Indigenous traditions across North America, Celtic folklore across the British Isles, and frankly cultures practically everywhere else in the world\u2014from the West African nation of Senegal to China to Papua New Guinea\u2014all have stories about fairy-like little people. And now, scientists have linked two of those folk legends to a single species of a psychoactive mushroom.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the University of Utah have sequenced DNA from the mushroom species Lanmaoa asiatica, isolated from both southwest China and a remote region of the Philippines, confirming that this fungus induces hallucinations that can manifest dozens or even hundreds of tiny people. But, arguably, the strangest part of their discovery is that L. asiatica contains none of the usual suspects among known psychedelic compounds, leaving the actual mechanism behind this mushroom\u2019s fairy tale trips an ongoing biochemical mystery.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne person told me that while they were eating soup, the little people were jumping off their spoon into the bowl and swimming around.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople pretty much always report seeing dozens or hundreds of little people, about 3 to 30 centimeters [1 inch to 1 foot] tall, in incredible detail, like they\u2019re actually there,\u201d study coauthor Colin Domnauer, a doctoral student specializing in mycology at the university, said<\/a> in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout 90% of people describe them as little elves or clowns or other fairy-like figures dressed in colorful clothes,\u201d according to Domnauer, who travelled to China\u2019s Yunnan province and the remote Northern Cordillera region of Philippines to collect these mushroom specimens. \u201cWhat\u2019s fascinating is they interact with the physical world using the laws of physics that govern us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not walking through walls or anything,\u201d Domnauer explained. \u201cThey\u2019re falling off the edge of tables, walking around objects. One person told me that while they were eating soup, the little people were jumping off their spoon into the bowl and swimming around.\u201d<\/p>\n Parts unknown <\/p>\n Domnauer worked with University of Utah biologist Bryn Dentinger to perform full-genome sequencing on 53 mushroom specimens spanning the entire Lanmaoa genus on their hunt for genetic indicators on what produces L. asiatica\u2019s unusual effects. Although this effort managed to identify four potentially new mushroom species, Domnauer and Dentinger noted their analysis failed to uncover any of the genes typically associated with either psilocybin or ibotenic acid production. (Ibotenic acid, derived from mushrooms of the Amanita genus, metabolizes into a hallucinogen once digested.)<\/p>\n The duo identified a total of 17 species within the genus Lanmaoa, including the four seemingly new species, according to their study<\/a>, published this summer in the journal Mycologia.<\/p>\n \u201cOur analysis showed that L. asiatica is the only psychoactive species in this genus,\u201d Domnauer stated. \u201cNow we\u2019re building an evolutionary map to understand how this trait evolved and if related species produce similar compounds.\u201d<\/p>\n All the little people <\/p>\n Domnauer had pivoted<\/a> from studying planetary astronomy\u2014including<\/a> an internship with NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Lab\u2014to explore this psychedelic innerspace. One thing that fascinates him about these \u201cLilliputian hallucinations,\u201d as the phenomenon was first named<\/a> by a French psychiatrist in 1909, is how these bizarrely concrete hallucinations cross not only cultures but causal factors as well.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have also reported these hallucinations from alcohol withdrawal, dementia, macular degeneration and other neurological conditions,\u201d Domnauer noted. \u201cSo, it seems like this phenomenon is fundamental to how the human mind and brain work, but we don\u2019t know what causes it or how to treat it.\u201d<\/p>\n The notion that these hallucinations had any biochemical explanation at all, in fact, had been abandoned back in the late 1960s\u2014after anthropologists and mycologists failed to find psychoactives in the Boletaceae family of fungi associated with Lilliputian hallucinations in Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n \u201cEventually, they concluded that maybe these mushrooms weren\u2019t bioactive at all\u2014maybe this was all just a socio-cultural phenomenon,\u201d according to Domnauer.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, three completely independent cultures have reported the same specific type of hallucination, and two cases are attributed to the same DNA-verified mushroom species,\u201d he said. \u201cThat indicates that these bizarre psychological effects aren\u2019t cultural manifestations or coincidences\u2014they must have a shared underlying chemical and neurological basis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indigenous traditions across North America, Celtic folklore across the British Isles, and frankly cultures practically everywhere else in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":999145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[92096,815,400181,400182,159,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-999144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-folklore","tag-genetics","tag-hallucinogens","tag-psychedelic-mushrooms","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117090897705328186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=999144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/999145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=999144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=999144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=999144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}