Scientists sequenced a hallucinogenic mushroom famous for eliciting visions of tiny people. It contains no known psychedelic.

“96 percent of those who sought help after eating the mushroom reported seeing little people. The clinical term is Lilliputian hallucination, after the six-inch inhabitants of Gulliver’s Travels.

The striking result is that Lanmaoa asiatica lacks any known hallucinogenic chemical signature. The team mined its genome and searched for the biosynthetic gene clusters that produce [psilocybin](https://psychedelics.co.uk/substance/psilocybin) in Psilocybe mushrooms and ibotenic acid in Amanita muscaria. Neither was there.

Whatever L. asiatica is making, it is doing so via a pathway no one has seen before.”

I’ve seen those people walking across my dresser after taking Ambien. That was the last time I did that.

For what it’s worth I’ve seen those same little people hallucinations when taking ambien.

Watch it be a metabolite from some bacteria it hosts inside or something. 

Given it is thought that the effects of psychedelics are highly influenced by suggestions, e.g., “set and setting”, it seems highly likely to me that what’s being described here is a consequence of local culture and the suggestion that the hallucination will involve “little people”.

What would make this extremely, almost absurdly interesting, would be if someone could conduct a controlled study, wherein participants are screened for a familiarity with substance, any themes or suggestions around it.

I.e., find folks that have never heard of it, never have heard of the “little people” hallucination, and are willing to experience a psychedelic phenomenon. Then give it to them, and survey their experience.

Then if enough people from *that* group independently report seeing little people… wellllllllllllllll

I did my PhD, in part, studying natural products. This doesn’t surprise me at all; all available data suggests we have only scratched the surface of understanding how many bioactive compounds are produced by nature.

96% of users reporting the same vision points more toward ***shared expectations*** influencing the experience than a purely spontaneous hallucination.

Maybe it’s a popular description of the high. Or maybe the first question on questionnaire is “*Did you see tiny people?*”

Would be wild if it was changing what our eyes could see, like the way ultraviolet rays work, and its simply revealing something we cant physically view or feel under normal circumstances.

Considering the psychoactive potential of Lanmaoa asiatica has always been in question, seeing as how it is widely consumed in Czechia with practically no reports of psychological effects, i am completely unsurprised.

“It contains no known psychedelic”

inaccurate statement. They did not assess the chemical composition of the mushroom, they looked at its genome for genes known to be related to psilocybin and ibotenic acid biosynthesis. These are only two compounds they screened for at a genomic level.

Some of us see the figures without needing to consume the mushroom. Just sayin’

One time I put on these sunglasses and all the newscasters were, like, skeletons, man. My milk said OBEY.

Simple humans: We cannot measure it, therefore it must not exist.