One thing from the article that isn't clear. Do people who see little people actually believe they are real, even when they know about the potential effect of these mushrooms?
This is a fundamental difference between psychedelics such as psilocybin and deliriants like datura. Usually, with psychedelics, you know that what you are seeing is not real, or at least, that it is not normal. With deliriants, even if you know exactly what you took and the effect it has, the crazy things you are seeing feel real and perfectly normal until the effect wears off.
What make me feel goes to the psychedelic side is that description talk about something wonderful, or at least worthy of attention. If it was a hallucination in its purest sense, the presence of little people would be no weirder than that of a cat or a dog.
But the fact that it is generally considered unpleasant and not used for recreational or spiritual purposes is more of a deliriant thing.
There is a similar effect related to Delirium Tremens, caused by extreme alcohol withdrawal. Apparently people across cultures report seeing the same "Hat Man" in their peripheral vision, who disappears when looked at directly, but everyone seems to report the same ominous feeling about him. Also there are reports of people seeing a bunch of spiders everywhere, when going through alcohol withdrawal.
DMT also commonly induces visions of elves (the so-called "machine elves"). Having tried DMT several times I can't say it's something that ever happened to me personally but lots of people report seeing elves on DMT.
For me, I was hit with a wall of metallic gems that warped into a wormhole that sucked me into the void. My body melted into a pool of crystalline jelly, and then a pair of indescribably massive entities with vortex heads that reached infinitely far into space stuck their hands into my liquified body and started rearranging my internals.
It was interesting. But I can't exactly recommend it because it felt like I stopped breathing and died.
I was before I tried. But I also remember that I didnât remember that fact when I took it both times. The second time I was more primed for like organic shape.
The first time I saw something what one could call a giant machine elf I guess. Though the thought occurred to me much later. It looked a bit like Galactus from the Marvel comics, but friendly. I stood in the palm of its hand. The second time I saw a jester. I definitely didnât think about seeing a jester beforehand as I wasnât really aware that they could be a thing.
My first trip was very meaningful. My second trip was mostly interesting. In part because I kept one eye closed and the other open to see what would happen.
There's a matching eye/brain condition where older people very rapidly develop cataracts or other eye problems and they spontaneously start seeing little people everywhere.
Usually their vision becomes blurry, but the tiny characters remain in perfect focus.
J.R.R. Tolkien was on it a long time ago, now that you mention it. If you recall the opening chapters of the book, Merry and Pippin (referred to as 'little people' by various characters in the trilogy) are running away from an angry farmer... because they stole his mushrooms.
As an aside, they didn't make it home from their mushroom-stealing afternoon until the end of the the series.
LOTR is a sequel to the Hobbit however, so 'the first few chapters' are already after the lore previously written.
And in the hobbit there was already pipe smoking folks (although it's less emphasised probably because it was written as more as a book for children - or at least a child).
It's fun to imagine there might be ways to tailor the chemistry to create highly specific imaging and sensations. Probably limited to imagery we have evolved with, because that's what must be embedded in our fundamental brain structure, but intriguing nevertheless.
Where in the brain do visual hallucinations happen? I remember hearing that we can crudely reconstruct images from live scans of the brain. Does that work with hallucinations?
I wish there was a simple concept to explain this phenomenon: the appearance of widespread unified action (a "conspiracy" in the literal sense of the word), but only because the effects of doing X manifest themselves the same way in different places/people, often for biological reasons but more broadly for structural ones.
I guess you could call it something like, "system-limited emergence," in the sense that different systems can have similar outputs if they are structured the same way.
In other words, the idea is that differing groups of people don't see elves because they are all accessing some hidden reality full of elves, but rather because the drug induces the same reaction in a human body, no matter its location.
This maybe seems obvious for mushrooms or other substances, but I think the same concept applies to other phenomena too: the spread of ideas, political actions, etc. Or maybe I've just been watching too much Ghost in the Shell.
Sort of but not really. Iâm talking about actions, not why patterns appear in culture. I donât really think âarchetypesâ quite captures the meaning.
One thing from the article that isn't clear. Do people who see little people actually believe they are real, even when they know about the potential effect of these mushrooms?
This is a fundamental difference between psychedelics such as psilocybin and deliriants like datura. Usually, with psychedelics, you know that what you are seeing is not real, or at least, that it is not normal. With deliriants, even if you know exactly what you took and the effect it has, the crazy things you are seeing feel real and perfectly normal until the effect wears off.
What make me feel goes to the psychedelic side is that description talk about something wonderful, or at least worthy of attention. If it was a hallucination in its purest sense, the presence of little people would be no weirder than that of a cat or a dog.
But the fact that it is generally considered unpleasant and not used for recreational or spiritual purposes is more of a deliriant thing.
There is a similar effect related to Delirium Tremens, caused by extreme alcohol withdrawal. Apparently people across cultures report seeing the same "Hat Man" in their peripheral vision, who disappears when looked at directly, but everyone seems to report the same ominous feeling about him. Also there are reports of people seeing a bunch of spiders everywhere, when going through alcohol withdrawal.
Those are also common hallucinations reported for recreational Benadryl dosages.
The elves are always there. The mushroom just lets us see them.
Humans are not supposed to know that yet. You'll get in trouble with management if you continue doing this.
Finally a rational explanation.
They Live!
William of Ockham confirms
DMT also commonly induces visions of elves (the so-called "machine elves"). Having tried DMT several times I can't say it's something that ever happened to me personally but lots of people report seeing elves on DMT.
For me, I was hit with a wall of metallic gems that warped into a wormhole that sucked me into the void. My body melted into a pool of crystalline jelly, and then a pair of indescribably massive entities with vortex heads that reached infinitely far into space stuck their hands into my liquified body and started rearranging my internals.
It was interesting. But I can't exactly recommend it because it felt like I stopped breathing and died.
Curious what happens if youâve never been introduced to the concept of elves.
I was before I tried. But I also remember that I didnât remember that fact when I took it both times. The second time I was more primed for like organic shape.
The first time I saw something what one could call a giant machine elf I guess. Though the thought occurred to me much later. It looked a bit like Galactus from the Marvel comics, but friendly. I stood in the palm of its hand. The second time I saw a jester. I definitely didnât think about seeing a jester beforehand as I wasnât really aware that they could be a thing.
My first trip was very meaningful. My second trip was mostly interesting. In part because I kept one eye closed and the other open to see what would happen.
From the fine article:
>What makes this particular hallucinatory mushroom so unusual is that it causes the same kind of hallucinations in different people, across cultures.
The GP is talking about DMT, not the mushroom mentioned in the article.
Are they the ones that are claimed to be racist?
There's a matching eye/brain condition where older people very rapidly develop cataracts or other eye problems and they spontaneously start seeing little people everywhere.
Usually their vision becomes blurry, but the tiny characters remain in perfect focus.
I hallucinated gnomes after I took medicine they prescribed me at the hospital, following a bike accident.
Yeah it used to be common advice to not take any drink, food, or medicine prescribed by gnomes.
It'd be amusing to try to trace legends of "little people" to incidence of these particular mushrooms. Not sure how you'd do that though.
J.R.R. Tolkien was on it a long time ago, now that you mention it. If you recall the opening chapters of the book, Merry and Pippin (referred to as 'little people' by various characters in the trilogy) are running away from an angry farmer... because they stole his mushrooms.
As an aside, they didn't make it home from their mushroom-stealing afternoon until the end of the the series.
LOTR is a sequel to the Hobbit however, so 'the first few chapters' are already after the lore previously written.
And in the hobbit there was already pipe smoking folks (although it's less emphasised probably because it was written as more as a book for children - or at least a child).
It's fun to imagine there might be ways to tailor the chemistry to create highly specific imaging and sensations. Probably limited to imagery we have evolved with, because that's what must be embedded in our fundamental brain structure, but intriguing nevertheless.
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46717442
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fsn3.70583
More info about what metabolites may be involved.
I sent the Vice article to my girlfriend and she had a good question and wondered if the mice treated with it see even smaller little mice.
Probably turtles.
yeah, it's probably turtles all the way.
This article ended before it really got interesting. I was hoping it would actually go into the brain chemistry and controlled trials underway.
Where in the brain do visual hallucinations happen? I remember hearing that we can crudely reconstruct images from live scans of the brain. Does that work with hallucinations?
Is this where Smurfs (Smurves?) came from?
I wish there was a simple concept to explain this phenomenon: the appearance of widespread unified action (a "conspiracy" in the literal sense of the word), but only because the effects of doing X manifest themselves the same way in different places/people, often for biological reasons but more broadly for structural ones.
I guess you could call it something like, "system-limited emergence," in the sense that different systems can have similar outputs if they are structured the same way.
In other words, the idea is that differing groups of people don't see elves because they are all accessing some hidden reality full of elves, but rather because the drug induces the same reaction in a human body, no matter its location.
This maybe seems obvious for mushrooms or other substances, but I think the same concept applies to other phenomena too: the spread of ideas, political actions, etc. Or maybe I've just been watching too much Ghost in the Shell.
Yes, you've discovered archetypes. Go read Jung's Red Book, none of this is new.
Sort of but not really. Iâm talking about actions, not why patterns appear in culture. I donât really think âarchetypesâ quite captures the meaning.
More like Eigenvectors/-modes of the mind, which certain stimuli amplify into resonance