So perhaps not very recreational as might be assumed given the topic.

Could this mean we're on the brink of discovering an entirely new class of hallucinogens?

While occasionally FOAFs would get hallucinogenic effects from dining, I don't recall explicitly hearing of anyone seeing little people, or hearing the term he details in this writing. As such, I wonder where this guy gets his info from. Certainly, most Yunnanese would describe these mushrooms as 牛肝菌 ("bolete") and more specific Chinese common names for similar reddish species would include 桃红牛肝菌 ("peach-colored bolete"). As a general type, they are very common in markets across much of Yunnan.

Given the claims, the clearly infrequent effects, and the personal experience I can trust, I would conclude with three theories: perhaps either the compounds are rapidly degraded when non-fresh, safely broken down when cooking (traditionally these mushrooms are cut thinly before sauteeing or boiling in hotpot), or there are one or two "look alike" species which are more rarely found and contain additional compounds which are responsible for the occasional effects.

I wonder what the brain is doing…

It’s a little bit crazy, I know, but it’s odd to me that evolutionary forces would produce a mushroom that makes you have some specific hallucinations, rather than simply make things swirl together or simply produce intense feelings of euphoria or dread. I mean, marijuana just gets you high and that’s that.

I've been to Yunnan and have eaten that mushroom too (properly cooked!). We can find closely related species to this one in the wild in Japan too, but documentation for those Lanmaoa species found outside China is currently lacking, I believe.

EDIT: Found the field guide I was thinking about on my shelf. It's "中国真菌志 牛肝菌科(III)" [1], which is only about boletes!

[1] https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%9C%9F%E8%...

For example, members of a famous forum recently found, analyzed for alkaloid content, and re-cultivated a strain of Phalaris Aquatica because of its notable alkaloid content. Some other mushrooms became popular this way as well — for example, Psilocybe Natalensis, first found in Natal, Africa. Or the now famous Tamarind Tree British Virgin Islands (TTBVI) Panaeolus Cyanescens that’s widely cultivated at home.

So IMO it's not only scientists, but often enthusiasts who end up gifting these discoveries to everyone else!

https://attheu.utah.edu/science-technology/mushroom-causes-f...

Doesn't say how, for some reason. I presume they are shocked to see tiny mice, but I would like to know what behaviors they exhibited.

https://www.fractal-timewave.com/articles.php

You can get a free-libre Unix timewave generator there:

https://github.com/kl4yfd/timewave_z3r0

It's a bit pseudo-science but some Chinese wrote an article on the I-Ching and patterns and it can have a bit of truth on it.

https://vixra.org/abs/2409.0093 [ Chinese, use whatever tool you like to translate it]

I said this because both Mckenna and Peter did writtings about DMT and the experiences under it:

https://scribe.rip/illumination/terence-mckenna-explores-the...

>Terence had symbolically left a single mushroom standing in the middle of the hut. As they sat there, for a fleeting moment Terence saw “not a mature mushroom but a planet, the earth, lustrous and alive, blue and tan and dazzling white.” Dennis saw the exact same image and concluded the experiment had been a success. Terence was not convinced.

I saw this in a dream too; but I remember descending uber fast from space to home, as if I were in a amusement ride, that one where you are dropped at high speeds from a fair height, but with far more vertigo. Also, I was in space in some kind of a capsule before the jump.

PS: wouldn't it be nice to actually be able to ping his DID from anywhere?