Every year, doctors at a hospital in Yunnan Province, China, brace themselves for an influx of patients presenting with an extraordinary and peculiar complaint. These individuals arrive with strikingly strange symptoms: they report seeing tiny, dwarf-like figures scurrying under doors, creeping up walls, and clinging to furniture.
The hospital attends to hundreds of such cases annually, and all share a common, singular cause: Lanmaoa asiatica. This specific mushroom forms a symbiotic relationship with pine trees in the surrounding forests and is a popular local delicacy, cherished for its savory, rich umami flavor.
Across Yunnan, L. asiatica is a staple found in markets, featured on restaurant menus, and served in homes throughout the mushroom season, which peaks between June and August. However, it comes with a critical caveat: it must be thoroughly cooked. Failure to do so invariably leads to vivid hallucinations.
“At a mushroom hot pot restaurant there, the waiter set a timer for 15 minutes and warned us, ‘Don’t eat before the timer rings or you might see little people,'” recounts Colin Domnauer, a biology PhD candidate at the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah, who is actively researching L. asiatica. “It seems this is common knowledge in the local culture.”
Domnauer is dedicated to unraveling the long-standing mystery surrounding this unique fungal species, aiming to identify the unknown compound responsible for these remarkably similar hallucinations—and to discover what insights this extraordinary mushroom might offer into the complexities of the human brain. Domnauer first encountered the fascinating tale of L. asiatica as an undergraduate, through his mycology professor.
“It sounded so bizarre, that there’s a mushroom out there that causes these fairy-tale-like hallucinations that are reported across cultures and ages,” Domnauer expressed. “I was baffled and driven by curiosity to learn more.”
Academic literature offers a few compelling clues. A 1991 article, penned by two researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, described cases of individuals in Yunnan who had consumed a particular mushroom and subsequently experienced “Lilliputian hallucinations.” This psychiatric term refers to the perception of extremely small humans, animals, or fantastical subjects, taking its name from the miniature inhabitants of Lilliput Island in Jonathan Swift’s fictional novel, Gulliver’s Travels.
These patients reported seeing such diminutive entities “wandering everywhere,” the researchers noted—often more than ten small figures at a time. “They saw them on their clothes when dressing, and on their plates when eating,” the researchers added, emphasizing that the visions were “clearer when their eyes were closed.”
Decades earlier, in the 1960s, Gordon Wasson and Roger Heim—the American author and French botanist credited with introducing the existence of psilocybin mushrooms to Western audiences—encountered a remarkably similar phenomenon in Papua New Guinea. They were investigating rumors of a mushroom that caused locals to become “crazy,” as reported by a missionary group visiting the area 30 years prior. An anthropologist had dubbed this condition “mushroom madness.”
Unbeknownst to them, what they found bore an uncanny resemblance to the modern-day reports from China. They collected suspected specimens and dispatched them to Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD, for testing. However, Hofmann was unable to identify any molecules of interest. The team ultimately concluded that the stories they heard from the field were merely cultural narratives, lacking any pharmacological basis, and thus no further research was pursued.
It wasn’t until 2015 that researchers finally officially described and named L. asiatica, though still without much detail regarding its psychoactive properties. Determining the true identity of the species became Domnauer’s initial objective.
In 2023, he traveled to Yunnan during the peak summer mushroom harvesting season. He meticulously explored the province’s extensive mushroom markets, inquiring with vendors about the mushroom that “makes you see little people.” He purchased the mushrooms pointed out by laughing vendors, then transported the specimens back to his laboratory for genome sequencing. This process, he states, unequivocally confirmed the identity of L. asiatica. In research he is currently preparing for publication, chemical extracts from these laboratory specimens induced behavioral changes in mice that mirrored those reported in humans. After consuming the mushroom extract, the mice experienced periods of hyperactivity followed by prolonged lethargy, during which they showed little movement.
Domnauer also journeyed to the Philippines, a region where he had heard rumors of mushrooms causing similar symptoms, and where historical records echoed those from China and Papua New Guinea. The specimens he collected there appeared slightly different from those in China—smaller and pale pink compared to the larger, redder Chinese mushrooms, he noted. Nevertheless, his genetic tests confirmed them to be the same species.
In December 2025, Domnauer’s boss is also slated to visit Papua New Guinea in search of the mushroom described in Wasson and Heim’s accounts. Its identity, Domnauer admits, “remains a big question mark.” However, they have so far been unsuccessful in finding it, leaving that particular mystery unsolved.
“Perhaps it’s the same species, which would be surprising, as Papua New Guinea doesn’t typically share species with China and the Philippines,” Domnauer mused. “Or perhaps it’s a different species, which would be even more fascinating from an evolutionary perspective,” he added. This latter scenario would imply that the same Lilliputian effect has evolved independently in distinct mushroom species in entirely different parts of the world.
There is a compelling precedent for such an occurrence in nature. Scientists have recently discovered that psilocybin—the psychedelic molecule found in “magic mushrooms”—evolved independently in two distantly related types of fungi. Crucially, however, it is not psilocybin that imparts the Lilliputian effects in L. asiatica, Domnauer clarified.
Domnauer and his dedicated team are still working diligently to pinpoint the specific chemical compound responsible for the extraordinary hallucinations induced by L. asiatica. Current trials strongly suggest that this compound is likely unrelated to any other known psychedelic substances.
Firstly, the hallucinogenic effects produced by L. asiatica are remarkably long-lasting, typically enduring for 12 to 24 hours. In some extreme cases, consumption has even led to hospitalization for up to a week. Given this extraordinarily prolonged duration of hallucinations, coupled with the potential for extended side effects like delirium and dizziness, Domnauer has wisely opted against personally trying the raw mushroom.
This unusually long duration of effects may help to explain why, according to Domnauer’s findings, people in China, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea do not appear to have a tradition of intentionally seeking out L. asiatica for its psychoactive properties. “The mushroom is always consumed as food,” Domnauer emphasized, with the hallucinations being an unexpected side effect.
Another intriguing factor distinguishes L. asiatica: while other known psychedelic compounds typically generate unique and varied hallucinatory experiences—not only from person to person but also from one experience to the next within the same individual—with L. asiatica, “the perception of seeing little people is reported incredibly reliably and repeatedly,” Domnauer stated. “I don’t know of anything else that produces such consistent hallucinations.”
Understanding this mushroom is undoubtedly a complex endeavor, Domnauer acknowledged. Yet, much like the study of other psychedelic compounds, the scientific research it yields has the potential to address some of the profound questions surrounding consciousness and the intricate relationship between the mind and reality. Furthermore, this research could provide vital clues regarding the causes of spontaneous Lilliputian hallucinations in individuals, even when they have not consumed L. asiatica. This condition is rare; as of 2021, only 226 non-mushroom-related cases had been reported since Lilliputian hallucinations were first described in 1909. For a small fraction of these cases, however, the outcomes can be severe: a third of those affected do not fully recover, even when not linked to mushroom consumption.
Research into L. asiatica could significantly advance scientists’ understanding of the brain mechanisms underpinning naturally occurring Lilliputian visions. It might even lead to novel treatments for individuals suffering from such neurological conditions, Domnauer suggested. “Now we might understand where in the brain [Lilliputian hallucinations] originate,” commented Dennis McKenna, an ethnopharmacologist and director of the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy, a non-profit educational center in California, USA. He concurred that comprehending the mushroom’s compounds could indeed lead to new drug discoveries. “Are there therapeutic applications? That remains to be seen,” he added.
Researchers estimate that less than 5% of the world’s fungal species have been formally described, underscoring the “enormous potential” for discoveries within the world’s diminishing ecosystems, highlighted Giuliana Furci, a mycologist specializing in fungal kingdom research. “Fungi hold an enormous biochemical and pharmacological library that we’ve only just begun to explore,” Furci remarked. “There are still so many discoveries waiting to be uncovered.”
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Summary
In Yunnan Province, China, the mushroom `Lanma