Dennis McKenna: Colin Domnauer is a Bay Area, California native whose research focuses on  unraveling the ethno-mycological mystery of psychoactive bolete mushrooms. With a lifelong  interest in an undergraduate degree in astronomy before changing his studies to the ethno biology of psychoactive substances, Colin has always felt attracted to explore the mind-bending  wonders of nature. In his free time, he enjoys engaging in just about any outdoor activity with  friends, most of all foraging for mushrooms. So he is now a PhD student in the Mycology section  of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Utah. His supervisor is Bryn  Dentinger, also another very productive mycologist. So it’s my pleasure to welcome you, Colin,  to the Brainforest Café. 

Colin Domnauer: All right, well, thanks, Dennis. Great to be here with you, and thanks for that  nice introduction. 

Dennis McKenna: Oh, it’s great to have you here. You’ve been working on one of these  persistent mysteries in ethno-mycology. This mysterious bolete, rumored to be a bolete from  China and other areas of New Guinea. And for a long time, this was basically a rumor that there  was a psychoactive bolete out there. No one knew exactly what the species was or what the  effects were. You reported on this in our previous ESPD symposium in 2022. And in the three  years that have passed, or actually now four years that have passed, you basically cracked the  mystery. Do you want to tell us about it? 

Colin Domnauer: Yeah, well, that’s a good background to, that’s sort of where we were starting  with four years ago. We pretty much, all we had was these anecdotal reports from these  different cultures. 

So it began with Papua New Guinea in the 1930s, really. The first missionaries embarking into  the central highlands noted that the native people there were consuming these sorts of wild  mushrooms. And afterwards, they would start behaving very erratically, running around and  sort of even intimidating other people. And so it was dubbed as mushroom madness. And, you  know, prominent mycologists upon hearing about this traveled there. Folks like Gordon Wasson,  who of course was involved with the discovery of psilocybe mushrooms, and Roger Heim, and  even Albert Hofmann was involved. But they were ultimately unable to determine or identify a  psychoactive compound in those mushrooms. 

What they did report that was really interesting is that the native people attributed this  phenomenon to a type of bolete mushroom. So this is a family of mushrooms that’s very easily  distinguished and discerned from other mushrooms by having a sort of pore-like layer on the  underside of the cap rather than gills, which is seen in most other mushrooms. So, but the exact  species was still elusive and unknown. And that’s something that we’re still challenged with  today. It’s only been recently in the past, maybe 10 or 20 years, that the advent of DNA 

sequencing has allowed us to, you know, identify mushrooms more accurately, but relying just  on how they look has been a real challenge because they’re just so cryptic and variable in their  appearance. So then of the 1990s— 

Dennis McKenna: It’s difficult to reliably collect the actual mushrooms that you know have the  activity because of this taxonomic problem as well as possibly chemical variation. 

Colin Domnauer: So just— 

Dennis McKenna: Right. 

Colin Domnauer: So there were many species of bolete growing there and, you know, they  would often collect them together, mix them together in a meal, eat them together. So, you  know, understanding what exact one is responsible is a real— 

Dennis McKenna: Right. So— 

Colin Domnauer: I’ll just say, you know, then in a similar story emerged out of Southwest China  some decades later. Local people there collect wild mushrooms, hundreds of species of wild  mushrooms, but one, they said that if you undercook it then you’ll start seeing little people in  your environment. And so this was another case of a psychoactive mushroom and they also  attributed it to a type of bolete species. And I forgot to mention in Papua New Guinea, they also  reported the effect of this mushroom to be characterized by seeing little people, you know,  teasing others and trying to chase them away. And so this very bizarre and unique effect was  independently reported in two cultures and attributed to a type of bolete mushroom in both  cases. 

Dennis McKenna: Well, that in itself is remarkable because the psychoactive effects are  apparently not culture-bound. People in the Philippines and New Guinea and China, everyone  sees the same thing. That’s rather amazing. 

I mean, there, you know, we couldn’t point to the psilocybe as the other tradition that has been  well studied. And we know what the active ingredients are, but every culture has its sort of own  lens for the psilocybe. This seems to be something more fundamental, more at the basis of  some kind of perceptual process. And that’s why these compounds, whatever they are, they’re  still not known, unless you’ve made progress that I haven’t heard about. I know you’re working  on this. But that points to a unique kind of activity in these compounds, you know, that may act  at some fundamental level of perception. 

What, how did you, how did you, how do you, I guess, what led you, you made these collections  in China and you determined through interviews with informants, people that had consumed  them, that the species was not a Boletus per se, but this species, how do you say it? Lanmaoa  asiatica appears to be the species.

Colin Domnauer: Right, so Lanmaoa asiatica is what we, you know, yeah, sorry, so I went to  these markets in China and asked the local people with help of a translator, of course, I don’t  speak Chinese, but asked them, you know, what happens if you undercook these, which ones  will have this effect of seeing little people. And, you know, one interesting thing is that everyone  I asked knew what I was talking about. It’s very common knowledge there. Everyone either  knew someone who had seen the little people or had seen them themselves and had a  humorous story to share. And they all, you know, recounted these stories with a sort of amusing  tone. It doesn’t seem to be something they intentionally seek out for that effect, but it’s also  not something they’re, you know, shunning or fearful of. So it’s sort of this playful phenomenon  there in that culture. 

So, you know, I asked these locals who were selling these mushrooms and collected the ones  that they said had this effect and then brought them back to our lab. And with DNA sequencing,  it turns out that they’re this species, Lanmaoa asiatica. Now, this was also reported by the China  CDC, though they attributed it to several different species of boletes and many different genera.  So there seemed to be some disagreement about what exactly was causing this. And, you know,  I think that’s somewhat still an open question is if this effect really is found in all these different  species and different genera, or if that was just the result of taxonomic mix-up, they do look  somewhat similar and they are referred to by a common, you know, generic name in the local  language. So it could just be that. 

Dennis McKenna: So it could be that these are just misidentifications, or it could be that this  compound or set of compounds is more widespread, but probably in the boletus family and the  boletes, as far as we know. When did you go to China to check this out? 

Colin Domnauer: Right, I went in the summer of 2023. And I was there for a couple of weeks.  And yeah, I spent most of the time walking through the markets and surveying, but then also  did field work out in the forest collecting mushrooms. I actually didn’t find them out in the  fields. I think, you know, we encountered a lot of people collecting mushrooms out there, and  this is a very prized species, so they probably got to them before us. People wake up quite early  in the mornings to go collect mushrooms and then bring them to the market because freshness  is very prized there. 

Dennis McKenna: So it’s a prized culinary mushroom. It’s a delicacy. And people are willing to  take the risk. To me, it says a lot about maybe the attitude of the Chinese toward altered states,  you know? I mean, altered states like psilocybin, for example, is something that we might seek  out recreationally or spiritually or for other reasons. You know, we might very deliberately seek  psilocybin and consume those, but people are not, in China, are not using these mushrooms in a  recreational way or any kind of ritual way. The poisoning, as they characterize it, seems to be  accidental, and it’s not always reliable. The same species does not always produce this effect.

I mean, what’s going on here? Is it, do the compounds break down when it’s cooked, or it has to  be undercooked? And the experience itself, is it something that people, they’re apparently not  afraid of it. They’re rather amused by it, but they don’t seek it out. 

Colin Domnauer: That’s an important point to make, yes. So I’ll tell a story to illustrate this  point. I was speaking with one of the vendors selling these mushrooms, and she recounted a  story of how her friend, well, they started all eating this mushroom at a meal for dinner, as they  do. This mushroom is sold widely in restaurants, but also for home-cooked meals. And so they  were having dinner in a group setting. There was like six or eight of them. And afterwards, the  next day, one of her friends was driving home, and said that as he was driving down the road,  suddenly there became many roads. There was like eight roads, and he couldn’t tell which one  was the real one. And so he had to sort of cover one of his eyes, and then he could make out a  better vision of what was happening. And then when he got home, he started seeing little  people crawling on the walls and on the chairs and tables in his apartment. And so she  recounted the story and said, me and my other friends didn’t, we ate from the same pot, and  we didn’t have any of these effects, but he did. So it was really interesting. And it’s not really  known why that is. 

It could just be from, it’s known that if you cook the mushroom long enough at high enough  temperature, it will break down whatever these active compounds are. So it could just be there  are certain pieces in that pot that weren’t cooked as thoroughly, and he happened to consume  those. But it’s also good to note that, yeah, they don’t intentionally seek this out, even though  it’s considered an amusing effect. And I see this also in Papua New Guinea and in the  Philippines, the two other places where the psychoactive bolete is consumed. Same sort of  thing. They cook it and eat it as a delicacy, as a food, but don’t ever seek it out. 

So whether this is just the cultural attitude in these three places, or if this is due to maybe the  effects being, it’s considered amusing, but it’s also been said to be sometimes not pleasurable,  or maybe the long duration, the fact that it lasts several days. This could be a deterrent to  recreational use. So I ended up asking her after that story, because she was saying it sounded  horrifying to her, that her friend had to go through this. And I said, well, why do you guys keep  eating it and selling it? And she said, well, it’s poisonous, but it’s delicious. 

Dennis McKenna: Well, the same kind of choices have been made with other kinds of  mushrooms. I understand that if you prepare amanita properly, you can consume it, and you  neutralize the toxins, whatever. I don’t know if those are the deadly amanitas, but Amanita  muscaria and things like that can be prepared that way. 

Do you think, I mean, the descriptions of these boletes in Papua New Guinea, particularly, with  the whole story about mushroom madness, this doesn’t sound like exactly the same thing. Do 

you think it’s this species that’s at the basis of that practice, or is there something else going on  there, or other possible psychoactive boletes? I know Wasson and Hofmann tried to look into  this. They didn’t succeed in isolating any compound. And I’ve heard it said in the anthropological  literature that this is more of a cultural phenomenon than a pharmacological phenomenon, that  within the culture, consuming these mushrooms at a certain time of year kind of gives people  permission to go a little crazy for a few days. And that’s some kind of cultural pressure release  valve, if you will. 

What’s your feeling? Have you collected this species from the Philippines or Papua New Guinea  as well? 

Colin Domnauer: Yeah, so I found it in the Philippines, and that was really exciting because it  wasn’t known to occur there. But in the case of Papua New Guinea, it’s still a huge mystery. The  mushroom diversity there is still largely unknown, especially connecting it with modern  concepts of species based off DNA sequencing, there’s not much research that’s been done. So  we don’t really know what species occur there, or if this Lanmaoa asiatica occurs there as well. 

The fact that it’s a bolete mushroom that’s said to also produce these same hallucinations of  little people, even though that was just one effect, there were other things, like you said, that  are different, but that has this one common effect. This seems to be, in my mind, indicative of  an underlying shared chemistry. But you’re right to note that these behaviors of the madness  and running amok and these sorts of things that were seen in Papua New Guinea are not seen  in these other cultures. 

And I think this highlights more of a fundamental truth about psychoactive drugs, that it’s not  just the compound that shapes the experience, but the set and the setting, the culture, and all  these things play a role. And so maybe that explains it, or maybe there’s other bioactive  compounds in this mushroom in Papua New Guinea that are responsible. I mean, I think it’s a  mistake to try and reduce or explain experiences entirely by molecules, because we know our  mindset and the cultural setting that these are taken in have a huge impact on the subsequent  experience. 

So it’s still an open question. It could be the same species, but it might be different. I think  there’s some species of mushrooms in Papua New Guinea that are also found in East Asia, but  there’s a lot that are unique and endemic to there. So it’s something that more research will  have to uncover. 

Dennis McKenna: Do you know if this species has been found there? The one that you’ve  characterized it? 

Colin Domnauer: It’s not clear.

Dennis McKenna: It’s not clear, yeah. 

Colin Domnauer: Right. It definitely might be, but. 

Dennis McKenna: So I guess that’s what we can say from that is there’s probably a lot more  interest in chemistry and other species that may be psychoactive that are basically black boxes  as far as understanding their chemistry. But this was certainly a remarkable discovery that you  made, and you’re getting a lot of attention for it deservedly. You’re getting a lot of credit, I hope.  Not too much blame. 

Because as we know, the way ethno-pharmacology works, the discovery of new molecular  entities could often point to new pharmacologies, and eventually that may result in some sort  of beneficial therapeutic effect or other effect. So it’s a long process. But the fact that this group  of whatever’s responsible for this little people phenomenon in the mushrooms, it’s clearly not  psilocybin, and it’s something new. And who knows, it would be very interesting to be able to  isolate those compounds and characterize them. 

But it seems that the challenge that you face is, number one, it’s kind of the same challenge  that Hofmann and his colleagues faced when they were trying to chase down psilocybin. There  was really only one bioassay that was valid, and that is they had to munch them. They could  give them to rats all day, and it was pretty boring. The rats were not so interesting. So they had  to eat them. But to track this one down, because the duration is customarily a couple of days,  sometimes weeks, it’s gonna be hard to find, you need to find some graduate students with lots  of time on their hands, don’t mind being taken out of circulation for a couple of weeks, and the  only way to really test it, although you did allude to, you’re doing some tests of some animal  bioassays. Is that right? 

Colin Domnauer: Right, yeah, so I mean, you’re correct. The faster way to get at this would be  to consume it ourselves. The problem with that, as you mentioned, is the long duration, but also  we have no idea what this compound is, the dose. We would have to slowly step it up. So  there’s a lot of risk involved, and I guess I’m more of a conservative and safe person in that  sense. As eager as I am to understand what this is, I don’t wanna risk anything myself. 

But I will say, in all these cases of mushroom, quote unquote, poisoning in China from this  bolete mushroom, there’s been no deaths recorded. And one study a few years ago apparently  analyzed the vital organ function in patients that were having these hallucinations, and they  found no major detriments. So it seems physiologically safe, based on what we know now, but  we still don’t have an understanding of what exactly the mechanism is or what’s happening. 

So we are trying to identify and narrow down on this bioactive compound by feeding this  extract into mice. Well, not feeding, we’re injecting them. And we see very marked behavioral  effects. So we did this with the extract of Lanmaoa asiatica compared with a control. So just like 

a Boletus edulis porcini mushroom as sort of a negative control that’s non-psychoactive, and  then with the positive control of psilocybin mushroom. And so we saw very distinct behavior in  the psychoactive bolete. And what this was, was at first a period of hyperactivity in the mice,  they were jumping erratically, whereas both the positive and negative controls were just  normally walking around their cages. And then a very long extended period of five to eight  hours where the mice were sort of like in a stupor state. They were not moving or sitting at all.  Even when you poked them with a stick, they wouldn’t really respond. 

So very interesting behavior. And it sort of mirrors what we see reported in the clinical data  from the species from the Chinese hospitals. They say people, they’re having these  hallucinations, but they’re also very weakened and sort of in like a stupor lethargic state for a  long time. So we think this is a good trail to follow, but ultimately, even if we identify this  compound causing bioactivity in mice, it’s difficult to know if it’s the same compound that’s  causing hallucinations in humans. There could be many different bioactivities. So it’s a long  process, as you know, to go from a natural product to a pure compound, we’re making progress  and any progress is good. 

Dennis McKenna: Right. Oh, it sounds like you’re making great progress. I mean, I’m completely  on the same page with you in trying to assess these ethno-pharmaceuticals, ethno-botanically  or ethno-mycologically significant plants and fungi. Caution is the better part of valor because  we don’t know what their toxicity is. We don’t know what their long-term effect is. And  although there are undoubtedly people who are willing to take the risk, they should not be  encouraged to do that. 

It sounds to me like this behavioral assay that you’ve got with the mice, maybe that’s the best  you’re gonna do until you actually, that could help, that could be the marker that could help you  lead to some active fractions. And then, you know, you get the chemists involved. I suppose you  have access to all of those toys and maybe some natural products chemists that could help you  work on these. Are there, I mean, as we all know, science is a team sport. So are there  colleagues in your department or in the biology department that are working with you to try to  track this down? 

Colin Domnauer: Yeah, absolutely. So we’re collaborating with folks in natural product  chemistry and in pharmacology that are doing these assays and, you know, doing all the fancy  chemistry mass spec HPLC to identify and fractionate these compounds. So we have a good  team and we’re making progress. 

Dennis McKenna: That’s great. Well, I have no doubt that you’re gonna nail it down. You know,  you have all the resources and you have the motivation. And so by the time you presented 

ESP60 in 2027, which is very much on track, I guess you’ll be able to completely share with us all  of your discoveries on this. So this is— 

Colin Domnauer: Fingers crossed. 

Dennis McKenna: This is a major discovery, Colin. I don’t want to, you know, inflate your ego too  much, but I really think this is an incredible discovery. You know, even if it doesn’t lead to any  therapeutics, what it could do, it seems to me, is lead to some discoveries of neurological  processes that may be common to human perception. You know, and the fact that the effects of  this, these compounds are not culture bound, really sticks out for me. You know, so that means  it’s not about culture. It’s about neuropharmacology. It’s about brain mechanisms. And, you  know, a 20th, 21st century, well-educated graduate student like yourself would have the same  experience as someone from the marketplace in China that might accidentally consume this.  Everybody sees the same thing. That kind of blows my mind. 

Colin Domnauer: Me as well, when I first heard about this, it sounded, you know, it sounds like  a fairy tale, right? But there’s perception of little people as something we hear about in fantasy  stories. I couldn’t believe it. And it’s one of the main things that motivated me to sort of switch  my career path and study this because it sounded to me to break assumptions about the world  and these fundamental things. How can everyone be seeing little people and describing them as  

fairies and elves in their room and, you know, climbing up their chairs and jumping into their  bowls of soup? Like this sounds impossible, but apparently it’s real to these people experiencing  it. 

And it’s worth mentioning that, you know, this effect comes from these mushrooms, very  repeatedly. But the phenomenon of Lilliputian hallucinations is remarkable in itself and has  been reported much more widely, you know, really globally. Every culture, nearly every culture  has some myth or folklore about little people, however they’re— 

Dennis McKenna: Right, right. That’s true. And not necessarily linked to any psychoactive  substance. It seems to be an element of experience, although other shamanic traditions do talk  about little people, particularly, for example, the Virola snuffs and DMT in general. DMT-based  ethnobotanicals can elicit this experience of the little people, at least the indigenous people will  tell you that, you know, like the Xapiri spirits, which is what the Yanomami who use this snuff  that they call nyakwana, I think it’s from a Virola species. And it’s mainly their bridge to these  entities, which they call Xapiri, which they basically claim that they’re everywhere. They’re all  over the place all the time. You just don’t see them until you take the snuff. And it sounds like  this may be something similar. 

I mean, it’s kind of an unsettling idea, you know, that our spaces are crawling with little people  or little entities, little elf-like things all the time, and we don’t see them. And there’s some kind 

of perceptual filter that these compounds remove, you know, they take it away and suddenly  you see them. And it’s interesting that the reports from China, people do see these things, but  they’re not alarmed by them. They’re not scary. They’re, if anything, they’re amused by them,  which is kind of an interesting. 

I mean, if, you know, I’ve had, I can’t really draw on my experience with unknown, you know,  psychoactives, but I can tell you from my own misadventures of my youth with things like  Datura, you know, where, I mean, the experience is basically due to scopolamine, but you can  get into places where you think there are insects crawling all over everything, including yourself,  and that can be quite alarming. I mean, it certainly was for me when I stumbled into that. It was  many years ago when I was much foolish, much more foolish than I am now, or at least slightly  more foolish than I am now when I ate some, a large dose of Datura without really knowing  what it was. And the experience was very much about seeing things. 

One thing I noticed when I was taking it, what the tropanes do, scopolamine, atropine, things  like that, they dilate the eyes, right? They’re used in optometry to dilate the eyes. That’s what  atropine is used for. When you dilate the eyes like that, if you look at any surface with any kind  of texture at all, this is what I recollect from my experiences, then the surfaces start to squirm.  They won’t sit still, and then so you sort of, that’s not too far from imagining that there are bugs  crawling all over the place, and that’s not a welcome kind of perception. It’s quite alarming  when that happens. And it seems like, but it seems like that’s not exactly what these are. These  are, for one thing, they’re not insect-like. They’re actually little people. 

Colin Domnauer: Right, they’re sometimes described as also seeing little animals, but typically,  you’re right, people or fantasy-like figures. And they’re always described as being rendered in  exquisite detail and three-dimensional. They’re not like these mirage hallucinations people  might be imagining. They’re like, quote unquote, perceptions of these beings. And they’re  abiding by the same laws of physics and gravity that we do. They can fall off a table. You can  scoop them up with the spoon of your soup, and they’ll follow that. So it’s very bizarre. 

And I think what you said about the alarming nature of it, it probably is partly due to people’s  expectations. It’s very well-known there in Yunnan that this sort of mushroom can have this  effect. And so if you know that going in, and then you start to see them, you have a sort of  explanation in your mind as for what’s happening that I think can console you through the  experience versus if you had no idea and you started seeing this, I would be very alarmed. And  it’s just like people who would eat psilocybin mushrooms in the 1800s and think they were  being poisoned and dying and go to the hospital, whereas now people intentionally seek them  out. It’s the same drug, but our expectations completely change our response to the  experience.

Dennis McKenna: Yes, that’s right. That’s right. Well, there may be some fundamental  mechanism that these compounds are revealing in terms of the way that we perceive. And I  think that’s very interesting. As you alluded to, there is actually quite… Well, I don’t know how  extensive it is, but there is a scientific literature on so-called Lilliputian hallucinations. I mean,  this is a known phenomenon. And so that may be a reflection of people that have accidentally  taken some compound like this, or I suspect something more fundamental about the way that  we perceive. If we could remove these lenses or remove these filters, we’d realize these little  entities are all over the place. And what do people say about them? I mean, are they just look  like people? 

Colin Domnauer: No, so they’re always described as being colorfully dressed and very highly  mobile. 

Dennis McKenna: They’re dressed, okay. That’s a problem. Okay, they’re dressed, okay. 

Colin Domnauer: And very highly mobile and appearing in like the hundreds usually, sometimes  thousands, more rarely just like one or two. So they’re abundant, they’re highly mobile and  always colorfully dressed. So that’s sort of how they’re described. 

And that’s not just from these mushrooms, but also from like you mentioned the literature on  Lilliputian hallucinations, which has been the causes of these hallucinations is extremely  diverse, whether it’s alcohol withdrawal or neurological diseases in old age, macular  degeneration. There’s a lot of different causes that for each one, only a small fraction of people  develop Lilliputian hallucinations. But I think that wide etiology can, or indicates that there’s  something deep and fundamental that’s being affected. It’s not like, I imagine there’s different,  it’s not like a same pharmacology involved in all those different cases, but something that’s, I  don’t know why it is that so many different causes or diseases can produce the same sort of  effect. 

Dennis McKenna: Well, that’s what’s interesting, because at base there may be a common  mechanism that shows up in all these different kinds of conditions. So to understand this, these  molecules from the mushrooms might be very useful because you could replicably produce  these experiences. And does it have any medical significance? Well, who knows, but just in  terms of fundamentally trying to understand how we perceive, and just to think that under  certain states, you could close your eyes and then open your eyes, and all of a sudden, it’s  populated with these little critters that can be quite persistent. And they say that the experience  lasts a couple of days. Do people sleep during this, or how does that work? Are they awake the  whole time, or were you not able to really interview people to that depth? 

Colin Domnauer: Based on the reports I’ve read, people do sleep, but it’s disturbed, and it’s not  normal sleep. And when they wake up, they’re still having the hallucinations. So yeah, I think I 

agree that we don’t know the mechanisms of Lilliputian hallucinations, but the fact that this  mushroom is the one thing that apparently reliably causes it, means that there’s probably a  chemical that can be the key to understanding the mechanism of how this works. 

And you’re right, I don’t know a priori if there’s a therapeutic effect, but I don’t think people  anticipated the therapeutic effects of most natural products that we now take for granted. So  it’s a question for the future. But I think it’s still worth exploring and understanding more about,  like you mentioned, ourselves and the world and our relationship to it. How is it possible that  we can perceive these colorfully dressed elf figures in our environment? What does that mean? 

Dennis McKenna: What does it mean? Well, yes, I mean, we’re possibly a long way from the  fundamental research to any therapeutic application. And it doesn’t really matter if a  therapeutic application emerges, that’s great. But I think fundamentally, to understand some  processes in the nervous system, these molecules can be very interesting because they’re  useful, because they are a replicable way to approach this. 

So, well, what are the next steps? I guess you’re deep into it now, and you’re doing the animal  assays. You’ve got chemists on your team trying to isolate the active ingredients. And where do  you go from there? I guess, you know, we don’t know. It’s built into the nature of science that  you don’t know what the significance of the discovery will be. So you’re getting there, you will  publish a full report when you get it and see where you go. I mean, are you being courted by  pharmaceutical companies after you published on your discovery? Or are you holding them off?  Or can you even talk about that? 

Colin Domnauer: There’s definitely interest for sure by a lot. But, you know, I think for now,  we’re still just gonna focus on research at the university and try and identify this compound.  And, you know, we’ll see where that takes us for sure. I’m intrigued by the possibilities, but I’m  not gonna jump the gun here or start proselytizing or anything, so. 

Dennis McKenna: Right, well, yeah, we’re a long way from that. We’re a long way from that,  but. 

Colin Domnauer: Well, there’s been a huge public response to this, as you know, and everyone  apparently wants in on it and curious to try it themselves. But we’re still just in the beginnings  of finding this. And I admire that attitude from a certain perspective that there is this interest  and fascination. I think it points to something about the human desire and fascination with  altered states of consciousness. I think it really shocks people and they think it’s very fascinating  that this can be a real thing to experience. 

So, you know, that’s what got me into this in the first place as well. I was studying astronomy  and interested in understanding these sort of fundamental questions about the universe and  what’s our place in relationship to it. And I thought that astronomy was the best way to answer 

those questions. And when I heard about this and sort of begun this path, it sort of reawakened,  or not reawaken, really awakened for the first time and understanding that there might be a  different perspective to take on answering these fundamental questions about, you know, mind,  reality, and perception. What does it mean to be alive in a world where such things are  possible? 

Dennis McKenna: Psychedelics will do that for you. They do make you question the nature of  reality and make you wonder about these things. So you, I think in your biography, it mentioned  you used to be an amateur astronomer, or maybe you’re still an amateur astronomer. 

Colin Domnauer: I was studying. I got a degree as an undergrad in astronomy, and that was my  passion. Yes, so I’ve always, you know, felt that the, you know, I’ve been fascinated by how our  exploration of the universe can teach us, not just about what’s out there, but about ourselves  and our relationship to it. I felt, you know, things like these big scientific revolutions, like  understanding that the earth is not the center of the universe, or that the universe has a  beginning, or that, you know, that first image of earth from the moon. I think these are things  that totally realigned humanity’s worldview and paradigm shift about not only the nature of the  universe, but about how we relate to it. 

And I think that that’s sort of the thing that I’m most interested in. And I think that’s really the  greatest gift that science can offer the world, is changing and augmenting our understanding  and relationship with nature. And so this sort of thing where, you know, there’s a mushroom  that causes hallucinations of little people, that really shook my worldview, and didn’t feel  compatible with what I was learning as an undergraduate astronomy degree. So I felt like, how  are these two worldviews compatible, or could they exist in the same world, and what does that  mean? So I think there’s a lot to learn about, you know, well, of course, there’s a lot to learn  about the mysteries of the world, but I think our current paradigm, you know, we tend to forget  that it is just the current paradigm. It’s not the final answer and the— 

Dennis McKenna: Right, well, astronomy and astrophysics and cosmology, particularly, is a good  place to start if you’re, or a good place to be if you’re interested in these questions. I mean, you  and I have that in common. I started out, when I was younger, my aspiration was to become an  astrophysicist. And I had a telescope from Edmund Scientific, I used to take it out to the football  field across from my house in the middle of the winter, freeze my keister off and try to see a few  

things, and I was into it, you know. I was particularly enamored and interested in cosmology,  which is the part of physics that basically does deal with these ultimate questions, you know,  origins of the universe and ultimately where we came from. So that was, and it was a very  similar motivation. I wanted to know, you know, our place in nature, you know, and how we got  here.

And I was well, this was all in my early teens, and then when psychedelics came along, I was  well-primed to receive that message too. And because I was terrible at math, you know, it was  pretty clear that astrophysics was beyond me. I could not master the math, but I could. So I  turned to biology and then, oh, well, there’s interesting chemistry out there that does address  kind of these same questions, you know, who we are, where we came from, and maybe the  significance, if any, of human existence. So, but anyway, so, and I don’t regret that. I probably  would have made a terrible physicist. And as it was, I made an okay ethnopharmacologist. So,  you know, that’s where I’m at. 

But your work, I mean, this discovery kind of, was kind of unexpected, right? It’s not what you  came to Utah to study initially, but you stumbled into it, but you’re doing other things in  mycology as well. Is that right? 

Colin Domnauer: No, actually, I did come in with the intention of studying this phenomenon  and making sense of it. I first heard about it as an undergrad and was kind of struck by how  little, really no research had been done on it since the 60s. And I really wanted to investigate  more. I didn’t, I wasn’t comfortable with the explanation that it was merely a sociological  drama. 

Dennis McKenna: Yeah, that doesn’t ring true. And obviously we know now it’s not. 

Colin Domnauer: Right, right. So, I think that got, you know, sort of put into this bin of hearsay, I  guess, and why that didn’t attract research for all those years. But I’ve always been most  fascinated by following anecdote because anecdote to me, sure, it’s less substantial evidence,  but it also points to the fact that it’s the frontier of discovery that all we have is anecdotes. So  that’s, I’ve been really excited to follow that and, you know, enjoyed where it has led for sure. 

Dennis McKenna: Right, well, it’s developing the radar in some ways to evaluate these  anecdotes. I mean, in medicine, you could say an anecdote is a case study, right? It’s an N of  one. So it’s not a control or clinical study, but it’s information that is hard to dismiss. So  anecdotes are very important because they lead to additional discoveries. I mean, this whole  thing with the boletes started out with anecdotal reports that were hard to verify. And, you  know, there was a temptation to dismiss them, but now it appears that there may actually be a  basis for it. 

I think you have to go to Papua New Guinea and see what’s going on there. You’ve scoped out  the Philippines and China, but you haven’t been to New Guinea yet, is that right? You have any  plans to go? 

Colin Domnauer: So I haven’t gone in and, you know, the culture there of the mushroom  consumption and use has really, unfortunately, vanished since the 60s. A follow-up study done  some decades after that. And even then, they were sort of at the point where the elders in the 

community recalled that phenomenon, but it wasn’t something that still occurred. So it would  be difficult to have more of an ethno-pharmacological study there, but still collecting the  mushrooms and understanding what species are there. And, you know, if we did discover that  Lanmaoa asiatica occurred there, that would be really suggestive that it might have been the  one involved. But, yeah, that’s something for the future, I guess. 

Dennis McKenna: Right. Well, mycology is a burgeoning field. And as we all know, it’s very  important, and it’s going to become even more important for many things. Not only the  discovery of new psychoactive species, but for all sorts of technologies. And, you know, it will  have many applications for bioremediation and all of these things. So it’s good to see that there  are very strong programs in mycology that are emerging in different universities. And you  happen to join one of the most well-recognized groups with Dr. Dentinger, right? 

Colin Domnauer: Right. 

Dennis McKenna: Yeah. So are you applying, you are applying techniques of genomic analysis to  these strains? And that’s part of your toolkit, right? Not only the natural products, but the  genomic techniques. 

Colin Domnauer: Right. Using whole genome sequencing to really robustly reconstruct, not only  the species identification, but the whole evolutionary history and relationships of all these  different species. So, you know, beyond studying this one Lanmaoa asiatica, I’ve really done a  global survey and study of the whole genus Lanmaoa. 

There’s about, well, when I started, there was about 12 species described. Now that number is  up to 19. We’ve discovered several new ones. So that sort of helps us in the future. Once we  identify this bioactive compound, we can look in the genome to understand what genes are  involved in, synthesize and trace those genes in all these other species to see how it evolved,  how it spread. Maybe it is more widespread than this one species, but no one’s eaten them in  other places. And that would be really interesting to know. Or if it is just this one species, that’s  also interesting. That’s unique as well for different reasons. 

A lot left to discover. And I think we have this foundational map now of all the species that we  currently know of, how they’re related to each other. And that can help us in the future have  more accurate studies where we’re sure of the thing we’re studying is the right species and  there’s not this taxonomic confusion. 

Dennis McKenna: Right. Is it a reasonable assumption that other species of Lanmaoa, obviously  it’s likely that other species might have these compounds. And that’s something that you could  approach through the genomics. Is that right? Potentially?

Colin Domnauer: Yes. It’s reasonable to expect that. But at the same time, there’s been no  reports of any of these other species causing these effects. And people do collect and eat other  species of Lanmaoa. There’s a lot that occur in Eastern North America. In fact, most of the  species in the genus, including the species that’s most closely related to Lanmaoa asiatica,  occur in Eastern North America. And people collect them and eat them. But there’s been no  reports of Lilliputian hallucinations. Now, maybe this is just a statistical thing where there’s not  many people eating them, at least compared to China. And they’re just cooking them  thoroughly enough. So it remains to be seen. 

Dennis McKenna: Yeah. Well, when you figure out what the chemical markers are, then you can  do much broader species surveys. And once you have a set of chemicals to point to. And so this  is a wonderful work that you have laid out. I think it will define your career for some years to  come. 

Colin Domnauer: I hope so. There’s so much left to explore. And we’re just beginning to open  up this doorway. But like you said, it’s such a rich area of exploration that touches on all these  different fields and questions that are so interesting. So I’m excited for the future. 

Dennis McKenna: Well, I’m excited for the future of mycology. And I’m excited for your future as  well. You just happened to find yourself in a very interesting sector, a very interesting  intersection of mycology, ethnopharmacology, chemistry, and neuroscience. That’s a very great  place to be for a young scientist like yourself. And there are many, many PhDs to be done on this  work. And I’m sure you’ll have a passel of graduate students before too long because it won’t be  too hard to find support for this work. Well, what do I know? I haven’t competed for grants for  years. But I assume that you’re going to be finding support for this work just because it’s simply  so unique and so innovative. 

Colin Domnauer: I hope so. And I do feel very fortunate to have found this and have it be a  fruitful area of exploration. But I’m building upon the work of so many other people and folks  like yourselves or other mycologists that have studied this. I think it’s just a continuing tradition  of science that I don’t feel like I’ve done much, but I’m glad to contribute to the field. And  ultimately, I’m just fascinated by what we can learn about nature and all these fascinating  questions. There is a lot to learn. 

Dennis McKenna: And that’s exactly right. I mean, your work builds on work that came before.  And that’s just the way science works. But once in a while, there are sort of milestones. And I’d  say the discovery of the magic mushrooms of Mexico and Hofmann’s subsequent work isolating  

psilocybin, we see now where that goes. These compounds are among the most promising  psychedelics for therapy. So, and he discovered psilocybin or synthesized it in 1958. So it’s a long  trajectory to get from the discovery. But I really think you’ve put down a milestone here for one 

of the most interesting discoveries of mycology to come along maybe since then. In a very long  time anyway. 

So you’re definitely on a good path. And I very much thank you for spending some time with us  on the Brainforest Café. This has been incredibly interesting and informative. So thanks so  much. 

Colin Domnauer: Well, thanks so much as well, Dennis. It’s been great talking with you. And I  appreciate all your words and fascinating conversation we shared. So hope we can talk more  again in the future. 

Dennis McKenna: Absolutely. We’ll do that. And we’ll see you at ESPD 60. But we’ll probably be  in touch many times before that. So thanks so much for making your time. I know you’re a busy  guy. And appreciate your taking time to explain all this to us. So thanks. 

Colin Domnauer: Happy to share. And I’m glad folks are listening. And I encourage everyone to  keep exploring the mushroom world. There’s a lot left out there to discover. We’re just  beginning to find and explore the mycological kingdom.