Tryptamines L. asiatica - lilliputian hallucinations

[Allylbenzene]

While I find the idea of this mushroom causing the same vision in different people quite interesting, I'm still pretty skeptical until we get more reliable anecdotal reports or actual lab confirmation of what this mystery compound is.

Skeptical of what? I'll preempt your response and make a claim that we need a new term for the notion of "peer-reviewed blindness" or "literature blindness" wherein something doesn't exist and is assumed to be placebo/myth because the [incomplete] data doesn't allude to –nor explicitly validate– it. Usually you find that academics exhibit this type of blindness but the public do also.

This type of blindness might imply a current of subconscious arrogance. This can be showcased by the idea that a hot-shot academic would dismiss the "Ayahuasca" concept as a mere rudimentary botanical concoction by an uncivilised people...meanwhile the as-yet-undiscovered DMT was yet to be identified.

 

[Didgital]

I never said that just because something doesn't exist in the literature, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I've been doing chemistry long enough that I've seen the literature change... from saying something doesn't work, and eventually someone comes up with a tweak and now it does work. There's plenty of things that exist, that don't yet exist in the literature.

It's not blindness, it's how science works.

Until you can test for something and confirm a fact repeatedly, skepticism is healthy. And so far, we can't test for it and we can't even confirm it's true. We have a mushroom that's been studied for 70 years starting with Albert Hofmann, that's never been proven to contain any psychoactive compounds and has very flimsy anecdotal evidence backing it up, yet I should believe it? I'm keeping an open mind, but the truth is there is no virtually no hard data yet. The mycologist Gordon Wasson even travelled to asia to study this phenomenon, and basically concluded that the locals describing it, were making it up.

Have you eaten this mushroom and seen little people dancing?
Do you know anyone who has eaten this mushroom and seen little people dancing?
Do you know anyone who has even eaten the mushroom AT ALL?
Does ANYONE on BL know ANYONE who's taken these mushrooms?

This type of blindness might imply a current of subconscious arrogance

I assure you, I am quite arrogant consciously as well.

The difference between ayahuasca is there were 1000's of direct first hand experiences being observed, and we WERE eventually able to identify both DMT and the harmala using science.
So far with Lanmoia asiatica, we have neither.

Just because you believe in something, doesn't make it true.

 

[xdrc]

I for my part am skeptical too, but would be so excited if we found a new class of drugs by that!

 

[42007175]

From a 2025 paper:



The metabolite 4-hydroxy-5-(3,4,5-trihydroxyphenyl)pentanoic acid is a possible candidate.

Spoiler: In hindsight - an improbable explanation

It's got an unusually long tail compared to phenylethylamine (the metabolite is based on phenylpentylamine) but there's many examples of active drugs with long tails, including phenylpropylamines and this phenylbutylamine series which interacts with serotonin & dopamine receptors including SERT, 5-HT2A, D1, D2, D3, D4. Designed to be antagonists at these receptors.

Assuming it's the final metabolite it could have originated from the aldehyde & amine. Similar to how the body metabolises phenethylamine -> phenacetylaldehyde -> phenylacetic acid. The 3 hydroxy groups on the phenyl (4-hydroxy-5-(3,4,5-trihydroxyphenyl)pentanoic acid) could be the result of demethylation similar to how the methoxy on mescaline becomes a hydroxy:

See demethylation of the 4-methoxy -> 4-hydroxy.

The hydroxy on the tail (4-hydroxy-5-(3,4,5-trihydroxyphenyl)pentanoic acid) might have originally been a keto group, similar to how the hydroxy (OH) group on cathine originates from the keto (O) group on cathinone (cathinone gets oxidised into cathine):

Assuming the original metabolite identification was accurate and assuming those demethylation/oxidation steps take place, the original molecule in fresh mushrooms might look like this:

(SMILES: COc1cc(CC(=O)CCCN)cc(OC)c1OC)

This molecule would be unstable due to the keto (O) group - similarly to how the keto group in cathinone is unstable thus degrades to cathine. This matches the practice of heating the mushrooms to make them inactive:

The mushroom also contains 2 harmala alkaloids according to this paper:
Chemical constituents from the fruiting bodies of Lanmaoa asiatica and their anti-inflammatory activity
— https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fitote.2025.106531

• 1-methoxycarbonyl-ß-carboline (14)
• 1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-1-oxo-ẞ-carboline (15)

On the blue colour:

You noted it with a (???) but I just need to point out the absolutely bizarre inclusion of Zuclopenthixol on the metabolites list. That makes me question the findings somewhat, along with other strange bits from the paper, such as the suggestion (from a citation, TBF) that l. asiatica is the most significant cause of psychotropic mushroom poisoning despite amanitas muscaria having caused deaths, and some sloppy/erroneous citations. If nothing else, one would think that they would include its presence in their discussion given how unexpected it is.

I'm not a biochemist, but I'm almost positive it's not possible for the human body to produce Zuclopenthixol as a metabolite, no? My understanding is that thioxanthenes do not occur in nature or as a metabolite from any source in nature (due to the sulphur substitution if I understand correctly, let alone the complexity). Could a mistake in the identification/analysis process have mistakenly gotten this instead of xanthene (or something similar), which has been identified in fungi?

If it wasn't a mistake in identification, from my understanding it would be much more likely that Zuclopenthixol got into the sample by some other, unidentified means than that it actually occurs as a metabolite, but that could actually be a useful signal. The study says that it discluded anyone with diagnosed psychiatric conditions and anyone without complete clinical data, but could patients have taken off-shelf drugs, (potentially mislabeled) TCMs or gotten treatments at emergency clinics that might've introduced Zuclopenthixol without that being filtered out from inclusion in the metablites somehow?

That's a stretch, but it's just bizarre that Zuclopenthixol would be found with such a low p-value supporting its presence. Not only because from my understand it's physically impossible to exist as a metabolite, but also because Zuclopenthixol counteracts the reported symptoms, as it's an antipsychotic with hyperkinesia and akathisia as common symptoms. Perhaps they somehow missed that the patients were medicated (either previously or as a result of their poisoning) and that l. asiatica was counteracting their medications or otherwise aggravating their latent symptoms for that patient subset?

Anyway, that all aside, 5-MTP as a significant metabolite being a signal for the disruption of the tryptophan-kynurenine pathway is promising to suggest l. asiatica being psychedelic (although they included the wrong citation here) rather than a cultural artefact as has been suggested (fairly) in this thread.

 

[Allylbenzene]

I assure you, I am quite arrogant consciously as well.

Ok.

We have a mushroom that's been studied for 70 years starting with Albert Hofmann, that's never been proven to contain any psychoactive compounds

That presumes researchers have access to standards for all undiscovered psychoactive compounds.

The mycologist Gordon Wasson even travelled to asia to study this phenomenon, and basically concluded that the locals describing it, were making it up.

Perhaps he was misguided? Not all academics are the same, but some can unintentionally come to misguided conclusions.

This type of blindness might imply a current of subconscious arrogance. This can be showcased by the idea that a hot-shot academic would dismiss the "Ayahuasca" concept as a mere rudimentary botanical concoction by an uncivilised people...meanwhile the as-yet-undiscovered DMT was yet to be identified.

— Arora, D. Xiao Ren Ren: The “Little People” of Yunnan. Econ Bot 62, 540–544 (2008). DOI: 10.1007/s12231-008-9049-0

Xiao Ren Ren: The “Little People”of Yunnan

Xiao ren ren are widely known in Yunnan province, China. The phrase means “little men”or “little people” (xiao, little; ren, man or person, the redundancy being an idiom to indicate lots of men or people, which the standard plural form renmen does not necessarily connote). Xiao ren ren are typically glimpsed or experienced after dining on inadvertently undercooked, blue-staining boletes of uncertain identity. The people of Yunnan seem almost universally amused by the xiao ren ren rather than fearing them or revering them.

I have since met more than a dozen people in Yunnan who have personally seen the xiao ren ren, including one woman whose visual experience, though pleasant, was accompanied by nausea and vomiting. The two first-hand accounts below were unusual in that they were related to me in English.

...

Later, I met a professor with excellent English skills who had actually seen the xiao ren ren.
“It was in a restaurant. I asked for stir-fried mushrooms and just as I was getting ready to leave, after eating them, I noticed moving colors and shapes. I wasn’t worried. My first thought was, ‘Oh, they must not have cooked the mushrooms enough —I’ll be able to see the xiao ren ren!’

...

Her mother had bought some blue-staining boletes from the market and stir-fried them for the family, but she was in a hurry that evening and presumably didn’t cook them for the requisite amount of time. Miss Oh clearly remembered the hallucinations that began that evening and continued into the next day. The walls moved and shifted in geometrical patterns and strange shapes appeared. “I’m sleepy all day,” she said in English. “I see them [xiao ren ren]. And I see flies bigger than the actual one, perhaps two times big. I see little insects. Not all the time, but when the water splashed out.” She apparently became fascinated by the dripping kitchen faucet, for each drop would, upon hitting the sink, sprout wings and legs and crawl away. And she remembered, very clearly, staring intently at the bows of her shoelaces until they turned into butterflies and fluttered off. Her brother experienced similar effects, but her mother and father did not feel any —perhaps because they ate less proportional to their body weight.

From a 2025 paper:

Lanmaoa asiatica is known for its unique flavor; however, improper consumption can induce severe neuropsychiatric symptoms, including hallucinations and irritability.
...
Poisoned patients primarily exhibited neuropsychiatric symptoms, including hallucinations (75%) and general weakness (60%), along with gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea (60%) and vomiting (45%).

 

[42007175]

Ok.


That presumes researchers have access to standards for all undiscovered psychoactive compounds.


Perhaps he was misguided? Not all academics are the same, but some can unintentionally come to misguided conclusions.



— Arora, D. Xiao Ren Ren: The “Little People” of Yunnan. Econ Bot 62, 540–544 (2008). DOI: 10.1007/s12231-008-9049-0


...

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From a 2025 paper:

I do understand Digdital's skepticism - it's pretty shocking that the mushroom's effects are so well-known in China, and have even made international news, while being so poorly studied (especially by non-Chinese researchers) and almost entirely undiscussed by psychedelic communities. I mean, you can order this in hot pot restaurants in Beijing 2500km away from the mushrooms' habitat, so probably millions of people know about it, and the number of hospitalizations suggests somewhat widespread use... yet I can find 100x the online discussion and awareness for drastically more obscure substances. On top of that, it having a unique effect profile and an unidentified, seemingly novel psychoactive basis does somewhat stretch belief!

But, all of that said, between the clinical evidence, the metabolomic analysis, the genetic analysis, and the numerous anecdotes, I do lean significantly toward it being a novel psychedelic. I do still wonder if there's the possibility that it's a non-psychoactive that's having a unique interaction with people with a certain condition or medication, but that's moreso out of my own skepticism and surprise than actual evidence.

I'd encourage anyone with skepticism to look into the published research on l. asiatica. There are few but significant published findings around clinical presentation, regional poisoning frequency, chemical analysis etc. that can be found and read freely online.

 

[Didgital]

Ok.


That presumes researchers have access to standards for all undiscovered psychoactive compounds.


Perhaps he was misguided? Not all academics are the same, but some can unintentionally come to misguided conclusions.



— Arora, D. Xiao Ren Ren: The “Little People” of Yunnan. Econ Bot 62, 540–544 (2008). DOI: 10.1007/s12231-008-9049-0


...

...


From a 2025 paper:

thank you for sourcing direct quotes. I'm generally too lazy.

I do think it's probably real. And the idea of entirely novel scaffolds excites me very much.

But at present we have nothing definitive. Until then, I have to remain skeptical. I don't do research like @tregar I don't seek specific answers, rather I ask "what happens if we do it this way". Some people want it to turn out a certain way, and they way they run their research is flawed.

I run the experiment and analyze it and that's how i gather data. Then I can make more hypothesis/presumptions and test for them. Until I know without out a doubt that theres a certain chemical thats causing these reactions...

It's just how I do science and I am perfectly ok with how i do it.

I also have friends that want an intended result, and mid experiment they think it's not going to work, so they start tweaking it, but in the end, whether it was succesful or not, we never learned what caused a better result.

Doing science and research is strict.

We don't allow unsubstantiated data into the dataset.

Again what you quoted was anecdotal...

 

[General alcazar]

The issue is getting some of these mushrooms. There is no lack of guinea pigs. I’m surprised they haven’t appeared for sale yet given the press..

 

[Allylbenzene]

I do understand Digdital's skepticism - it's pretty shocking that the mushroom's effects are so well-known in China, and have even made international news, while being so poorly studied

Indeed. Surprisingly, ADHD is massively studied but there are zero concrete biological explanations. The label ADHD signifies, quite simply, "a group of behaviours" which is quite unscientific. Yet on this basis (or lack thereof) we see an entire industry, treatments, etc. Of course I acknowledge the reality of the symptoms / behaviours.

Lilliputian: anecdotes, understudied, unknown active(s)
ADHD: millions of reports, super-studied, unknown causes