Fungi

 mushroom that makes

you see elves

Doctors in southwest China are

grappling with a peculiar seasonal

problem: patients reporting visions

of tiny, elf-like figures crawling across

walls, furniture, and floors. The halluci-

nations are linked to Lanmaoa asiatica,

a wild mushroom widely eaten during

the summer rainy season in Yunnan

province. If undercooked, the local

delicacy can trigger what psychiatrists

call “lilliputian hallucinations”— vivid,

highly consistent visions of miniature

people—sometimes lasting days.

“At a mushroom hot pot restaurant there,”

ethnobiologist Colin Domnauer from the

Trippy

University of Utah tells BBC .com,

“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.’”

Domnauer and his team showed

that chemical extracts from the

mushroom produce striking behav-

ioral changes in mice, including

bursts of hyperactivity followed

by prolonged stupor. Crucially, the

effects do not appear to be caused by

psilocybin or any known psychedelic

compound. Identifying the responsible

molecule could shed light on other rare

neurological hallucinations and potentially

lead to new drug discoveries.