Research | Fireside Project
Peer-reviewed paper just published in Science Advances: The Fireside Database, 25,419 conversations. Read it 
The world's largest psychedelic dataset

Where Research
Meets Real Life

Since 2021, we’ve supported tens of thousands of callers, with almost every set, setting, and substance. We’re currently receiving over 1,000 calls per month. Part of our mission is to learn from these calls and share what we’ve learned with the field, helping everyone have safer and more healing journeys.

Our research partners

Mount Sinai School of Medicine Harvard Medical School Emory University
UCSF School of Medicine Massachusetts General Hospital University of New Mexico Psychedelic Mental Health Access Alliance

Where the rubber meets the road.

Our unique view on what’s actually happening in the psychedelic field.

Because of the tens of thousands of conversations we’ve had on our Psychedelic Support Line, we are uniquely positioned to learn how psychedelics are actually being used - from recreational to religious, from underground to regulated access, from clinical to non-clinical.

We speak with people in the midst of psychedelic experiences, and with those integrating journeys weeks or years later. Our callers seek support with a broad spectrum of substances - psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, 5-MeO-DMT, ibogaine - and arrive from every background, every age, every lived experience. We also speak regularly with active service members, military veterans, and first responders.

Each conversation produces a triple-bundled record:
The call log - structured notes from the volunteer who took the call.
The post-call survey - sent the day after, capturing how the caller felt before, during, and after.
The anonymized conversation - de-identified transcripts of what was actually said.

We believe this is by far the largest and richest dataset in history of psychedelic conversations - and it expands every day. This unprecedented repository facilitates deeper understanding of every dimension of the psychedelic experience, all of which we endeavor to leverage in service of the field.

A glimpse of our data.

Seven charts from our recently published Five-Year Impact Report, a preliminary look at what conversations have begun to reveal.

Caller demographics.

We support callers from every background, age, and lived experience. The diversity of our dataset is part of what makes it so unique and impactful to the field.

Race & ethnicity

Caller composition.

White 35.7%
Asian 14.9%
Latinx 13.6%
Multi-racial 10.5%
Black 8.3%
Other 17.0%

What callers are taking.

Psilocybin accounts for the majority of calls, a reflection of its growing use across recreational, ceremonial, and therapeutic contexts. Distress rates, however, tell a more complicated story.

Substances people are calling about.

Psilocybin57.5%
LSD13.8%
Cannabis9.5%
Ketamine6.9%
Other5.1%
MDMA3.3%
Ayahuasca2.9%
5-MeO-DMT1.0%
Co-use patterns

How substances combine.

When callers report using more than one substance, psilocybin and cannabis is by far the most common pairing - followed by combinations of psilocybin or LSD with other substances. Pairing data offers a window into real-world use that few clinical studies can capture.

Most common pairings.

Psilocybin + Cannabis25.4%
Psilocybin + Other16.2%
LSD + Psilocybin15.8%
LSD + Other15.6%
LSD + Cannabis11.3%
Psilocybin + MDMA9.8%
Caller-reported distress

Caller distress by substance.

Cannabis has the highest distress rate among callers. This may be a function of the large number of cannabis users in conjunction with a rise in the potency of cannabis products.

Distress rate

% of callers reporting distress.

Cannabis47.2%
Psilocybin42.2%
LSD41.8%
Ketamine40.9%
MDMA40.7%
Emergency escalation

Escalation is rare.

Across every substance, fewer than 1 in 100 calls escalate to emergency services. Even cannabis - the substance with the highest rate - sits at under one percent. Peer support keeps people grounded at home, out of ambulances and ERs.

Escalation rate

% of calls escalating to 911 or ER.

Cannabis0.65% n=13/2,004
MDMA0.44% n=3/682
LSD0.36% n=8/2,247
Psilocybin0.28% n=26/9,348
Ketamine0.08% n=1/1,194
Presenting concerns

What comes up on the line.

Anxiety and overwhelm dominate, together accounting for over 8,000 interactions. But beneath the immediate surface, callers bring relationships, identity, fear, and unprocessed trauma - the deeper material a psychedelic experience tends to surface.

Trip content themes

Mentions across 40,000 calls.

Anxiety4,566
Overwhelm3,562
Relationship2,805
Fear2,780
Identity2,349
Confusion1,826
Loneliness1,724
Spiritual1,666
Somatic1,664
Processing trauma1,645
Mental health context

Diagnoses behind the calls.

Many callers reach out while navigating PTSD, major depression, and generalized anxiety - using psychedelics, at least in part, to address what conventional treatment hasn’t resolved. This trend will likely accelerate as psychedelics continue to mainstream and the cost of clinical care will put it out of reach for many Americans.

Diagnoses mentioned by callers.

PTSD1,449
Major Depression1,308
GAD692
OCD386
BPD200
Schizophrenia185
ADHD120
Social Anxiety113
Visit our five-year impact report, Five Years of Light
Study 02 · Published in Science Advances

The Fireside Database: the first systematic dataset on real-world psychedelic support.

The Fireside Database comprises 25,419 peer-support interactions conducted by 220 trained volunteers between April 2021 and February 2026 - integrated with volunteer-coded metadata and 2,777 post-call survey responses. The de-identified data and analysis code are openly available to researchers.

Why it matters: This resource will enable groundbreaking research into psychedelic epidemiology, evidence-based training, and what actually makes psychedelic psychological support effective.

Authored by Felix Schoeller, Marc Santolini, Dana Xiadani, Mickael Eskinazi, Ashwin Murali, David Esselman, Wyatt Houtz, Wesley Bellanca, and Joshua White
Read the study in Science Advances
25,419
Peer-support interactions
220
Trained volunteers
2,777
Caller satisfaction surveys
2021–26
Five years, every day
Inside the paper

What 25,419 conversations show.

Five findings from the paper. One caveat applies to all of them: these are people who chose to reach out to a support line, so the rates describe help-seekers. They are not estimates of risk for everyone who uses a given substance.

Finding 01 · Distress

When someone calls matters more than what they took.

Taken as a whole, cannabis callers were the most likely to be in distress (47.2%). Most of that gap comes from timing: 70.2% of cannabis callers reached out mid-experience, when distress runs highest for every substance.

Compare callers in the same situation and the substances converge. Mid-experience distress ran 45.8% to 49.6%, and distress after the experience ran 32.3% to 38.8%. No difference between substances was statistically significant in either group. For training, that means supporters need to be ready for distress with any substance, cannabis included, not just the classic psychedelics.

Callers in distress, by substance
Mid-experience vs. after.
Cannabis47.2% overall
During49.6%
After38.3%
Psilocybin42.2% overall
During45.8%
After35.3%
LSD41.8% overall
During47.8%
After32.3%
Ketamine40.9% overall
During47.8%
After36.4%
MDMA40.7% overall
During46.1%
After38.8%

Overall rates and ranges are from the paper (Fig. 3A). Per-substance splits come from HealingMaps’ reproduction of the open data.

Finding 02 · Safety

Distress is common. Emergencies are rare.

Close to half of mid-experience callers were in distress, but very few calls led to emergency services. For every substance, fewer than 1 call in 150 escalated to 911 or 988. Most callers who reached out in distress were supported through it over the phone.

Calls escalated to 911 or 988 · scale 0–1%
Escalation rate, by substance.
Cannabis 13 of 2,0040.65%
MDMA 3 of 6820.44%
LSD 8 of 2,2470.36%
Psilocybin 26 of 9,3480.28%
Ketamine 1 of 1,1940.08%
Finding 03 · Callers

Mostly alone, mostly experienced, often already diagnosed.

Where the setting was recorded, 66.3% of callers were alone when they reached out. Only 9.8% said it was their first time with psychedelics.

In the 7,826 conversations where it came up, 60.5% of callers reported at least one psychiatric diagnosis. The most common were PTSD (18.5%) and major depression (16.7%). Another 2.4% reported schizophrenia, a group usually excluded from clinical trials.

All 25,419 interactions
Why people reach out.
Support mid-experience40.2%
Integration afterward32.1%
Beyond the line’s scope11.6%
Information10.6%
Other5.6%

Of 15,596 interactions where a substance was recorded: psilocybin 59.9%, LSD 14.4%, cannabis 12.8%, ketamine 7.7%, MDMA 4.4%.

Finding 04 · Harm

A first measure of facilitator abuse.

Supporters classified 43 conversations (0.2%) as reports of abuse by a facilitator. This is the first time anyone has counted these reports in a community help-seeking sample. The reports cluster in ceremonial, plant-medicine settings, and most were trauma-processing calls placed after the experience.

The numbers are small. Fireside does not investigate individual reports. Supporters connect callers with resources such as the SHINE Collective. Even so, the pattern shows that peer-support lines can pick up harm in unregulated settings.

Abuse reports vs. the whole line
Where the reports cluster.
Ceremonial plant medicines
Reports40.7%
All4.4%
In a ceremonial group
Reports41.2%
All2.7%
Processing trauma
Reports66.7%
All~6.5%
Prior PTSD diagnosis
Reports34.8%
All18.5%

Shares are of the reports where each detail was recorded (between 15 and 27 of the 43).

Finding 05 · Support

Callers say it helps. Next question: which supporters help most.

The day after each conversation, callers get a short survey. Across 2,777 responses, ratings were overwhelmingly positive. Nearly 9 in 10 said they would definitely call again.

Fifty supporters each have 10 or more surveyed conversations, enough to measure how much individual supporters differ in their outcomes. Psychotherapy research finds that the therapist matters more than the technique. This dataset lets us test whether the same holds for psychedelic peer support, and the answer will shape how we train.

Post-call surveys · n = 2,777
How callers rated the support.
Would definitely call again86.6%
Strongly agree they’d recommend86.1%
Rated support quality excellent78.2%
Strongly agree they felt supported76.1%
Almost all their needs met66.8%

The survey goes out by text the day after a conversation, and 10.9% of callers responded.

Open data · Free for researchers

Run your own analysis of our data.

The full Fireside Database is public. You can download all 25,419 de-identified interactions, the 2,777 linked caller surveys, and the code that reproduces every figure and statistic in the paper. Ask your own questions. HealingMaps did, and you can too.

Download the Fireside Database Hosted on Harvard Dataverse · DOI 10.7910/DVN/QPPDPZ
Study 03 · Submitted for Publication

Patient interest in psychedelic coaching during ketamine treatment.

We surveyed patients receiving ketamine treatment for depression at MGH’s Ketamine Clinic. We asked them whether they felt like they needed more support with their ketamine experiences and, if so, whether they were open to receiving psychedelic coaching, including as an adjunct to psychotherapy.

Why it matters: this study establishes not only that ketamine patients, even those with therapists, are often getting insufficient support, but that they are open to receiving a non-clinical form of support in a clinical context.

In partnership with
Harvard Medical School Massachusetts General Hospital
MGH
Ketamine Clinic setting
TRD
Treatment-resistant depression
50+
Patients surveyed
2
Institutional partners
Study 04 · Coaching has begun

Is psychedelic coaching effective in a clinical context to help ketamine patients suffering from depression?

A pilot study testing whether 12 weeks of coaching from Fireside-Certified psychedelic coaches can prolong and enhance the antidepressant effects of ketamine in patients with treatment-resistant depression at MGH’s Ketamine Clinic.

Why it matters: this pilot study could help show that psychedelic coaching is an effective, accessible, and high-impact modality that can be a critical part of a clinical care team.

In partnership with
Harvard Medical School Massachusetts General Hospital
20
Patient cohort
12
Weeks of coaching
TRD
Treatment-resistant depression
Coaching has begun
Study status
Study 05 · Supporting

Understanding challenging psychedelic experiences - and how to integrate them.

We support Emory University’s research into challenging psychedelic experiences by inviting all callers to participate through our post-call survey - helping expand the evidence base around safe psychedelic use at population scale.

In partnership with
Emory University
Live
Recruitment status
Survey
Post-call channel
Integration
Research focus
All
Callers invited

Interested in a
research collaboration?

If you’re an academic, clinician, or research team interested in collaborating - on harm reduction, integration, special populations, or anything in between - we’d love to hear from you.