Ate mushrooms and saw Lilliputians in the plate. Many people in different countries experience the same hallucinations

In Slavic sources, Lanmaoa asiatica is sometimes called the "Lilliputian porcini." This tubular mushroom indeed outwardly resembles a porcini, only slightly brighter, with a reddish stem and a yellowish cap. It grows in Asian countries and is known for its rich umami flavor.

In China's Yunnan province, during mushroom season, from June to August, it is freely sold in markets and appears on restaurant menus. And doctors at one hospital prepare for an influx of patients with an unusual complaint: they see small creatures resembling elves. There are several hundred such patients per year.

The thing is, if Lanmaoa asiatica is improperly cooked, hallucinations begin. "In one mushroom hot-pot restaurant, the waiter set a timer for 15 minutes and warned us: 'Don't eat until the timer goes off, otherwise you might see little people,'" says Colin Domanauer, a PhD student in biology at the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah, who studies these mushrooms. "It seems to be a well-known fact in the local culture."

Outside of Yunnan province and a couple of other places, the mushroom is not treated as something common but rather as a mystery.

"There were many records of the existence of this psychedelic [mushroom], and many people tried to find it but never found this species," says Giuliana Furci, a mycologist, founder and executive director of the Fungi Foundation — a non-profit organization dedicated to the discovery, documentation, and conservation of fungal species.

Domanauer hopes to find out what unknown compound might cause such hallucinations, and to understand what new insights we can gain about the human brain thanks to this mushroom.

Domanauer first heard about such a mushroom when he was a student, from his mycology professor.

"It sounded so strange — that somewhere there exists a mushroom that causes fairy-tale visions, reported by people from different cultures and eras," says Domanauer. "I was intrigued and wanted to learn more about it."

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Not much could be found in scientific literature. In a 1991 article, two researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences wrote about cases where residents of Yunnan province experienced "Lilliputian hallucinations" after consuming a certain mushroom. This is a psychiatric term meaning that the patient sees small people, animals, or fantastic creatures. Lilliput is a fictional island nation from Jonathan Swift's novel "Gulliver's Travels", inhabited by tiny people.

Patients immediately saw many (more than ten) "Lilliputians" swarming around. Closing their eyes didn't help; the vision only became brighter.

"They saw them on their clothes when they dressed, and on their dishes when they ate," the article's authors describe the hallucination.

Back in the 1960s, Gordon Wasson and Roger Heim — an American writer and a French botanist who introduced Western audiences to the existence of psilocybin mushrooms — encountered something similar in Papua New Guinea. They were searching for a mushroom that a team of missionaries who had visited 30 years prior had described. This mushroom caused a state among the locals that was later called "mushroom madness".

Unbeknownst to them, they encountered a phenomenon that scientists from China would later describe. The researchers then collected samples of a species they suspected was the same mushroom and sent them for analysis to Albert Hofmann — the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD. However, Hofmann was unable to detect any molecules of interest. The team concluded that the stories they had heard were folk legends and had no pharmacological basis. Further research was not conducted.

It wasn't until 2015 that researchers finally officially described this mushroom and gave it the name Lanmaoa asiatica. At the same time, there was still almost no information about the psychoactive properties of the mushroom, but it was known that the "Lilliputian" effect was not caused by psilocybin.

The first task Domanauer set for himself was to uncover the true "identity" of this species. In 2023, he traveled to Yunnan during the peak summer mushroom season and asked market vendors what mushrooms "make people see little people." The vendors chuckled. He bought the mushrooms they pointed to and took them to the lab — to sequence genomes and conduct experiments.

An article with the research results is currently being prepared for publication. Domanauer found that chemical extracts from laboratory samples caused behavioral changes in mice similar to those described by people. After administering the mushroom extracts, mice exhibited a period of hyperactivity, followed by a prolonged stupor during which the rodents barely moved.

In the Philippines, rumors also spoke of a mushroom causing similar symptoms. The scientist traveled there and collected samples which, according to him, looked slightly different from the Chinese ones: they were smaller and rather light pink, whereas the Chinese ones were redder. However, genetic analysis showed that it was indeed the same species.

In December 2025, Domanauer's scientific advisor also visited Papua New Guinea to try and find the mushrooms mentioned in Wasson's and Heim's records. They were unsuccessful in finding them, and what kind of mushroom it is remains a great mystery to this day.

"It might be the same species, and that would be strange, because mushroom species that grow in China or the Philippines are not typically found in Papua New Guinea," says Domanauer. "But if it's a different species, that's even stranger: it would mean that different mushrooms evolved independently in completely different parts of the world, yet ended up possessing the same quality."

Such precedents, however, already exist in nature. Scientists — some of whom work in the same lab as Domanauer — recently discovered that psilocybin, a psychedelic molecule found in hallucinogenic mushrooms, appeared independently in two distantly related types of fungi.

However, Domanauer emphasizes that the "Lilliputian" effect in L. Asiatica mushrooms is not caused by psilocybin.

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Colin Domanauer

He and his team are still trying to identify the chemical compound responsible for the hallucinations. Based on tests already conducted, it is most likely not related to any known psychedelic compounds. The "trips" caused by this mushroom are unusually long: from 12 to 24 hours. In some cases, patients remain in the hospital for up to a week. Due to the extreme duration of these states and the risk of prolonged side effects — such as delirium and dizziness — Domanauer has not yet dared to try the raw mushrooms himself.

According to Domanauer's conclusions, such "megatrips" may explain why a tradition of intentionally using L. asiatica for its psychoactive effect has not developed in China, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. "It was always eaten simply as food," he says. Hallucinations were an unexpected side effect.

There is another interesting point: other known psychedelics typically induce unique states that can vary not only among different people but also within the same person who has tried the substance multiple times.

L. asiatica consistently causes visions of tiny people every time.

"I don't know of anything else that would cause such consistent hallucinations," says the researcher.

Павялічыць

Understanding the nature of this mushroom will not be easy, says Domanauer, but like research into other psychedelic compounds, scientific work on it could ultimately touch upon the most fundamental questions of consciousness and the relationship between mind and reality.

Additionally, it could help uncover the cause of spontaneous Lilliputian hallucinations in people who have not consumed L. asiatica. This is a rare condition: until 2021, since the first description of Lilliputian hallucinations in 1909, only 226 such cases not linked to mushrooms had been recorded. However, for this relatively small group of people, the consequences can be serious: a third of patients never fully recovered.

According to Domanauer, studying L. asiatica could help scientists better understand the brain mechanisms underlying these visions and, possibly, even create new treatments for patients with similar neurological conditions.

"Now we may be able to understand which areas of the brain [Lilliputian hallucinations] originate from," says Dennis McKenna, an ethnopharmacologist and director of the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy — a non-profit educational center in California. He agrees that understanding the compounds contained in this mushroom could lead to the discovery of new medicinal drugs. "Whether there is therapeutic application here — time will tell," he notes.

According to researchers' estimates, less than 5% of all mushroom species found on Earth have currently been described. Therefore, Giuliana Furci believes these studies hold immense potential for new discoveries amidst rapidly shrinking ecosystems.

"Mushrooms contain an extremely vast biochemical and pharmacological library, which we are only just beginning to explore," says Furci. "A whole world of discoveries awaits us."

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