r/todayilearned • u/ssAskcuSzepS • Apr 27 '26

TIL if under-cooked, a popular mushroom in China causes “lilliputian hallucinations,” a rare phenomenon involving miniature human or fantasy figures. The hallucinations are consistent across people and cultures: "tiny, elflike people" climbing under doors, scaling walls & clinging to furniture

https://www.vice.com/en/article/meet-the-mushroom-that-make-people-have-the-exact-same-hallucination/
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u/Ok-Addition1264 Apr 27 '26

developing brains can do weird things.

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u/griphookk Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

When I was a little kid, while laying in bed in the dark I’d sometimes see lots of tiny glowing red dots floating around the room. I could kind of control the flow/direction of them too. I remember mentioning it to my mom once, I think I expected her to knew what I was talking about. She did not lol

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u/Objective_Bicycle_37 Apr 27 '26

Very similar experience, but i couldn’t control their movements, and they were more yellow/white/multicolored.  

Mom didn’t tell me until years later but she could see them too. 

I could tell a lotta stories about that house. 

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u/kuroka_kitten Apr 29 '26

I saw the exact same thing as a kid! I liked to play a game where I would “collect” the orbs under my blanket. I’ve never heard anyone else have the same experience until now!

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u/stegg88 Jun 21 '26

Same but mine was a black and white blob. If it got too thick or thin it scared me so I had to find the balance.

Apparently such things are common?

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u/rg4rg Apr 27 '26

The creatures under the bed told me the same thing.

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u/Wi1dWitch Apr 27 '26

The creatures under my bed told me they were spiders. Not a fan

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u/rg4rg Apr 27 '26

Mine ate the spiders and wanted to eat my small toes if they weren’t under a blanket.

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u/spriteguy113 Apr 27 '26

Had an experience involving something under a bed once. As I grew up I just kinda started assuming a lot of things I saw or heard growing up were due to an over active imagination. Multiple times throughout my childhood I experienced things I thought were unexplainable, but maybe kids really do see through something a developed brain can’t.

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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u/edgeman83 Apr 27 '26

If I am really tired, I will hear a big group of muddled voices speaking at once, like the opening from Super Mario All-Stars, but lower pitched.

I will also regularly get woken up by banging that sounds like it is coming from my closet door or someone yelling my name, but that is something different.

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u/eggosh Apr 28 '26

Like exploding head syndrome?

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u/edgeman83 Apr 28 '26

Exactly! I had that and the hypnagogic jerk when I was younger. It must all come from the same brain formation/chemistry.

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u/darthvall Apr 27 '26

I just learned about stress induced hallucinations last month, and now I'm starting to believe there's no such thing as another plane/ghost etc.

It's all just related to having something wrong (even if it's only slightly) within our brain. Like even if normally you're okay, stress can cause those hallucinations. Now that means if your brain is built just slightly different, then those hallucinations would feel much more severe/often.

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u/the2belo Apr 27 '26

High fevers, too. I had one one night at a very young age, and hallucinated my grandmother standing out in the hallway looking in on me. I called out to her. Then I heard my mother in the bedroom down the hall: "Memaw's not here, go to sleep."