on 01/26/2026 3:16:59 PM PST by BenLurkin

Only recently described by science, the mysterious mushrooms are found in different parts of the world, but they give people the same exact visions.

Every year, doctors at a hospital in the Yunnan Province of China brace themselves for an influx of people with an unusual complaint. The patients come with a strikingly odd symptom: visions of pint-sized, elf-like figures – marching under doors, crawling up walls and clinging to furniture.

The hospital treats hundreds of these cases every year. All share a common culprit: Lanmaoa asiatica, a type of mushroom that forms symbiotic relationships with pine trees in nearby forests and is a locally popular food, known for its savory, umami-packed flavor. In Yunnan, L. asiatica is sold in markets, it appears on restaurant menus and is served at home during peak mushroom season between June and August.

One must be careful to cook it thoroughly, though, otherwise the hallucinations will set in.

"At a mushroom hot pot restaurant there, the server set a timer for 15 minutes and warned us, 'Don't eat it until the timer goes off or you might see little people,'" says Colin Domnauer, a doctoral candidate in biology at the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah, who is studying L. asiatica. "It seems like very common knowledge in the culture there."

But outside of Yunnan and a couple of other places, the strange mushroom is largely an enigma.

"There were many accounts about the existence of this psychedelic [mushroom], and many people who looked for it, but they never found the species," says Giuliana Furci, a mycologist and the founder and executive director of the Fungi Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to discovering, documenting and conserving fungi.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Food
KEYWORDS: brownies; china; coolstuff; dementia; dwarves; elves; faeries; faroutman; fungi; fungifoundation; gnomes; hallucinations; hallucinogens; lanmaoaasiatica; lasiatica; leprechauns; littlepeople; maculardegeneration; mushrooms; pixies; shrooms; sprites; weefolk; yunnan
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To: BenLurkin

There’s a TV commercial for mushroom tea (RYZE), with a cute mushroom person who dances. Here it is: https://youtu.be/zFKuoQst174?si=b6-YQev9I_lRcz-O


21 posted on 01/26/2026 4:09:22 PM PST by PghBaldy (12/14/12- 930am -rampage begins... 12/15/12 - 1030am - Obama team scouts photo-op locations.)
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To: PghBaldy

So that’s where the dancing mushrooms in Fantasia went.


22 posted on 01/26/2026 4:17:04 PM PST by null and void (To them, words are merely a means to deceive humans.)
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To: Fungi
A thread for you! (Bon Appetit!)
23 posted on 01/26/2026 4:22:24 PM PST by Pete from Shawnee Mission
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To: Billthedrill
"Fairies wear boots and ya' gotta believe me..."

OzzyOsbourneHallucinations

"I saw I saw it I tell you no lie."

24 posted on 01/26/2026 4:32:00 PM PST by MikelTackNailer (Fortunately despite aging I've been spared the ravages of maturity.)
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To: BenLurkin

25 posted on 01/26/2026 4:41:41 PM PST by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: BenLurkin

One wonders if this helps explain the widespread mythology of pixies, sprites, elves, brownies, leprechauns, and all other sorts of wee folk?


26 posted on 01/26/2026 4:59:44 PM PST by EnderWiggin1970
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To: EnderWiggin1970

Most likely.


27 posted on 01/26/2026 5:12:32 PM PST by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: BenLurkin

I wonder if it has the same molecules as DMT. People taking DMT have supposedly been seeing “machine elves” for years and years.

Freegards


28 posted on 01/26/2026 5:23:26 PM PST by Ransomed
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To: Ransomed

“machine elves” are those elves in work overalls, a hardhats and organizing a machinist union?


29 posted on 01/26/2026 5:26:06 PM PST by Reily
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To: BenLurkin

Interestingly,Charles Bonnet Syndrome is a set of visual hallucinations that commonly feature miniature people in detailed attire...like chimney sweeps, with tall hats. Multiple patients reported this! When macular degeneration reduces visual stimuli, the brain compensates with its own visual contribution. My mom had this but because she had vascular dementia she thought the images were frightening (some, not all).

How people with this syndrome can conjure specific images of tiny, ornate people going about complicated business is fascinating, especially if it ties in with a hallucinogen like the mushrooms. Macular sufferers without dementia usually identify them as fake, but think of all the sane people who refuse to tell anyone what they’re seeing.

When I first told my mom’s retina specialist about her visions, I was dumbfounded and given the name of a woman specialist studying it, Dr. Lylas Mogk. I spoke to her once, she said ondansetron, which I never heard of in 2002, at the time, but now it’s a common anti-nausea med, coincidentally reduced the visions.


30 posted on 01/26/2026 5:41:39 PM PST by F450-V10
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To: BenLurkin

As a young man I had friends who took acid... I never did myself because I saw them go insane in all directions.

Must have been bad s—t.


31 posted on 01/26/2026 5:42:18 PM PST by right way right (“May we remain sober over mere men, for God really is our only true hope.)
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To: Reily

I guess they look like little robot looking things. The other name for them is fractal elves.

Freegards


32 posted on 01/26/2026 5:46:00 PM PST by Ransomed
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To: BenLurkin

For the mushrooms to be the cause of the elf like hallucinations it would have to be shown that all, or most of all, the people who eat the mushrooms get the exact hallucination. Sounds like suggestive phenomena to me. Would have to happen in any province where the mushroom is eaten


33 posted on 01/26/2026 5:58:41 PM PST by Getready (Wisdom is more valuable than gold and harder to find.)
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To: Getready

Mass formation psychosis - like Covid fear porn?


34 posted on 01/26/2026 6:03:58 PM PST by MayflowerMadam ( "Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away". - B. Franklin)
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To: EnderWiggin1970
One wonders if this helps explain the widespread mythology of pixies, sprites, elves, brownies, leprechauns, and all other sorts of wee folk?

Maybe. Lewy body dementia has similar symptoms: "Visual hallucinations, often featuring vivid, non-threatening images of small people, children, or animals, are a core early symptom of Lewy body dementia (LBD), affecting roughly 80% of patients. These "little people" hallucinations, along with seeing animals, are often detailed, recurrent, and may occur in the evening. " I knew a lady who had this and she knew she was hallucinating but they were so real.

35 posted on 01/26/2026 6:10:25 PM PST by DouglasKC
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To: BenLurkin

Sounds like DMT and clockwork elves.


36 posted on 01/26/2026 6:22:51 PM PST by Disambiguator
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To: BenLurkin

Steve Martin, "Let's Get Small", 1977.
37 posted on 01/26/2026 6:33:23 PM PST by A Formerly Proud Canadian (All we need is 177k signatures to get a referendum on freedom in Alberta!)
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To: DouglasKC

I wonder, do Asian people see tiny Asians, Caucasian people see tiny Caucasians and so on and so on?


38 posted on 01/26/2026 6:35:53 PM PST by TigersEye (The Democrat/leftist strategy is "maximum chaos until collapse is acheived.")
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To: BenLurkin

thats easy to explain, they are all real,
crawling, climbing, and clinging Asia Roaches.

Fo you GI, no estra chaj, yum yum.


39 posted on 01/26/2026 6:46:45 PM PST by epluribus_2 (!)
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To: TigersEye
onder, do Asian people see tiny Asians, Caucasian people see tiny Caucasians and so on and so on?

I don't know...I wish I had asked her. She's dead now so can't find out.

40 posted on 01/26/2026 6:51:50 PM PST by DouglasKC
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