If you’ve ever wanted your dinner to reenact The Borrowers live on your kitchen table, great news: there’s a mushroom for that. In Yunnan, China, a perfectly respectable wild fungus being sold in markets can cause full-blown “lilliputian hallucinations” if undercooked.
What kind of hallucinations, you ask? Tiny. Dancing. People.
Not metaphorical little guys. Literal micro-elves doing cardio in your peripheral vision. According to hospital records, 96% of patients report seeing miniature dancers, jumpers, and marchers just vibing around their real-world environment like it’s a tiny Cirque du Soleil.
The mushroom’s official name is Lanmaoa asiatica, but a 3rd-century Daoist text basically calls it the “eat me raw and unlock the DLC where you can see wee folks” mushroom. Researchers have now confirmed similar fungi in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, and they’re all the same species, meaning humanity has been accidentally summoning pocket-sized party guests for thousands of years.
And no, these aren’t magic mushrooms, they’re porcini relatives. Porcinis! The least whimsical mushrooms imaginable! Yet here they are, serving up tiny hallucinated festival parades. Science still doesn’t know which chemical causes the effect, but one researcher has found four more related species, so the mystery deepens… and shrinks… dramatically.
Moral of the story: cook your Lanmaoa asiatica thoroughly, or prepare to host a microscopic rave.
[Via BB]