New magic mushroom makes users see tiny gnome people scientists have no idea how its doing that

Magic mushrooms? You have gnome idea.Move over psilocybin — there’s a new psychoactive agent on the scene.

A study published last month in Mycologia has unearthed new details on how one freaky fungus makes those who ingest it hallucinate teeny, tiny people all around them — something that no other ‘shroom is known to do.A typical magic mushroom contains the compounds psilocybin or psilocin.They take about a half-hour to kick in, and produce well-known psychedelic effects like heightened color perception, pulsating objects or moving geometric patterns in the scenery.

Users also experience physiological side effects, such as dilated pupils, elevated heart rate, nausea and impaired coordination.Not the Lanmaoa asiatica.Most of those who eat it report none of this: they can seem functionally sober and their surroundings remain largely unchanged — except for the miniature people.Thus far, it’s the only fungus, let alone food, on the planet known to produce such a hallucination — and scientists have no idea how it’s doing that.“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,” said University of Utah researcher Colin Domnauer in a new interview with Livescience, adding that the gnome-like beings appear after about 12 to 24 hours and may stick around for several days to follow.“These aren’t like some vague hallucinations, these are like three-dimensionally-rendered, highly-detailed figures inhabiting your exterior world.

And they’re also interacting with objects in the real world — like crawling up chairs and tables or under doorways.”L.asiatica, a type of bolete mushroom, is native to pine forests in both southwestern China and the northern Philippines, where it’s wild-harvested and sold in local markets for typical culinary use.

Yet, despite decades of anecdotal reports of halluci...