YUNNAN — Colin Domnauer, a doctoral student in ethnobiology at the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah, is researching Lanmaoa asiatica to identify the hallucinogenic compound responsible for its effects. The mushroom, native to pine forests in southwestern China and the northern Philippines, was described to science in 2015.

Lanmaoa asiatica is sold in markets in Yunnan, China, for culinary use. Ingesting the mushroom when raw or undercooked can result in Lilliputian hallucinations, which typically manifest 12 to 24 hours after consumption.

"It was described to science only 10 years ago in 2015, so it's a relatively newly discovered species, but it was actually being sold in the markets in Yunnan for decades before scientists realized it was its own species," Domnauer said. He noted that the species forms a mycorrhizal symbiotic relationship with pine trees, meaning it cannot be artificially cultivated and is only found in wild habitats.

Domnauer's team performed genetic testing on the mushroom but did not find any known psychoactive compounds. "There weren't even any known psychoactive compounds, so it seemed like this must be some new hallucinogenic compound waiting to be discovered, because there's nothing that matches anything in our database," he said.

"After about 12 to 24 hours you're going to start getting Lilliputian hallucinations, which is a clinically defined syndrome that's characterized by seeing little people or animals all around your environment," Domnauer said. "These aren't like some vague hallucinations, these are like three-dimensionally-rendered, highly-detailed figures inhabiting your exterior world." He added that users generally do not experience heightened colors, pulsating objects, or geometric patterns.

"And they're also interacting with objects in the real world — like crawling up chairs and tables or under doorways, people say," Domnauer said. "Even to this day science doesn't understand what's going on in the brain to cause this, or how to treat it, and this mushroom is the only thing that we currently know of to reliably produce this effect."