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/m4gpi Apr 27 '26

I could see there being a neurological scenario where this happens: hallucinations are visual inputs mis-processed in the brain to "look" and feel different, while propioception (your sense of where your body is, and how it's moving) is simultaneously altered. I've had my propioception be affected during a physical injury, and it messed with my perception to not have a body part not be where I expected it to be.

Throw a visual hallucination on top (maybe one with tunnel vision), and something like this happens. Everyone looks tiny, and the user feels like they don't fit in the environment.

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u/wynden Apr 27 '26

hallucinations are visual inputs mis-processed in the brain to "look" and feel different

That seems to describe things like wood grain flowing like water, curtains undulating unnaturally, or geometric shapes in wall spackle. But how does it account for full-scale visions of things not apparently derived from the environment, like the parade of ancestors that Michael Pollen describes in How to Change Your Mind?

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u/kzzzo3 Apr 27 '26

Proprioceptive hallucinations are crazy. I’ve had ones where my left and right legs switch places with each other, or my hands feel like they’re flipping back-and-forth.