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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 2: In today's episode, we're going to be covering a topic

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Speaker 2: that has definitely made the rounds recently, but hopefully digging

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Speaker 2: into some new angles on it for you here, maybe

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Speaker 2: discussing it in slightly different ways. The basics of the

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Speaker 2: story are this in your non province in southwestern China.

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Speaker 2: This is located on the borders of me and Maher,

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Speaker 2: Vietnam and Laos. There grows a particular species of bolite

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Speaker 2: mushroom called Lanmaua asiatica. This is a mushroom with plentiful

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Speaker 2: culinary uses. Like it's used. You can buy it at

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Speaker 2: the market, you can order it in restaurants. But if

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Speaker 2: you consume it undercooked or certainly if it's assumed raw

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Speaker 2: but even under cooked, its consumption can produce a particular

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Speaker 2: type of hallucination known as a Lilliputian hallucination, and can

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Speaker 2: do so with a fair degree of certainty. We'll get

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Speaker 2: into the percentages as we go here, but there's again

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Speaker 2: a particular type of hallucination associated with these mushrooms, and

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Speaker 2: it's quite startling.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is interesting because I think because we tend

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Speaker 3: to assume that the content of hallucinations is idiosyncratic. Like

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Speaker 3: when a person takes a compound that makes them hallucinate,

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Speaker 3: you can with some regularity predict that they will hallucinate

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Speaker 3: if they ingest it, but you can't usually say what

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Speaker 3: the hallucination is going to be of even you know,

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Speaker 3: it'll be different between different people, and it'll be different

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Speaker 3: for the same person and on different trips, different times

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Speaker 3: they take it. It is really curious that you could

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Speaker 3: have different people at different times taking this one psychedelic

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Speaker 3: compound or whatever comes from this one particular food source,

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Speaker 3: and it not only triggers hallucinations, but tends to trigger

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Speaker 3: hallucinations of the same thing, of the same type. And

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Speaker 3: that would be these Liliputian hallucinations. So what exactly are these?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it is important to note, yeah, distress everything

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Speaker 2: he just said, because I think, again, most of our

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Speaker 2: understanding of psychedelics, and certainly most people listening to the

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Speaker 2: show's experiences with any psychedelics, it's going to be those

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Speaker 2: classical psychedelics. It's going to be things like LSD and

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Speaker 2: psilocybin where you can have two people take the same

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Speaker 2: dose of the same substance with the same set and

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Speaker 2: setting and have highly different experiences. And with this there

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Speaker 2: you're almost guaranteed to see tiny people swarming all over

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Speaker 2: the place. And that feels more like magic to us, right,

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Speaker 2: because you hear tales with classical psychedelics and more well

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Speaker 2: known psychedelics where people say, oh, did you see the

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Speaker 2: maybe you might see the machine ls or maybe you'll

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Speaker 2: see the spider weaver or whatever you know, archetype is

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Speaker 2: being invoked, and that does sound like, oh, well, maybe

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Speaker 2: I've pressed through into some sort of magical world where

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Speaker 2: something absolute exists outside of our own experiences. But for

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Speaker 2: the most part, yeah, it's just it's in reality. It's

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Speaker 2: going to be highly different depending on you know, when

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Speaker 2: what you're taking, when you're taking who you are.

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Speaker 3: Right, you can promise to open the doors of perception,

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Speaker 3: but you can't guarantee what's going to walk through. But

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Speaker 3: apparently in some cases you can have a pretty good

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Speaker 3: prediction about what's going to walk through, and this is

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Speaker 3: one of these cases.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So a note before we get into more of

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Speaker 2: the particulars about Lilyputian hallucinations and this particular mushroom we

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Speaker 2: mentioned the scientific classification land Maua asiatica. The genus land

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Speaker 2: Maua was named after Chinese naturalist Land Mao. This was

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Speaker 2: a Ming dynasty botanist who was very interested in bolites.

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Speaker 2: And as for Liliputian hallucinations, this name stems from the

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Speaker 2: tiny six inch tall people from the island of Lilipute

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Speaker 2: in Jonathan Swift's seventeen twenty six work Gulliver's Travels. Even

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Speaker 2: if you haven't read it, you're familiar to the little

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Speaker 2: people that like tie the man to the ground, and

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Speaker 2: this image has been invoked in just across media as

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Speaker 2: a result. But lily Putian hallucinations, it's a particular type

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Speaker 2: of visual hallucination, and I was reading I originally read

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Speaker 2: about this in passing years ago in Oliver Sachs's twenty

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Speaker 2: twelve book Hallucinations, Like early on he mentioned he's just

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Speaker 2: talking about in general how hallucinations work, in the different

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Speaker 2: forms they can take, and he mentions Liliputian visions and

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Speaker 2: says little beings, elves, dwarfs, fairies, imps are curiously common

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Speaker 2: in these hallucinations, and then talks about them, you know,

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Speaker 2: in terms of other forms of hallucination like micropsia or macropsia,

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Speaker 2: where you see, you know, things that are bigger or smaller,

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Speaker 2: changes in size and so forth. Really getting into that

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Speaker 2: sort of Alice in Wonderland realm where suddenly size changes.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, like types of visual distortion there. But yeah, the

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Speaker 3: little Putian hallucinations being not just a visual distortion of

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Speaker 3: objects in the environment, but a projection of little beings

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Speaker 3: like little imps or fairies or elves into the environment.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there are there different forms of according to sex,

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Speaker 2: there are different types of hallucination that are possible that

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Speaker 2: could invoke perception of a tiny person or tiny people like.

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Speaker 2: He brings up that some of these things can be

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Speaker 2: brought on by the use of cannabis, mescaline, LSD, or

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Speaker 2: other hallucinogenic drugs, But elsewhere in the book he discusses

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Speaker 2: a host of neurological conditions that can bring about this

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Speaker 2: sort of hallucination or something like it. Some of the

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Speaker 2: little people hallucinations in general, he reports, involved singular entities,

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Speaker 2: such as a devil sitting on the end of your bed,

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Speaker 2: but others in like a hallmark of lily Putian hallucinations

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Speaker 2: involve multitudes, the kind of swarming of you know, hundreds

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Speaker 2: or thousands of individuals. Sometimes they're described as marching or

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Speaker 2: kind of like boiling in and out of things.

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Speaker 3: I've got some detail on this in a minute.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Sex discusses a woman with Parkinson's disease who saw

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Speaker 2: little people that she called Chucky's running around her bed

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Speaker 2: at night, talking to each other and gesturing, which she

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Speaker 2: couldn't under She couldn't hear what they were saying. This

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Speaker 2: one apparently took on a frightening air. But this does

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Speaker 2: not seem to I don't know. Maybe you can speak

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Speaker 2: to this as well, Joe, But from when I was

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Speaker 2: reading most people describing lily Putian hallucinations, there doesn't necessarily

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Speaker 2: seem to be anything nefarious about them. It's just kind

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Speaker 2: of happening.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I haven't read anything about them overwhelmingly being perceived

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Speaker 3: one way or another in terms of intent, like are

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Speaker 3: they good creatures? Are they bad creatures? I've read individual reports,

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Speaker 3: like there's one famous report from hundreds of years ago

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Speaker 3: of like a monk who sees them running around in

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Speaker 3: the church, and they're mischievous there, they're playing pranks. But yeah,

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Speaker 3: I don't know if overall they are usually perceived as

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Speaker 3: as harmful, helpful, or neutral, though often actually in one

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Speaker 3: source I'm going to get to in just a minute,

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Speaker 3: they are often described as kind of joyful or fun,

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Speaker 3: though that fun may or may not be at your expense.

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Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, yeah. Sex describes a woman with Charles

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Speaker 2: Bonnet syndrome. This causes visual hallucinations and people with low vision,

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Speaker 2: and in this case there's kind of they're different things.

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Speaker 2: She experienced. So she saw tall men almost quasi death

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Speaker 2: figures at the foot of her bed, as well as

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Speaker 2: quote little people a few inches high, like elves or

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Speaker 2: fairies with little green caps, climbing up the sides of

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Speaker 2: her wheelchair. And she also would see adorable children picking

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Speaker 2: pieces of paper up off the floor and climbing stairs

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Speaker 2: like kind of like imaginary stairs and like the peripheral

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Speaker 2: area of or a vision.

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Speaker 3: This is really interesting because the two types of visions

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Speaker 3: described here are both examples of hallucinations that get people

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Speaker 3: a little bit freaked out because of the commonly reported

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Speaker 3: content that people like compare notes and share. I'm sure

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Speaker 3: you've read about the like the hat man or the

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Speaker 3: shadow man, where people I mean, there are different reasons

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Speaker 3: people have this, but especially people who have edge of

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Speaker 3: sleep hallucinations or sleep related disorders will often report having

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Speaker 3: this perception of like a tall, shadowy man standing at

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Speaker 3: the foot of their bed, often with a hat or

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Speaker 3: something like this. And people sometimes get freaked out about

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Speaker 3: this because they compare notes and they're like, wait a minute,

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Speaker 3: how are we seeing the same guy? That shouldn't be happening,

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Speaker 3: because again of the same intuition we have that our hallucinations,

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Speaker 3: if they're really hallucinations, should be idiosyncratic. We shouldn't be

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Speaker 3: seeing similar things. That almost makes you think there is

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Speaker 3: something else out there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, then you think you're in a Stephen King novel

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Speaker 2: right now.

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Speaker 3: I don't think there's any reason to believe that there

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Speaker 3: is actually, you know, a long, tall shadow man going

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Speaker 3: around everybody's bed at night.

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Speaker 2: But there are to come back to our death episodes,

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Speaker 2: there are shared cultural motifs, yes, and so it gets

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Speaker 2: a little complicated when you talk about, you know, psychedelic visions.

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Speaker 3: Well, I would say another thing is that you could

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Speaker 3: have commonly occurring content in hallucinations because of certain you know,

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Speaker 3: ways that the human brain is wired that we have

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Speaker 3: that certain types of perceptual content that we're likely to

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Speaker 3: see in certain environments tend to trigger things that are

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Speaker 3: very common in human experience. Like we certainly are hardwired

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Speaker 3: to look for human shapes, to look for people, because

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Speaker 3: we are people and we're social, you know, and so

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Speaker 3: like we can easily interpret just kind of random noise

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Speaker 3: within an ambiguous sensory environment as people shaped or maybe

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Speaker 3: being like people. So I think that that's an easier

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Speaker 3: way to interpret, like where the man standing at the

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Speaker 3: foot of the bed comes from. You're like half awake,

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Speaker 3: or you've got some kind of perceptual issue going on

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Speaker 3: because of the edge of sleep or something causing a hallucination,

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Speaker 3: and you see a you know, vertical kind of signal

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Speaker 3: of darkness or something in your room, maybe triggered by

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Speaker 3: a coat hanging on the wall or just a corner

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Speaker 3: or the way the light works, and that reads in

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Speaker 3: your brain. Your brain kind of cranks that up into

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Speaker 3: tall man.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but in these lily Putian scenarios, it's these these

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Speaker 2: lily Putian hallucinations, it's it's more like and I have

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Speaker 2: to be. I'm gonna go ahead and skip ahead and just

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Speaker 2: go ahead and mention that, like research into the particulars

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Speaker 2: of this are still ongoing. Yeah, and these mushrooms are

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Speaker 2: apparently not known to contain any known psychedelic compound, So

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Speaker 2: this is not psilocybin. We're trying to figure out what

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Speaker 2: it is and how it works. But like, the more

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Speaker 2: I read about it, like the best way that I

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Speaker 2: could sort of imagine what is actually happening, you know,

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Speaker 2: as a layperson trying to imagine what's happening heurologically is it.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of like the granular details of the world

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Speaker 2: you're perceiving are taking on the form of people at

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Speaker 2: a distance, Like there's something going on maybe with the

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Speaker 2: way the brain is interpreting scale and minute details, and

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Speaker 2: it just gets like rearranged and transformed into these visions

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Speaker 2: of like little people boiling out of things and marching around.

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Speaker 3: Maybe. I mean, like like you said, I think it

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Speaker 3: is not fully understood yet. You know, research is ongoing,

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Speaker 3: though these things have been known about for a long time.

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Speaker 3: So are you okay if I do a section on

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Speaker 3: what I was looking up about a little Apitian hallucination. Now,

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Speaker 3: let's do it, okay. So I was reading about this

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Speaker 3: in a couple of sources by a Dutch professor of

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Speaker 3: clinical psychopathology at Leiden University named Jan Dirk Blohm. So

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Speaker 3: first I came across his work in a book of

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Speaker 3: his called A Dictionary of Hallucinations. This is published by Springer.

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Speaker 3: This is the twenty twenty three edition. And in this

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Speaker 3: book Blom describes Liliputian hallucinations as a hallucination featuring miniature people, objects, animals,

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Speaker 3: or fantasy creatures. Obviously, as you said, named after Gulliver's travels.

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Speaker 3: And he notes that descriptions of visions like this go

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Speaker 3: back millennia. You know, you can go way back and

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Speaker 3: find people describing seeing little swarms of people or creatures

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Speaker 3: running around. But apparently the term Liliputian hallucination first appears

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Speaker 3: in the medical literature in nineteen o nine, introduced by

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Speaker 3: the French psychiatrist Raoul le Roi who lived eighteen sixty

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Speaker 3: nine to nineteen forty one, after he personally had a

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Speaker 3: hallucination of tiny people running around.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, does he reveal like what may have caused it?

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Speaker 3: I did not dig into Laroy's backstory enough to know.

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Speaker 3: So no, I don't know in his case what is

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Speaker 3: thought to have caused it, if it was even known.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Sachs, for instance, mentions that sometimes these

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Speaker 2: things are even tied to visual aurs and severe migraines.

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Speaker 2: So to be clear, you don't have to eat some

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Speaker 2: kind of mushroom to experience hallucinations like this. There are

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Speaker 2: various causes, and we don't necessarily know all the causes.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and we don't always know why a cause causes it,

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Speaker 3: you know, but you can correlate it with certain things,

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Speaker 3: like Blomb does in this entry and in a paper

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Speaker 3: I'm about to talk about. But Blom says they are

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Speaker 3: most often described as quote, gay, joyous creatures dressed in

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Speaker 3: brilliantly colored outfits that jump and dance, climb onto tables,

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Speaker 3: leave through doors or windows, and march around like little

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Speaker 3: troops of soldiers. There matches what you were reading about.

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Speaker 3: Marching common thing, and Blom says that not unlike that.

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Speaker 3: Much like these other entity experiences people have, they are

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Speaker 3: often perceived as highly realistic. This is one thing that

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Speaker 3: I think people who have never experienced hallucinations consistently misunderstand.

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Speaker 3: We assume that if you're hallucinating something, it must feel

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Speaker 3: somehow hazy, uncertain, unreal, kind of only half there. And

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Speaker 3: this is the way it's often perceived in media, Like

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Speaker 3: if somebody has a hallucination in the movies or in

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Speaker 3: a TV show, it's often see through. It's often you know,

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Speaker 3: they are just clear visual indications that this is not

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Speaker 3: part of the rest of reality, that it is separate

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Speaker 3: and less, less firm. But you know, it can be

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Speaker 3: like this with hallucinations. There are different kinds of hallucinations

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Speaker 3: that feel like they contain different levels of reality within them.

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Speaker 3: Often it is not this way. You have to understand

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Speaker 3: that lots of hallucinations are perceived as totally real. They look,

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Speaker 3: feel and seem real in the same way that objects

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Speaker 3: in our normal perception do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah Sax mentions this a little bit too, pointing out

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Speaker 2: that all of us can visualize mental limit well not

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Speaker 2: all of us, as we've discussed, most of us can

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Speaker 2: visualize mental images, but they're not projected into external space

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Speaker 2: like a hallucination, and they also lack the detailed quality

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Speaker 2: of a true hallucination. And so maybe part of that

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Speaker 2: misconception for those of us who haven't experienced vivid, you know,

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Speaker 2: actual hallucinations protected into space. We're sort of relying on

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Speaker 2: while relying on cinema, but we're also relying on what

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Speaker 2: we know about our own mental images and how amorphous

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Speaker 2: they tend to be.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, when people who are not familiar with visual hallucinations

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Speaker 3: try to imagine what they're like, are our main point

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Speaker 3: of comparison is our imagination. But that's not really what

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Speaker 3: That's not what they're like because the imagination is like

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Speaker 3: you're totally aware that it's voluntary and conscious. It's not

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Speaker 3: fully integrated with the rest of your senses. It's not

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Speaker 3: really like that. I think maybe the better comparison, though

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Speaker 3: this doesn't exactly line up either, but in some ways

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Speaker 3: the better comparison is dreams, where when you're in a dream,

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Speaker 3: you don't realize you're in a dream and it feels real.

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Speaker 2: Dreaming is also an interesting thing to bring up because

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Speaker 2: media media versions of dreams are often not like dreams

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Speaker 2: at all, but media can be so convincing that we

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Speaker 2: end up following back on dream sequences we saw in

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Speaker 2: TV when we think about what a dream is.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's funny. So in this dictionary entry, Blom

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Speaker 3: also references a paper that he's the author on called

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Speaker 3: LeRoy's Elusive Little People, a Systemic Review on Liliputian Hallucinations.

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Speaker 3: This was published in the journal Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews

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Speaker 3: and twenty twenty one, and in this review he looks

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Speaker 3: into what conditions are associated with Liliputian hallucinations. In particular,

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Speaker 3: as opposed to just general hallucinations, they appear in conjunction

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Speaker 3: with a lot of different conditions. He found that fifty

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Speaker 3: percent of reports of Liliputian hallucinations were together accounted for

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Speaker 3: by three causes. This would include a schizophrenia spectrum disorder,

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Speaker 3: which is associated with diverse hallucinations, but also liliputi alcohol

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Speaker 3: use disorders. So for example, in alcohol withdrawal, you know,

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Speaker 3: for people who have extreme alcohol dependence during withdrawal, you

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Speaker 3: know you might have read about like delirium tremens, so

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Speaker 3: you can have Liliputian hallucinations there, and then also hallucinations

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Speaker 3: associated with loss of vision. And then he says another

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Speaker 3: thirty thirty six percent were caused by neurological diseases, for

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Speaker 3: example with Parkinson's can experience little Putian hallucinations. One thing

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Speaker 3: that is really interesting is that Blom says in ninety

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Speaker 3: seven percent of case of documented cases, they appeared to

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Speaker 3: be grounded. These little people running around in the hallucination.

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Speaker 3: They were grounded in the sense that they're connected somewhat

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Speaker 3: realistically to gravity and to the environment, so they interact

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Speaker 3: with surfaces like floors, furniture, and tabletops. And there's ninety

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Speaker 3: seven percent of cases. I read a lot of studies

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Speaker 3: and I feel like you almost never get a result

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Speaker 3: of ninety seven percent of anything.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an astoundingly high percentage, Like it's almost a certainty,

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Speaker 2: it would seem. And there are similar numbers that will

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Speaker 2: get to based on people who are admitted to the

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Speaker 2: hospital in nonprovince for having experienced these symptoms from consuming presumably,

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Speaker 2: you know, undercooked mushrooms.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so that nine percent of cases they're grounded. They're

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Speaker 3: interacting in a somewhat physically realistic way with the environment.

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Speaker 3: In only two percent of cases are they reported as

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Speaker 3: floating in the air. So this would be a little

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Speaker 3: people hallucination that travels along with the subject's gaye. You

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Speaker 3: look and the hallucination moves with your gaze and that's

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Speaker 3: two percent, and then in one percent they are reported

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Speaker 3: as a fixed two dimensional projection upon a wall like

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Speaker 3: a movie.

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Speaker 2: An example of this that University of Utah my collegist,

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Speaker 2: Colin dom Nauer brings up. We're going to come back

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Speaker 2: to him because he's seemingly one of, if not the

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Speaker 2: prime researchers on this topic in the West. He mentions

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Speaker 2: a UNN professor who ended up consuming some of this

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Speaker 2: mushrooms these mushrooms and then began to experience some symptoms

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Speaker 2: and must have realized, oh, well, I guess they weren't

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Speaker 2: cooked well enough and now I'm getting these side effects.

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Speaker 2: But he was initially disappointed because he's like, I don't

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Speaker 2: see little people anywhere where the lily Putian hallucinations. And

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Speaker 2: then he looks under the tablecloth and he sees them

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Speaker 2: marching around, and then you know, he puts the tablecloth down,

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Speaker 2: and then he's able to like lift it up again,

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Speaker 2: see them again grounded there under the tablecloth, and then

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Speaker 2: is he lifts the tablecloth higher, all their little heads

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Speaker 2: come off and are still stuck to the tablecloth, and

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Speaker 2: the rest of their little bodies are marching in place.

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Speaker 2: That's wild the idea, you know, that they're grounded like this,

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Speaker 2: but also that you could turn away from them and

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Speaker 2: then come back to them and see them in the

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Speaker 2: same place. Like if we were going to just throw

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Speaker 2: all reason out the window, you would just say, well,

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Speaker 2: maybe the universe is just made of tiny, marching little

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Speaker 2: dudes and that's all there is to it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, fascinating, So many interesting things about the consistency of

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Speaker 3: these reports that Lilliputian hallucinations in particular are just they're

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Speaker 3: physically integrated into the environment and have some kind of

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Speaker 3: realistic connection to the physics and to the you know,

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Speaker 3: the surfaces and geometry of what's around you. And Blom

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Speaker 3: says in his twenty twenty one paper that this quote

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Speaker 3: indicates that higher level regions of the perceptual network capable

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Speaker 3: of seamlessly integrating sensory and hallucinatory content are involved in

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Speaker 3: their mediation. Interesting fact from Blom's paper. I don't know

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Speaker 3: if this is consistent with what you were reading about

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Speaker 3: the mushroom triggered hallucinations in particular, but he says that

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Speaker 3: historical reports of these visions mentioned that they rarely interact

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Speaker 3: with the subject, you know, they're rarely interacting with the

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Speaker 3: person seeing them. Rather they interact with the environment and

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Speaker 3: you watch.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that does seem to be a recurring flavor. Again,

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Speaker 2: it's almost like the idea that you're seeing through the

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Speaker 2: veil and you're seeing that the world is made out

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Speaker 2: of tiny little elves and they're just caring about what

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Speaker 2: they're doing, which is I guess holding matter together. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So what are the underlying mechanisms causing Lilliputian hallucinations? Blom

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Speaker 3: says this is not known, but there are a couple

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Speaker 3: of major ideas that he puts forward in his research.

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Speaker 3: He names these ideas. One is called perceptual release and

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Speaker 3: the other is deafferentiation. He explains these two concepts in

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Speaker 3: his twenty twenty one review. So I'm going to read

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Speaker 3: a couple of quotes from him of deafferentiation, Blom writes, quote,

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Speaker 3: the deafferentiation model states that loss of peripheral sensory input

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Speaker 3: can lead to spurious activity of central networks normally involved

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Speaker 3: in processing that input. It is thus applicable to close

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Speaker 3: die hallucinations, hypnagogic hallucinations, and Charles Bonnet syndrome, including cases

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Speaker 3: of HEMI and quadrantanopsia. Moreover, this mechanism has been described

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Speaker 3: in Parkinson's disease, with the Lilliputian hallucinations appearing at dusk

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Speaker 3: i e. Crepuscular or crepuscular hallucinations. So, if I'm understanding

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Speaker 3: this explanation correctly, it is a Lilliputian hallucinations for some reason,

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Speaker 3: may manifest from a disruption in the supply of sensory

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Speaker 3: real sensory input from the environment, and at some point

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Speaker 3: in the processing of that that like lack of feed

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Speaker 3: in is it turns into supplying this extra vision of

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Speaker 3: little people running around on the table.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow. So to sort of come back to my

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Speaker 2: earlier sort of attempt to understand it, it would it's

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Speaker 2: more perhaps a situation where you're getting this this input

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Speaker 2: about the world around you, and it's like, we don't

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Speaker 2: have any details on all those little little corners of

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Speaker 2: the thing. So we're gonna we're gonna replace those little

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Speaker 2: details with people moving around. Possibly I'm just gonna fill

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Speaker 2: in the blanks.

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Speaker 3: The other hypothesis that he talks about is the idea

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Speaker 3: is a perceptual release. Here, I'm going to read again

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Speaker 3: from blom In this twenty twenty one paper. He says, quote.

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Speaker 3: The perceptual release model states that indogenously mediated perceptual material,

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Speaker 3: which during our waking hours normally remains below the threshold

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Speaker 3: of consciousness, can break through the surface and be projected

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Speaker 3: into the outside world. Also referred to as dream intrusion,

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Speaker 3: The model characterizes Lilliputian hallucinations as a matter of dreaming

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Speaker 3: while awake. A crucial difference while with dreaming, though, is

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Speaker 3: that in this case only part of the perceived environment

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Speaker 3: is replaced by hallucinatory content. And this is interesting because

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Speaker 3: you see a similar thing with edge of sleep hallucinations

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Speaker 3: that people have. You know, the hallucinations people have while

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Speaker 3: they're falling asleep or while they're waking up from sleep

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Speaker 3: are often a mix of perception of the room around

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Speaker 3: them and dream content. You know, so you imagine, you

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Speaker 3: see the room you're in, but you imagine seeing other

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Speaker 3: things in the room very much alike these little people

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Speaker 3: hallucinations running around on the furniture. And so, yeah, this

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Speaker 3: hypothesis is there's some kind of mechanism in the brain

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Speaker 3: that's indogenously generating imagery that is not actually coming from

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Speaker 3: the senses. It's not from the environment, and you normally,

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Speaker 3: while you're awake, the valve is closed on that stuff.

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Speaker 3: But here, somehow the valve gets kind of partially opened,

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Speaker 3: and that content starts spilling out and mixing with your

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Speaker 3: incoming perceptual content.

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Speaker 2: But again doing so in a very particular way in terms,

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Speaker 2: because you know, when you're talking about dreams flooding into

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Speaker 2: the real world, like, we can imagine that taking on

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Speaker 2: various forms, but here the form is kind of particular,

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Speaker 2: like little people, little things moving around.

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Speaker 3: All right, So that's all I've got for now on

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Speaker 3: little Aputian hallucinations in general. Again, the main line on

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Speaker 3: it is it's very interesting but still not fully understood.

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Speaker 3: You know, psychiatrists and neuroscientists are still working on it.

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00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:15,920
Speaker 3: But I guess the thing we need to come back

429
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:20,239
Speaker 3: to is the connection to the mushroom that we started with,

430
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 3: the mushroom that people are eating in Unn province. Again,

431
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 3: this is the len maua asiatica.

432
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And I want to have a note include

433
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:30,959
Speaker 2: a note here on sources. One of the main articles

434
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:34,360
Speaker 2: that's been making the rounds and is great well worth

435
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,360
Speaker 2: seeking out is Rachel Newer's They Saw them on their

436
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:40,439
Speaker 2: dishes when eating the mushroom, making people hallucinate dozens of

437
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:44,199
Speaker 2: tiny humans. This is on BBC dot Com and it

438
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,120
Speaker 2: covers recent and ongoing work by the University of Utah

439
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 2: micologists Colin Domnauer and Brin Dentinger to fully understand the

440
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 2: properties of the mushrooms. Yea, the mushroom is also studied

441
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 2: considerably from both a mycology standpoint and a medical standpoint

442
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 2: in China. So there are a lot of Chinese papers

443
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 2: about this, many of which I was finding in translation,

444
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:12,120
Speaker 2: so not everything is untranslated. And then dom Nauer himself

445
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 2: also wrote a twenty twenty five piece for the Natural

446
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 2: History Museum of Utah titled Experts Explore New Mushroom which

447
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:22,359
Speaker 2: causes fairy tale like hallucinations, And there's also a video

448
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 2: of him talking about the mushroom in that paper.

449
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 3: But yeah, one thing to make clear here is that

450
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 3: even though there is some new level of interest in

451
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 3: this in English language publications, this doesn't mean it's like

452
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 3: a newly discovered species or anything like this. This is

453
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:44,119
Speaker 3: like a long known mushroom that has been used in

454
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 3: cooking in this part of China and is known of

455
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 3: by people in other places around Asia as well.

456
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, our scientific understanding of it is certainly more recent,

457
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 2: but yeah, people have been experiencing this mushroom for centuries

458
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 2: and centuries. Soya's down to the brass tacks of exactly

459
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,439
Speaker 2: what this mushroom is as far as we can understand it.

460
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 2: So first of all, again, it is a bolite. It

461
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 2: is lan Maua asiatica, and it's bolite, by the way,

462
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 2: is a designation both as a general type of capped mushroom,

463
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 2: which includes the likes of edible Porsini mushrooms, as well

464
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 2: as things like the poisonous Satan's bolite, which look up

465
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:25,959
Speaker 2: a picture of it, it looks very satanic. It can

466
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,160
Speaker 2: tell like I should probably not eat this satanic mushroom.

467
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 2: But under modern classifications, bolite is also an order of

468
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 2: fung guy and it also contains non elite mushrooms like

469
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 2: some puffballs. But lan Maua asiatica is a bolite in

470
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 2: both senses of the world. So, as don Nauer relates

471
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 2: in his Natural History Museum of Utah, piece, humans have

472
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 2: known about mushrooms like this for a very long time,

473
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 2: and then within the modern Western history of psychedelic research.

474
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 2: Knowledge of this seems to go back at least to

475
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 2: the nineteen thirty Things get a little foggy here. We

476
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 2: were discussing this a little bit off Mike, but the

477
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 2: story goes that in nineteen thirty four, Western explorers in

478
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 2: the western highland of Papua New Guinea learned that consumption

479
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 2: of a wild mushroom locally known as nanda could result

480
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 2: in visions were that, at least at one point were

481
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 2: described as tiny people with mushrooms around their faces.

482
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 3: So we were talking about this off mic before we

483
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 3: got started. I ended up spending a lot of time

484
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 3: trying to track down these old sources and find these reports.

485
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 3: I did track down the sources, including this really early

486
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 3: one that keeps getting referenced by a Catholic missionary who

487
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 3: lived in the Western Highlands. So this paper is called

488
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 3: Ethnological Notes on the Mount Hagen Tribes Mandated Territory of

489
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 3: New Guinea, with special reference to a tribe called the Mogai.

490
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 3: This was published in Anthroposts in nineteen thirty six by

491
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 3: a Catholic missionary named Reverend William Ross, so he was

492
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:05,719
Speaker 3: in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea. In this article,

493
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 3: he's describing the customs and way of life of the

494
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 3: people around Mount Hagen. Unfortunately for our purposes, he doesn't

495
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 3: say anything at all about Lilliputian hallucinations. He says that

496
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 3: he's talking about like the different stimulants or you know,

497
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 3: pharmacologically active things that people around there consume. He says, really,

498
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 3: there isn't much use of stimulants or narcotics by the locals.

499
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 3: A few of the older people and the tribes smoke tobacco,

500
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 3: but for the most part, quote, the only quasi narcotics

501
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 3: or stimulants used are are ginger called kobana and a

502
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 3: kind of wild mushroom called nanda. And then all he

503
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 3: says about Nanda is quote, the wild mushroom called Nanda

504
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 3: makes the user temporarily insane. He flies into a fit

505
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 3: of frenzy. Death is even known to have resulted from

506
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 3: its use.

507
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 2: It is used.

508
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 3: Before going out to kill another native or in times

509
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 3: of great excitement, anger or sorrow. And then so, yeah,

510
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 3: nothing about little Pusian hallucinations there. There's another relatively early

511
00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 3: paper referencing the nanda nanda mushroom called mushroom Madness in

512
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 3: the New Guinea Highlands. This is by the Australian anthropologist

513
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 3: Marie Ray. I looked this up. This is also kind

514
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 3: of interesting. It documents how the mushroom is used by

515
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 3: the people of the Western Highlands. It says that sometimes

516
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 3: it is eaten and it will make people display unusual

517
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 3: behavior patterns. She says sometimes men who take it go

518
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 3: into fits of aggression, the rare people are rarely injured

519
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 3: from them, and that women who take it kind of

520
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 3: like dance and flirt and converse openly about taboo subject

521
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 3: matter and sexual subject matter. But again no reference I

522
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 3: could find in here to visions of little people. So

523
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 3: to the extent that this particular mushroom is associated with

524
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 3: little Pusian hallucinations. I think that comes in later sources.

525
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 3: Could be in the work the comments on it in

526
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 3: the later in the sixties, I think by R. Gordon

527
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 3: Wasson and Roger Heim.

528
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Lawson and him apparently collected specimens from this area

529
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 2: in Papula, New Guinea and brought them back to Albert

530
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 2: Hoffman to test, and these tests turned up apparently nothing

531
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 2: of real interest, And then researchers largely dismissed these tales

532
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 2: as more cultural than pharmacological and like moved on to

533
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 2: other you know at the time, more interesting substances.

534
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 3: And Rob correct me if this doesn't match with your reading.

535
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 3: But based on what I was reading, this might have

536
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 3: been mentioned in the article by Rachel Nuer or in

537
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 3: the one by Colin Domnauer that they weren't sure actually

538
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 3: that this is the same type of mushroom or related

539
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 3: to the mushroom consumed in You Non Provence. That it

540
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 3: seems like it could be just a different thing, maybe

541
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 3: a different pharmacologically active mushroom.

542
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my understanding as well, that less certainty about

543
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 2: the Papua New Guinea mushroom maybe a stronger case to

544
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 2: be made for a particular psychedelic bow leap that's been

545
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 2: reported in part of the Philippines, like a remote part

546
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 2: of the Philippines. But for the most part, all of

547
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 2: the attention is on Maua asiatica in You Non Province. Again,

548
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 2: this is one where you can go to the markets

549
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 2: when it's in season and buy it. You can you

550
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 2: can see from the photos on some of these articles,

551
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 2: like they're just big bushels of the stuff. It's it's growing,

552
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 2: it grows in the wild and that it is foraged,

553
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:28,960
Speaker 2: but there seems to be no shortage of them.

554
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 3: And one thing I think we should make clear if

555
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 3: we haven't already said this, I don't think we've talked

556
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 3: about this yet. Based on everything I was reading, this

557
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 3: is a mushroom that is used as food. It is

558
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 3: not something like psilocybin mushrooms that is consumed specifically because

559
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 3: you want to hallucinate or have a psychedelic experience.

560
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 2: Right right, I think that's very key. So with with

561
00:33:54,920 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 2: something like psilocybin on the whole, nobody is consuming psilocybin

562
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:03,719
Speaker 2: for the taste. People are putting up with the taste,

563
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 2: masking the taste in various ways in order to have

564
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 2: the experience the psychedelic experience of the psilocybin. It's the

565
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 2: other way around with this substance. People are regularly eating

566
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 2: it because it tastes good. It's supposed to have a

567
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:20,799
Speaker 2: really nice yumami flavor to it, uh, and so it is.

568
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:27,359
Speaker 2: It's cooked, generally, properly cooked, and then consumed for this

569
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 2: express reason. And as far as I can tell, based

570
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 2: on these these accounts that have been reading, there are

571
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 2: no known cases of people taking lam maua asiatica recreationally

572
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:41,880
Speaker 2: or even as part of like a religious or spiritual practice.

573
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,799
Speaker 2: Now it's possible that some you know, some sort of

574
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 2: traditional indigenous usage like that is just simply is simply unknown.

575
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 2: Now it may have been lost a time, but or

576
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:53,920
Speaker 2: is it not reported on, Yeah, or is not reported on.

577
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 2: But for the most part, this is like this is

578
00:34:56,560 --> 00:35:01,359
Speaker 2: a known, not uncommon side effect, but one that is

579
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 2: not desired. It just ends up being, you know, being

580
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 2: an accidental case. And then in many cases people want

581
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 2: to having to go to the hospital for it.

582
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:11,400
Speaker 3: More like a form of food poisoning exactly.

583
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, And when you look at the details of the

584
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 2: of the trip that ensues, you can really understand why. Like,

585
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 2: for instance, we've talked about on the show before in

586
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 2: our episodes on psychedelics that when it comes to study

587
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 2: of therapeutic properties of say psilocybin and LSD, there's often

588
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 2: more of a tendency to use psilocybin because the duration

589
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 2: is shorter, whereas LSD has a much longer duration. If

590
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:39,919
Speaker 2: you're trying to fit your study into a work day,

591
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:43,240
Speaker 2: psilocybin is probably going to be a better fit than LSD,

592
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 2: you know, which is going to be you know, in

593
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 2: excess of eight hours, so it's something like ten to

594
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 2: twelve hours, whereas these Liliputian hallucinations associated with len malay

595
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 2: asiatica they can last for like two days. So it's

596
00:35:57,360 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 2: like you'll go to sleep at night having these hallucination,

597
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 2: then you'll wake up again to them in the morning,

598
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 2: that sort of thing.

599
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's often a delayed onset, so it might be

600
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 3: like twelve or twenty four hours before the symptoms begin

601
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 3: after you eat the undercooked mushroom and then and then

602
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 3: it could go on for days afterwards.

603
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and let's see, I was looking at a paper.

604
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 2: This is a twenty twenty five paper by die at

605
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:28,800
Speaker 2: All titled Untargeted Metabolomic Analysis using up lcs MS reveals

606
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 2: metabolic changes associated with len Malla asadica poisoning. This was

607
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 2: in Food Science and Nutrition. But basically the part I

608
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 2: zeroed in on is that it doesn't seem to impact

609
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 2: internal organs aside from causing some potential gastro intestinal unrest.

610
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 2: Much can be said of classical hallucinogens as well. The

611
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 2: main danger in something that factors into some of these

612
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 2: hospital stays, according to them, is just increased risk of

613
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 2: accident or self harm, assumingly due to the just the

614
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 2: disruption of your perception of reality, Like, are you going

615
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 2: to be able to avoid tripping over the cat if

616
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 2: you're also seeing tiny elves boil out and climb the

617
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 2: side of the cabinet?

618
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know.

619
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 3: While on the subject of the psychedelic properties of this mushroom,

620
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 3: one thing that I think is worth mentioning is that

621
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 3: it looks a little bit psychedelic if you do a

622
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 3: cross section of it.

623
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:34,920
Speaker 2: Yeah.

624
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 3: Have you seen those where they like cut it and

625
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 3: you look inside and it's got these strange wavy lines

626
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 3: of blue and you know, blue and gray and violet

627
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 3: or whatever.

628
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that is that's the bruising And apparently one

629
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 2: of the main names for it locally, and you nonprovidence

630
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 2: is and I apologize for any butchering of the Mandarin

631
00:37:56,120 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 2: here jian shao hing, which translates to something like to

632
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 2: turn blue in the hand, because not all Belites bruise blue,

633
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 2: but a number of them do. So this is not

634
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 2: something unique to this species. But you can imagine this

635
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 2: may have been like very vital information in the foraging

636
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:18,359
Speaker 2: of the thing. You know, there are all these little

637
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 2: tricks of the trade, and they may differ a little

638
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 2: bit from one foraging culture to the next, but you

639
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 2: need to be able to figure out what you're foraging

640
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:31,440
Speaker 2: differentiated from other mushrooms that may not be beneficial and

641
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 2: may not be good to eat, and so you know,

642
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:35,720
Speaker 2: there's all stuff like bruising and what are the gills

643
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:36,800
Speaker 2: look like and so forth.

644
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 3: Yeah. Did we mention also that it does not seem

645
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 3: to be closely related to other psychedelic mushrooms.

646
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this is this is really really fascinating. We

647
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:50,200
Speaker 2: mentioned that they don't seem to contain any known psychedelic

648
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 2: compounds from other mushrooms, and domnall Are in his paper.

649
00:38:56,160 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 2: One of his papers points out that it actually is

650
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 2: probably more closely late to just say the Porsini mushroom,

651
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 2: the state mushroom of Utah. He points out, yeah, than

652
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 2: to any known psychedelic mushroom, certainly your psilocybin mushrooms and

653
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:09,280
Speaker 2: so forth.

654
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,280
Speaker 3: Well, it would have this in common that Portini mushrooms

655
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 3: are used in cooking, you know, get used for flavor.

656
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:17,399
Speaker 3: Usually you get them dried and they make a really

657
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 3: good mushroom stock.

658
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Portinis are good, and again portini primarily

659
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 2: a food mushroom. Much like Mala asiatica. It is a

660
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 2: food that again is one that is foraged in the

661
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:34,920
Speaker 2: wild during its peak summer months, sold in markets, served

662
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:41,240
Speaker 2: in restaurants packs. Again nice, ummmy flavor. And it's just apparently,

663
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:43,360
Speaker 2: you know common knowledge, you just need to cook it

664
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 2: enough in order for it to be safe to eat.

665
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of foods like that, right,

666
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 2: I mean just in our day to day world. You

667
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:51,840
Speaker 2: know that, Well, I need to actually cook this bacon

668
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:52,359
Speaker 2: all the way.

669
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 3: You need to cook chicken all the way.

670
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:56,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and any never We've talked about these

671
00:39:56,520 --> 00:40:00,359
Speaker 2: before in our Dangerous Foods episodes from the pastans.

672
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't want eat raw beans? Yeah, that's serious.

673
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 2: But again, there are plenty of cases of people consuming

674
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:12,640
Speaker 2: undercooked la Malla asiatica ending up being admitted to the hospital.

675
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 2: And it's something like ninety six percent of those cases

676
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:19,320
Speaker 2: involve people having these ELUCUTIONI hallucinations.

677
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I don't think I saw that detail. Ninety

678
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 3: six percent of the people who have len Malla asiatica

679
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:29,320
Speaker 3: poisoning report that they're seeing little people exactly.

680
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 2: Yeah. So again we get a very high percentile here. Yeah,

681
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:36,919
Speaker 2: other interesting things that dominall reports the points that Union

682
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:40,240
Speaker 2: is home to forty percent of the world's wild edible

683
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:44,400
Speaker 2: fung gui, which I thought was pretty impressive. So this

684
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 2: is an area with deep foraging roots. You know, people

685
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 2: have been making use of various edible mushrooms in this

686
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 2: area for a very long time. It sounds like a

687
00:40:52,640 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 2: very very micophilic culture, mushroom loving culture. Again, these are

688
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:03,880
Speaker 2: sold in markets, served in restaurants. In twenty twenty three,

689
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 2: then US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a known Chinese food enthusiast,

690
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 2: reportedly ate some of these during an official visit to China,

691
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 2: but of course suffered no side effects because they were

692
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 2: properly prepared. But yeah, I had to listen back, like

693
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 2: I vaguely remembered hearing about this, But yeah, there were

694
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:25,839
Speaker 2: like NPR stories about this from the time. Another thing

695
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:28,319
Speaker 2: we already talked about, How okay, that doesn't seem like

696
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 2: people are taking these consuming these mushrooms on the whole

697
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:35,240
Speaker 2: for anything other than food purposes, and then they experienced

698
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 2: the psychedelic properties as an unwanted side effect. I think

699
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 2: it's also interesting that, you know, we think about classical hallucinogens,

700
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:47,279
Speaker 2: we think about psilocybin mushrooms in particular, and we think

701
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 2: about these sort of the visionary experiences that are often

702
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 2: tied to them. You know that I'm going to have

703
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 2: an experience that means something, and it may end up

704
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 2: meaning something in a way that mainly more negative, it

705
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 2: mainly more positive. But it's about me, it's about the cosmos,

706
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:07,280
Speaker 2: it's about ends up being there's some sort of insight

707
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:10,840
Speaker 2: into myself or the universe. But that does not seem

708
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:16,000
Speaker 2: to be the case with len malla asataka here, like

709
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:18,359
Speaker 2: people who consume them, they see the little people, but

710
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:21,400
Speaker 2: there's no sense that like there's any insight into the

711
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:23,760
Speaker 2: world or anything like that. It's a it's a very

712
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 2: different trip in that regard.

713
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 3: It is not commonly reported as being either enjoyable or revelatory.

714
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 2: Yeah or yeah, not at all life changing and or

715
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 2: you know, aside from the fact that I think if

716
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 2: you saw this stuff your life would it would be

717
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:41,400
Speaker 2: something you remembered for a very long time because it

718
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 2: is certainly novel, but just maybe there's not much to

719
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:46,720
Speaker 2: really gain from it on it like a personal level.

720
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 2: So it wasn't until I believe twenty fourteen that my

721
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 2: cologists in you non province actually sequenced the mushroom, and

722
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,080
Speaker 2: it was after this that was given like a proper

723
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:59,719
Speaker 2: scientific name. And there's again so much that still needs

724
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 2: to be unraveled about how this is interacting with the

725
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:05,839
Speaker 2: human mind and our perception. But again, people have been

726
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 2: experiencing this sort of thing for centuries upon centuries, and

727
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:13,759
Speaker 2: it's here that we get into another interesting area of contemplation, like,

728
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 2: to what extent could experiences like this, you know, certainly

729
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:22,320
Speaker 2: regional experiences with some sort of regionally available mushroom, or

730
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 2: just littly putian hallucinations in general, to what extent might

731
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 2: they be connected to folkloric and mythological traditions of little people.

732
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's always tempting to make this connection in multiple ways,

733
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 3: Like to you find an experience people have, whether you know,

734
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,239
Speaker 3: citing something in the environment that looks kind of like

735
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 3: a fantasy character, or certain types of hallucinations people are

736
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:49,359
Speaker 3: prone to, you wonder if that has anything to do

737
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 3: with the origins of these cultural motifs or images.

738
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Now we should definitely stress that traditions of

739
00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 2: little people occur throughout human cultures across vast stretches of

740
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 2: both time and space, and as always, we never want

741
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 2: to err in attributing meaningful cultural motifs or imaginary beings

742
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 2: to a single factor. Be that factor something like aligned

743
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 2: with geo mythology or pharmacology or some other discipline, you know.

744
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 2: As fascinating as all of these potential explanations are, I

745
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 2: feel like we always need to acknowledge the potential influence

746
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,840
Speaker 2: of multiple factors, and always acknowledge the potential power of

747
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 2: human artistic creation.

748
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a point we make on the show

749
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 3: a lot. You don't necessarily have to explain a fantastic

750
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 3: image by way of an experience. Creative imagination is very powerful.

751
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 3: Our minds are roiling with images and ideas, and they

752
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 3: always have been, you know, all throughout the millennia. So

753
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:50,320
Speaker 3: there's not always a need to say if people imagined

754
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 3: a type of creature that it necessarily came from an

755
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 3: experience of a certain type or seeing something of a

756
00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 3: certain type, though it certainly could have and it's interesting

757
00:44:58,960 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 3: to imagine.

758
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:04,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, while not attempting to explain everything via exposure

759
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 2: to len mala asiatic hallucinations, it is interesting to compare

760
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:11,440
Speaker 2: some of these symptoms to various traditions of little people,

761
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 2: particularly in the Chinese tradition. And actually dom Nawer gets

762
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:20,239
Speaker 2: into this a little bit, and he points out that

763
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 2: a prominent Dallist text from the third century CE refers

764
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 2: to a flesh spirit mushroom, which, according to the text,

765
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 2: if consumed raw, allows one to see a little person

766
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 2: and attain transcendence immediately. WHOA, now in that, I mean

767
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:41,040
Speaker 2: we are talking about transcendence. So this does seem to

768
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 2: sort of blur the line between the sort of life changing,

769
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 2: insightful psychedelic experiences that may be more closely aligned with

770
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 2: something like psilocybin and what we're largely talking about with

771
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 2: these Liliputian hallucinations.

772
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:59,880
Speaker 3: Well, I could imagine that whether one perceives a hallucinatory

773
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,760
Speaker 3: experience as meaningful or life changing could have at least

774
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:07,360
Speaker 3: as much to do with the cultural context and processing

775
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 3: as it does with the specifics of the experience and

776
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:12,920
Speaker 3: how that relates to the pharmacology.

777
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you could have a situation where like

778
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 2: a common farmer eats these mushrooms, and maybe that farmer

779
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:21,560
Speaker 2: does have something really insightful to take away from it

780
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 2: that has more to do with them and how they

781
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 2: look at the world. But they also might just have

782
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 2: a very mundane response to it, like I saw little

783
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,319
Speaker 2: people everywhere. Don't know what that was about, but that

784
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 2: was weird. Whereas yeah, like a Dallast scholar might have

785
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:40,520
Speaker 2: a totally different insight and might have different ideas to

786
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:45,839
Speaker 2: attach to what they are perceiving. Yeah, so this would

787
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 2: if I'm understanding his reference correctly, I think this is

788
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:54,399
Speaker 2: the mushroom Raljie has described by the alchemist Gihong who

789
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 2: lived two eighty three through three p. Forty three CE.

790
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:01,399
Speaker 2: There are various mushroom is described in this text. They

791
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:05,400
Speaker 2: have names in translation like black cloud spirit mushroom or

792
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 2: tiger spirit mushroom, female cannabis spirit mushroom, and so forth,

793
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 2: and they have at times various fantastic attributed powers, like

794
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:20,319
Speaker 2: enabling one to travel around on clouds. Oh. So you know,

795
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:22,239
Speaker 2: it's uh, you know, it's it's very tempting to look

796
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 2: at these and think, well, you know, we're talking about

797
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 2: ancient catalogs of psychedelic properties of different naturally occurring organisms, uh,

798
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:34,719
Speaker 2: which which may well be the case. So you know,

799
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 2: hidden in some of these and maybe you know, kind

800
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:41,880
Speaker 2: of exkewed through time and and and varied accounts. You know,

801
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:45,359
Speaker 2: we may have an actual evidence of of you know,

802
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 2: of ancient familiarity with these substances. Now, I also looked

803
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 2: at a paper titled a Historical Quest for Little People

804
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:56,359
Speaker 2: Hobbits in English and Chinese Literature, and this is by

805
00:47:56,560 --> 00:48:00,320
Speaker 2: Yakman Kai published in the International Journal of Compared Vrative

806
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:04,840
Speaker 2: Literature and Translation Studies. This paper compared literary accounts of

807
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 2: little people in Western and Chinese literature, and the author's

808
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:12,720
Speaker 2: compilation is I think rather useful for our purposes here,

809
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,280
Speaker 2: because on the Chinese end of things, the author charts

810
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 2: the discussion of little people from around seven to seventy

811
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 2: BCE to seventeen eighty eight, charting the source texts and

812
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 2: their attributed heights. And so the different heights range in

813
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:31,759
Speaker 2: size from about three point five eight centimeters to one

814
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 2: hundred and seven point four centimeters, so roughly between one

815
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 2: point four inches and three point five feet. But a

816
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:40,239
Speaker 2: lot of the heights are going to be less than

817
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 2: thirty five centimeters or one point one feet, and some

818
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 2: of them are more in like the twenty five centimeter range.

819
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:51,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, my understanding of Liliputian hallucinations is that they generally involve,

820
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:54,160
Speaker 3: you know, creatures and people described as being like less

821
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 3: than a foot tall more on the matter of a

822
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 3: few inches.

823
00:48:57,320 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think on the whole, it would be

824
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 2: reckless to say that Lilliputian hallucinations are responsible for all

825
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 2: traditions of people of diminutive stature in folklore and mythology,

826
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 2: because clearly they're just other things going on. And there

827
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:17,880
Speaker 2: are also people that are of a much smaller statue

828
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 2: stature for various reasons, and we would observe them in

829
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 2: real life, and there are all sorts of different ideas

830
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:25,840
Speaker 2: get attached to them. But one of the sources that

831
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:28,320
Speaker 2: the Outthor draws from is of course the famous Chinese

832
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 2: text that we've discussed on the show before, the Shanghaijing,

833
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 2: the Classic of Mountains and Seas you.

834
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 3: Wonder, full text, great creatures and mythology.

835
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:41,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost kind of difficult to describe what it

836
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:44,440
Speaker 2: is because it's we've talked about this before. Go back

837
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:47,759
Speaker 2: and listen to our episodes in the archive wherever you

838
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 2: get your audio podcasts. But it's kind of an ancient

839
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 2: travel guide it's kind of a work of mythic geography,

840
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 2: and it's also a bestI area in many respects.

841
00:49:57,200 --> 00:49:59,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been a while since we did those episodes,

842
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 3: so I I don't want to get details wrong and

843
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 3: how I'm characterizing it, but my memory of it is

844
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 3: that it is a fascinating blend of like encyclopedia in

845
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 3: trees or you know, an imagine geography with illustrations of

846
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:19,400
Speaker 3: what you find here. But it's also very focused on

847
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 3: creatures and beings and it has a kind of poetic

848
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 3: literary quality as well with illustrations.

849
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's something like eighteen books. It has no

850
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:33,200
Speaker 2: known author, though it's often attributed to the mythic ruler

851
00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:35,720
Speaker 2: You the Great, who quelled the Great Flood of China

852
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 2: during the during ancient times. But in Chronicling the World,

853
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 2: it covers more than a few lands with tiny people

854
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 2: in them. And to be clear, sometimes these mentions of

855
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 2: tiny people are themselves tiny. Like this book covers a

856
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 2: lot of ground, so you're like, they'll just be like

857
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:54,919
Speaker 2: one short paragraph that's like, oh, yeah, there's short people here.

858
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:57,680
Speaker 2: They had to fight birds, and then in the next land,

859
00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:00,200
Speaker 2: and then you're like, whoa you just casually mentioned into

860
00:51:00,239 --> 00:51:02,840
Speaker 2: place where there were tiny people or some sort of

861
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 2: strange creature made out of indescribable flesh, and then you

862
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:08,480
Speaker 2: moved on to the next mythic province.

863
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, and next here's a guy with a mouth in

864
00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 3: his stomach.

865
00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:15,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's sort of thing. So but yeah, there

866
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 2: there are people in it, said to be in the

867
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 2: three to four foot range. There are people so small

868
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 2: that they can be carried off by birds. And the

869
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 2: copy I have is the the Ann Burrel translation, which

870
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:32,560
Speaker 2: I think we've discussed in the past, Like people go

871
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 2: back and forth on what's the best way to translate

872
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:38,279
Speaker 2: some of these concepts and these creatures and places, And

873
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 2: sometimes there's a tendency to focus more on the on

874
00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:45,040
Speaker 2: the original like Mandarin words, and then other times it's like, well,

875
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 2: what is this, what would this be an English? And

876
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:51,359
Speaker 2: and Barrel tends to side more with like, let's translated

877
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:56,200
Speaker 2: into English as much as possible. So, for instance, there

878
00:51:56,239 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 2: is mention of in her translation of mushroom people. Sometimes

879
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:04,759
Speaker 2: this is translated more as bacteria people, but yeah, they

880
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:08,919
Speaker 2: are said to appear like a meek fungus. And there

881
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 2: are accounts in other texts of silver female trees that

882
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:15,399
Speaker 2: give birth to these people at daybreak and then they

883
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:18,680
Speaker 2: die at sunset, and this happens like every day. And

884
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:21,760
Speaker 2: in other texts as well, they are described as something

885
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:24,360
Speaker 2: that can be scattered like dust, like they're that small,

886
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:26,920
Speaker 2: and I think that's where we get the idea that

887
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 2: they're microscopic or fungal in nature. I think the original

888
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:34,239
Speaker 2: Mandarin is like jun rin, which means like, you know,

889
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 2: microscopic or fungal men. So this, in this particular example

890
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:45,560
Speaker 2: does seem to line up with little a Putian hallucinations,

891
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 2: the idea that they're just like a lot of these

892
00:52:48,040 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 2: little people and they're so small you can almost almost

893
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:51,920
Speaker 2: can't see them.

894
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 3: Wow, that is an interesting connection, especially with the mushroom

895
00:52:55,239 --> 00:52:57,880
Speaker 3: or fungal terminology there. But we do want to be

896
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 3: clear that we are not saying that we have evidence

897
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:06,160
Speaker 3: that the consumption of these particular mushrooms as they're consumed

898
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:09,600
Speaker 3: today in Unn Province inspired the belief in these creatures

899
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:10,320
Speaker 3: in the Shannahaiian.

900
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 2: We would I owe that right correct. But in general,

901
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:15,560
Speaker 2: you know, we do have to wonder about ye particular

902
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 2: types of accounts of little people, especially this again, the swarming,

903
00:53:19,040 --> 00:53:22,840
Speaker 2: the marching ones more in line with Delliver's travels in

904
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 2: many ways, except generally not trying to tie you up

905
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 2: or anything. They're just doing their thing and we're just

906
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 2: observing them. Those sorts of stories could conceivably be connected

907
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:36,200
Speaker 2: to some sort of lil Futian hallucinations that are either

908
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:41,640
Speaker 2: in rare cases experienced or in particular regional examples more

909
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:44,520
Speaker 2: broadly experienced as a side effect from consuming some sort

910
00:53:44,520 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 2: of a mushroom like this.

911
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:46,120
Speaker 4: Yeah.

912
00:53:56,120 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 2: One of the things that dom Nauer brings up in

913
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:02,200
Speaker 2: Passing that I thought was tantle is the possibility that

914
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:07,400
Speaker 2: there are actually related species of bolite in the Americas

915
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:11,440
Speaker 2: that might also have this property, but we just they

916
00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:13,520
Speaker 2: just haven't been reported, or they're not and or they're

917
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:17,120
Speaker 2: not consumed as regularly. They're not you know, they're not

918
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:21,399
Speaker 2: foraged as passionately and widely as we see in this

919
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:25,920
Speaker 2: Chinese example. So that that brings up the possibility that

920
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:29,840
Speaker 2: even in places where we don't we're not thinking about

921
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:34,600
Speaker 2: there being like a regionally available fungal component that brings

922
00:54:34,640 --> 00:54:38,520
Speaker 2: about lecution hallucinations, there might be something out there, and

923
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 2: it might have been part of an indigenous people's diet

924
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:46,840
Speaker 2: in other times and therefore could have been tied to

925
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:50,960
Speaker 2: again the genesis of a certain type of little people

926
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:55,360
Speaker 2: tradition food for thought. Just make sure sure is always

927
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:56,920
Speaker 2: that that food is properly cooked.

928
00:54:57,320 --> 00:54:59,799
Speaker 3: Well, Rob, I'm glad you picked this topic. I'd never

929
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:03,960
Speaker 3: looked into Lilliputian hallucinations before. I thought this was really interesting.

930
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:07,600
Speaker 3: And apart from the connection to this particular mushroom, which

931
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:10,759
Speaker 3: is very interesting, one thing I just want to keep

932
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:14,719
Speaker 3: an eye on in future research is developments in the

933
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:19,800
Speaker 3: understanding of the underlying mechanism with Liliputian hallucinations, apart from

934
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 3: whatever compound may or may not be in this mushroom,

935
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 3: Like what is it that causes this particular content to

936
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:31,279
Speaker 3: manifest over and over again? That's like the core fascination

937
00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 3: to me, Like why the little people?

938
00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very interested in the years to come to

939
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 2: hear more about lam maua asiatica, like how like what

940
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 2: is it doing? How is it interacting with our human perception?

941
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:48,800
Speaker 2: And then there's also the possibility like there's who knows.

942
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:51,879
Speaker 2: Once we have that answer, it's entirely possible there could

943
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 2: be some sort of even therapeutic application for what we

944
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:57,560
Speaker 2: learn from it. It's just don't know enough about it

945
00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:00,319
Speaker 2: to even strongly speculate about what that might be.

946
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:04,480
Speaker 3: Some of the sources mentioned that because so there are

947
00:56:04,840 --> 00:56:09,239
Speaker 3: conditions that tend to cause the Leputian hallucinations, there are

948
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:12,280
Speaker 3: conditions that we would like you better ways of treating.

949
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:16,800
Speaker 3: And yeah, if you find compounds in nature that reliably

950
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:19,839
Speaker 3: cause the same types of hallucinations, you might wonder if

951
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 3: understanding that could help provide treatments to these medical conditions.

952
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, all right, we're going to go ahead and

953
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,200
Speaker 2: close this episode out. But hey, these hallucinations are an

954
00:56:31,239 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 2: experience and an experience that I have not had. Likewise,

955
00:56:35,160 --> 00:56:39,760
Speaker 2: this particular mushroom, len moa ajadica, is not a mushroom

956
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 2: that I have consumed before. So, if there's anyone out

957
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 2: there listening to this show who has either experienced Lilyputian

958
00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:52,000
Speaker 2: hallucinations for any reason, or if you have consumed these mushrooms,

959
00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:57,120
Speaker 2: these specific mushrooms in traditional Chinese cuisine, we absolutely want

960
00:56:57,160 --> 00:56:59,200
Speaker 2: to hear from you, just to tell like, you didn't

961
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:00,880
Speaker 2: see any little people, but you can just tell us

962
00:57:00,920 --> 00:57:04,080
Speaker 2: what the dish was like. Please write in. We would

963
00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:05,440
Speaker 2: love to hear from you on that count.

964
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:09,400
Speaker 3: Feel free to send us recipes absolutely. Yeah, contact at

965
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:10,920
Speaker 3: stuff to blow your Mind dot com.

966
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:15,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, just as a reminder everybody, Stuff to Blow Your

967
00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:17,280
Speaker 2: Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core

968
00:57:17,320 --> 00:57:19,520
Speaker 2: episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set

969
00:57:19,520 --> 00:57:21,560
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

970
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:23,880
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema, and on Wednesdays we do

971
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 2: short form episodes. Again, we've been around for quite a

972
00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:30,200
Speaker 2: while at this point, so if you want to dig

973
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:32,760
Speaker 2: into the audio archives of our show, look us up

974
00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:36,720
Speaker 2: wherever you get your audio podcasts, rate review, subscribe all

975
00:57:36,800 --> 00:57:38,480
Speaker 2: that really helps us out. Oh.

976
00:57:38,600 --> 00:57:42,200
Speaker 3: One thing, we've been told to remind viewers on Netflix.

977
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:44,320
Speaker 3: If you are watching us on Netflix right now and

978
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:47,080
Speaker 3: you want to keep getting when we publish new episodes,

979
00:57:47,080 --> 00:57:49,440
Speaker 3: if you want them to be elevated to your continue

980
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:53,200
Speaker 3: watching feed, please hit the remind Me button. I think

981
00:57:53,240 --> 00:57:56,520
Speaker 3: that's sort of the Netflix version of subscribing to this podcast,

982
00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:59,480
Speaker 3: So yeah, please, you know, mean a lot to us

983
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:02,240
Speaker 3: if you cribe wherever you listen to audio, and if

984
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:06,440
Speaker 3: you hit remind me on Netflix. Huge, Thanks as always

985
00:58:06,480 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 3: to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. No, I just

986
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:12,080
Speaker 3: gave the email address a minute ago, but let's do

987
00:58:12,120 --> 00:58:14,160
Speaker 3: it again. If you want to get in touch with

988
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:16,000
Speaker 3: us for any reason at all, if you want to

989
00:58:16,040 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 3: suggest a topic for the future, if you want to

990
00:58:18,480 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 3: give feedback to this episode or any other, if you

991
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:24,160
Speaker 3: want to tell us about your experiences with the len

992
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:27,360
Speaker 3: Mawa Asiatica mushroom, if you just want to say hi,

993
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:30,120
Speaker 3: any reason at all, you can email us at contact

994
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:39,680
Speaker 3: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

995
00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

996
00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:45,600
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997
00:58:45,760 --> 00:58:59,080
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998
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:00,640
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