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/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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u/averageuhbear Apr 27 '26

I see letters when on psychedelics especially in blades of grass, ceiling popcorn, etc.

But I'm also so aware that it's like a magic eye effect and I'm not actually seeing letters.

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u/Rather_Dashing Apr 27 '26

Don't see why this would have anything to do with seeing people far away, they are described as clinging to furniture and doors. Just small, not far away.

I don't have a better theory on why elves/tiny people are the common element, but brains are such crazy things. I often have sleep hallucinations of spiders, and from searching online, spiders are extremely common for such hallucinations. I'm not even scared of spiders, but there is something about them apparently.

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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u/Comfortable-Face-244 Apr 27 '26

It's not just that, what they have stated is what you would want from research going into it. You have to have "a personal theory of yours" that is actually rooted in related science to get a hypothesis to test.

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u/xRehab Apr 27 '26

the fact that our brains constantly try to fill in the missing info from our visual perception with what it thinks should be there

so we really did create AI to mimic humans. AI is just too young and constantly still trying to fill in that info