4 ms·

In my part of Sweden, young women used to be alone with the cattle in the forest all summer (http://www.hhogman.se/summer-pasture.htm http://www.hhogman.se/summ

In my part of Sweden, young women used to be alone with the cattle in the forest all summer (http://www.hhogman.se/summer-pasture.htm http://www.hhogman.se/summer-pasture.htm) An ancestor of mine, something like a great-great grandmother, woke up to see a family of very small, about knee-high, people driving their flock of very small cattle. This wasn't very unusual. Everyone knew about småfolk (little people) and they were usually described in similar ways. On Sundays they could be seen on the forest pathways leading to church, wearing traditional Sunday clothes. This fascinates me. Of course I don't think there's a parallel society of tiny humans living in the Swedish forests but I don't think that most people were lying either. I wonder what makes you experience something like that.

mcv 5y ago
Sometimes, when my mind is tired, it switches to a state where it interprets things that are large and far away as being small and nearby. I wonder if that phenomenon could explain why so many people see little people doing the same things regular people do.
- neuronic 5y ago
  I have a similar effect with Cannabis. I can see things and recognize their distance but my mind distorts it and says "Hey, wait a second, these 10cm might also be 10m, you never know!" All while I can clearly see it not being 10m. I know it's 10cm but my mind doesn't "accept" it. I wonder if the drug triggers pathways that might be triggered in 'natural' situations as well, such as fatigue.
b112 5y ago
Could just be midgets (I hope that term is not mysteriously offensive, if so, sorry), but who felt shunned, intermarried, thus strengthening the genes. Look at how big, and how small dogs can be. Why not humans, too?
- gpt5 5y ago
  > Look at how big, and how small dogs can be. Why not humans, too? Search for photos of the shortest humans, they are proportionally as small as small vs big dogs.
  - b112 5y ago
    Photos only go back 150 years, and were very rare. In terms of adult human size, no way. There are little dogs, smaller than domestic cats, and dogs as big as an adult human male. EG, almost 200lbs, 5 to 6 feet on hind legs. Have you seen many human adults, smaller than a baby?
- ihateolives 5y ago
  Dogs needed a mutation for that, cats for example did not have that and are all roughly the same size. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00209-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00209-0
  - msrenee 5y ago
    It's not just the one mutation that causes the size range of dogs. That's probably a factor, but I feel comfortable saying that we would have a much wider variety of cat sizes if they had had as much selective breeding for size and type as dogs.
    - mckeed 5y ago
      There's evidence that the structure of the dog genome makes it easier to breed for various characteristics – the "slippery genome" theory [1]. It looks like the science isn't fully settled, however [2]. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17437958/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17437958/ [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/hdy201098 https://www.nature.com/articles/hdy201098
      - msrenee 5y ago
        Thanks for the links. I'll read through them when I've got the time. Having not read any of your references, I'd like to point out that the variation in domestic horses is right up there with dogs. You go from Shires to Miniature Horses, Arabians to Clydesdales. It's a huge spectrum because they were bred for specific tasks. I feel like even domestic rabbits and chickens see more variation than cats. Maybe cats are just that stubborn or maybe we don't have many jobs for them besides pest control and snuggling.
retSava 5y ago
I remember, about 25 years ago when I was in the military, marching at night after a week of sleep and food deprivation, that I started seeing things. Just over the tree silhouettes I saw a circus tent, and I heard circus music and ruckus. The mind does strange things when you are tired, bored, or stimulated to (eg flicker-induced hallucinations). I also firmly believe tales of gnomes and such are a way to explain what cannot otherwise be explained. "I don't know what caused this, gotta be the rascal tomte again." Reasons have always been invented even when the invented reasons themselves raise more questions than what they should explain.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  It’s even weirder when it’s shared. Also in the military, we stopped for an MRE break and my buddy’s MRE flew out of his ruck, held by some glowing creature and flew off into the woods. We both looked at each other and said, “did you see that?” His MRE was gone, we couldn’t explain it without seeming crazy and never spoke of it again.
  - kuhewa 5y ago
    This made me recall trip reports from erowid back in the day, apparently tripping on several grams of fresh ground nutmeg similarly was noted to result in hallucinations shared between tripping partners.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
    I suppose it's possible it was a very bold owl. One time when I was camping late at night I took a piss out at this fence line facing a wide open field under a full moon. This freakin' huge owl flew right past a couple meters to one side of me, scaring the crap out of me. It was completely and utterly silent; no wing flapping noise. In the moonlight it did look like it was glowing.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      That is certainly possible. We just dismissed it as being tired, hungry and seeing shit. I didn’t even remember it until being reminded of my own impossible military ruck experience.
kuhewa 5y ago
those long periods of isolation and limited novel stimuli that were presumably common in pre modern times probably had a similar effect as the various mild hallucinations you experience during a long meditation session. Also, I don't have a source for this due to Google's fuzzy keyword matching and my efforts limited to about 90 sec but IIRC even Nietzsche had pondered if miracles were previously more common due to dietary deficiencies causing hallucinations. I do agree though that it is interesting and even with a simple materialist explaination, the fact that people would see similar diminutive mythical people across cultures is fascinating. Hawaiians had menehune, etc etc. I tend to think of that in the Joseph Campbell collective unconscious sort of way.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  Grain getting in infected with ergot has been blamed for hallucinations. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/botanical-origins-medieval-madness https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/botanical-origin... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism
  - kuhewa 5y ago
    Good call. I can't imagine that it wasn't responsible to some degree. I wonder if cultures that grew rye/wheat/barley had a higher rate of attributable phenomena than those that didn't grow cereals that support Claviceps purpurea
  - andybak 5y ago
    Assuming the effects of ergot are similar to those of LSD (to which it is closely related) - it just doesn't work like that. There are some drugs that cause you to literally see things that aren't there (Datura springs to mind) but most hallucinogens merely distort perceptions. There is a degree of pareidolia but the hollywood depiction of people tripping and seeing pink elephants is very far from the actual experience.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
type0 5y ago
Probably was caused by Alice in Wonderland syndrome, Lilliputian hallucinations or something similar

mcv 5y ago

Sometimes, when my mind is tired, it switches to a state where it interprets things that are large and far away as being small and nearby. I wonder if that phenomenon could explain why so many people see little people doing the same things regular people do.

neuronic 5y ago
I have a similar effect with Cannabis. I can see things and recognize their distance but my mind distorts it and says "Hey, wait a second, these 10cm might also be 10m, you never know!" All while I can clearly see it not being 10m. I know it's 10cm but my mind doesn't "accept" it. I wonder if the drug triggers pathways that might be triggered in 'natural' situations as well, such as fatigue.

b112 5y ago

Could just be midgets (I hope that term is not mysteriously offensive, if so, sorry), but who felt shunned, intermarried, thus strengthening the genes. Look at how big, and how small dogs can be. Why not humans, too?

gpt5 5y ago
> Look at how big, and how small dogs can be. Why not humans, too? Search for photos of the shortest humans, they are proportionally as small as small vs big dogs.
- b112 5y ago
  Photos only go back 150 years, and were very rare. In terms of adult human size, no way. There are little dogs, smaller than domestic cats, and dogs as big as an adult human male. EG, almost 200lbs, 5 to 6 feet on hind legs. Have you seen many human adults, smaller than a baby?
ihateolives 5y ago
Dogs needed a mutation for that, cats for example did not have that and are all roughly the same size. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00209-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00209-0
- msrenee 5y ago
  It's not just the one mutation that causes the size range of dogs. That's probably a factor, but I feel comfortable saying that we would have a much wider variety of cat sizes if they had had as much selective breeding for size and type as dogs.
  - mckeed 5y ago
    There's evidence that the structure of the dog genome makes it easier to breed for various characteristics – the "slippery genome" theory [1]. It looks like the science isn't fully settled, however [2]. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17437958/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17437958/ [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/hdy201098 https://www.nature.com/articles/hdy201098
    - msrenee 5y ago
      Thanks for the links. I'll read through them when I've got the time. Having not read any of your references, I'd like to point out that the variation in domestic horses is right up there with dogs. You go from Shires to Miniature Horses, Arabians to Clydesdales. It's a huge spectrum because they were bred for specific tasks. I feel like even domestic rabbits and chickens see more variation than cats. Maybe cats are just that stubborn or maybe we don't have many jobs for them besides pest control and snuggling.

retSava 5y ago

I remember, about 25 years ago when I was in the military, marching at night after a week of sleep and food deprivation, that I started seeing things. Just over the tree silhouettes I saw a circus tent, and I heard circus music and ruckus. The mind does strange things when you are tired, bored, or stimulated to (eg flicker-induced hallucinations). I also firmly believe tales of gnomes and such are a way to explain what cannot otherwise be explained. "I don't know what caused this, gotta be the rascal tomte again." Reasons have always been invented even when the invented reasons themselves raise more questions than what they should explain.

withinboredom 5y ago
It’s even weirder when it’s shared. Also in the military, we stopped for an MRE break and my buddy’s MRE flew out of his ruck, held by some glowing creature and flew off into the woods. We both looked at each other and said, “did you see that?” His MRE was gone, we couldn’t explain it without seeming crazy and never spoke of it again.
- kuhewa 5y ago
  This made me recall trip reports from erowid back in the day, apparently tripping on several grams of fresh ground nutmeg similarly was noted to result in hallucinations shared between tripping partners.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  I suppose it's possible it was a very bold owl. One time when I was camping late at night I took a piss out at this fence line facing a wide open field under a full moon. This freakin' huge owl flew right past a couple meters to one side of me, scaring the crap out of me. It was completely and utterly silent; no wing flapping noise. In the moonlight it did look like it was glowing.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    That is certainly possible. We just dismissed it as being tired, hungry and seeing shit. I didn’t even remember it until being reminded of my own impossible military ruck experience.

kuhewa 5y ago

those long periods of isolation and limited novel stimuli that were presumably common in pre modern times probably had a similar effect as the various mild hallucinations you experience during a long meditation session. Also, I don't have a source for this due to Google's fuzzy keyword matching and my efforts limited to about 90 sec but IIRC even Nietzsche had pondered if miracles were previously more common due to dietary deficiencies causing hallucinations. I do agree though that it is interesting and even with a simple materialist explaination, the fact that people would see similar diminutive mythical people across cultures is fascinating. Hawaiians had menehune, etc etc. I tend to think of that in the Joseph Campbell collective unconscious sort of way.

lostlogin 5y ago
Grain getting in infected with ergot has been blamed for hallucinations. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/botanical-origins-medieval-madness https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/botanical-origin... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism
- kuhewa 5y ago
  Good call. I can't imagine that it wasn't responsible to some degree. I wonder if cultures that grew rye/wheat/barley had a higher rate of attributable phenomena than those that didn't grow cereals that support Claviceps purpurea
- andybak 5y ago
  Assuming the effects of ergot are similar to those of LSD (to which it is closely related) - it just doesn't work like that. There are some drugs that cause you to literally see things that aren't there (Datura springs to mind) but most hallucinogens merely distort perceptions. There is a degree of pareidolia but the hollywood depiction of people tripping and seeing pink elephants is very far from the actual experience.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

type0 5y ago

Probably was caused by Alice in Wonderland syndrome, Lilliputian hallucinations or something similar