Scientists have identified a mushroom found in the Philippines that has been linked to one of the strangest known visual hallucinations, with people reporting visions of tiny human-like figures like dwendes after eating it.
The species, Lanmaoa asiatica, has been documented in the northern Cordillera, where indigenous communities know the mushroom locally as “Sedesdem.” Researchers found that eating it undercooked can trigger vivid “Lilliputian hallucinations,” a rare phenomenon in which people see miniature figures moving through otherwise normal surroundings.
Researchers from the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah collected Philippine specimens and used DNA sequencing to identify Sedesdem as Lanmaoa asiatica, the same species associated with similar hallucinations in Yunnan, China. The findings were reported in Mycologia.
The Philippine connection gave researchers another independent account of the unusually specific effect. Communities in the Cordillera have described seeing small human-like figures known locally as “ansisit” after consuming the mushroom undercooked.
University of Utah doctoral researcher Colin Domnauer encountered the same warnings while studying the species in China.
“At a mushroom hot pot restaurant there, the server set a timer for 15 minutes and warned us, ‘Don’t eat it until the timer goes off or you might see little people,’” Domnauer said.
“It seems like very common knowledge in the culture there.”
Scientists still do not know what causes the hallucinations. Tests have not detected psilocybin or another known hallucinogenic compound in Lanmaoa asiatica, raising the possibility that an unidentified chemical is responsible.
The mushroom also stands apart from most fungi known to alter perception. Natural History Museum of Utah curator Bryn Dentinger said hallucinogenic mushrooms are exceptionally uncommon.
“Far less than one percent of mushrooms are hallucinogenic. Probably less than one tenth of a percent,” Dentinger said.
