[astronads]

It is interesting how the hallucinations consistently represent tiny people/elves to the mushroom consumer, even across geography/culture.

I wonder what the brain is doing…

[nospice]

Could be that the mushroom just temporarily interferes with the substances the elves put in our water supply to keep us in the dark?

[eykanal]

This is some real antimemetics stuff here :) (https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub if you're not familiar)

[joe8756438]

exactly, the real question is what the elves are doing while they’re unseen.

[egypturnash]

s/elves/government

[pea]

I think it makes sense given the following:

- Your brain has been trained extensively to recognize faces / people. Even very small babies can do this.

- Your brain processes a large amount of mostly noise, and sometimes mislabels noise as objects, which trends towards face-like things (see: seeing faces in clouds, people in shadows etc.) Various classes of substances make this effect more noticeable (even stimulants, including caffeine)

- The jump from that to 'elves' is largely just cultures have some form of small magical person.

[sandspar]

>Caffeine increases pareidolia

I like that coffee is clearly a drug, a mind-alterer. But it's mostly harmless so it's been boosted as a sort of society-wide mascot. Humans really love drugs.

[akka47]

Since we're in the topic of elves and common hallucinations, I want to share these Salvia trip replicas that some say are extremely accurate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2IRKuS3sSE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65XfIpJdlEY

[ceroxylon]

It gets the visuals accurate, but the experience includes a lot of physical sensation that is very difficult to convey, e.g. the 'wind' that pushes you back and the discomfort of going into a chaotic dissociated state. You see those things but it feels very 'real'.

[OldSchool]

Wow, looks terrifying!

I can only speak for medically-administered intravenous Ketamine, but I would describe it as like relatively effortlessly floating inside of the non-physical space inside of you and meeting yourself in metaphor, all the while completely aware. The biggest risk seemed to be temporarily becoming a relatively inanimate part of the infrastructure there, and even that was a sort of pleasant and satisfying state.

[treetalker]

Would be interesting if the chemical mechanism is related or similar to the DMT one that creates the "machine elves" experience.

[etyhhgfff]

I had a DMT breakthrough experience and was able to communicate, via something like Neuralink, to the entities and for me they did not look like machine elves, but rather some type of alien (a bit like species 8472).

So not everyone is seeing elves is my point here.

[astronads]

Yeah, the machine elves rabbit hole is interesting for sure. I hope a lot more rigorous science delves into both mushrooms and DMT

[tokai]

Lilliputian hallucinations are also common in mental illnesses with hallucinations. Definitely some kind of physical foundation for it in the human brain.

[adzm]

I imagine it is something similar to pareidolia.

[newman8r]

reminds me of trip reports from people trying Salvia Divinorum - there's even a name for these tiny people, 'Smelves'

[bilsbie]

Occam’s razor would say they’re real.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

I wonder what lab rats would experience - lots of tiny rats ?

[flir]

These mushrooms are small, these elves are far away.

[seg_lol]

You will get a kick out of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVUuoXAkuUg a Corridor Crew video on in-camera forced perspective effects.