A Fish That Can Give You Tripping Effects Just As Consuming LSD

Everyone has different choice of drug when it comes to getting high. But, on some rare occasions people got high on eating fish. Yes fish!

Tino Strauss/CC BY-SA 3.0

Meet Sarpa-Salpa, a cute looking fish that can give you same effects as consuming LSD. It's Recognizable by gold stripes on its side.

Sarpa-Salpa — In Arabic because of its properties, known as , "The fish that makes dreams".

Few cases reported where after eating Sarpa-Salpa fish, people faced intense hallucinations.

in 1994, a 40-year-old man felt nauseated about two hours after enjoying fresh baked Sarpa-Salpa on his vacation on the French Riviera. With symptoms like blurred vision, muscle weakness and vomiting persisting and worsening throughout the next day, he cut his vacation short and hopped in the car, only to realize mid-journey that he couldn’t drive with all the screaming animals distracting him. These giant arthropods—mere hallucinations, of course—were the last straw. The man directed himself to a hospital, where he recovered completely after 36 hours. He couldn’t recall a thing.

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The next reported incident came in 2002, when after purchasing, cleaning and eating the fish in Saint Tropez, also on the French Riviera, a 90-year-old man started to experience hallucinations of screaming humans and squawking birds. For two nights he had horrifying nightmares, but he didn’t let anyone know, thinking he was developing a mental illness. Fortunately for him, the effects of the fish subsided after a couple days.

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As you can see, the incidents are far between, why?

Researchers has said that, The poison actually doesn’t come from the fish, but rather from the exponential accumulation of toxic phytoplankton that live on seagrass, a staple of the fish’s diet. And also these hallucinations happens when consuming certain parts of fish like head.

Sarpa-Salpa with its common name Salema Porgy is normally found in Mediterranean and around Spain, and along the west and south coasts of Africa.

You may find this fish at Mediterranean local restaurants and even then you may or may not get LSD like effects, as it depends on what fish ate before getting served on your plate.