Recreation and Realization: Reported Motivations of Use Among Persons Who Consume Psychedelics in Non-Clinical Settings

Brooks Dollar situates the study within a renewed public and scientific interest in psychedelics, noting that contemporary media often frames these substances as medicalised remedies administered in controlled clinical settings. The introduction contrasts that prevailing narrative with evidence that most psychedelic consumption in the United States occurs in non-clinical, social contexts, and highlights large-scale lifetime-use estimates and recent survey data to show continued widespread use despite past criminalisation. This paper sets out to broaden understanding of real-world psychedelic use by reporting in-depth interview data from a diverse sample of 30 people who consume moderate or high doses of psychedelics “on their own terms.” The central aim is descriptive and exploratory: to document reported motivations for initial and continued use in social settings and thereby provide a more inclusive portrait that complements clinical research findings.

The study used in-depth, semi-structured interviews as its primary method, a choice justified by the topic’s sensitivity and the need to capture detailed subjective accounts. Interviews asked participants to describe their psychedelic experiences in detail and covered past and current drug use, life history, attitudes, and beliefs. The material reported here is drawn from a larger project, but this article focuses specifically on stated motivations for use. Thirty participants were interviewed. Recruitment relied on snowball sampling, and Brooks Dollar discloses her positionality as a white, southern US woman; the sample was predominantly white despite efforts to include non-white participants. All interviewees were current US residents; five nationalities were represented. Reported educational attainment was high-school or greater for nearly all, with many having some college education. Substance-use characteristics were reported in the interviews: 28 participants had used psilocybin, 17 had used LSD, 7 reported DMT use, 6 had tried mescaline, and several had used other synthetics (including 2C-B) and MDMA or dissociatives. Most participants had used psychedelics more than once; only three reported a single lifetime use. Estimated lifetime frequency ranged from 3 to 170 uses, with a median of about 22. The extracted text describes interview content and sampling but does not clearly report the analytic procedures used (for example, coding frameworks or formal thematic analysis steps). Where relevant, Brooks Dollar integrates participant demographic and contextual details into the interpretation, and she notes limitations linked to sampling and racial homogeneity.

Situational contexts for use varied: participants reported ingesting psychedelics outdoors (parks, hiking trails, campsites), at concerts, and in private residences, sometimes alone but most often with others. None reported first use in a clinical setting; some had used substances before criminalisation or in jurisdictions where use was legal or decriminalised. First uses were almost always social: all participants had at least one other person present, typically friends, roommates, or romantic partners, and only a minority recalled an intentionally sober “trip sitter” for their first experience. Motivations for initial use clustered around curiosity, social pressure or belonging, and general exploratory drug-taking. Thirteen participants explicitly used the word “curious” to describe why they tried psychedelics the first time. Many described learning about psychedelics from peers, romantic partners, or media; peer influence commonly sparked curiosity. Some reported feeling internalised pressure to participate so as to belong, while a subset characterised their first use as simply part of broader experimental drug-taking: “It was just part of what I did.” Reasons were often multiple and overlapping rather than singular. Patterns for continued use diverged. Of the 27 participants who used psychedelics more than once, 15 said they continued largely to have fun, to bond, or to “let loose” with friends. At the same time, many participants reported subsequent use motivated by existential searching, therapeutic self-exploration, or spiritual interests. Interviewees described experiences of increased connectedness, renewed aliveness, encounters with meaningful or interpretively rich phenomena, and insights that they regarded as personally significant. Trip-sitting was more common for later uses, especially among participants with extensive histories (for example those reporting 50+ uses) or when using more intense substances such as DMT. The narratives frequently reflected multiple, sometimes competing motivations—pleasure-seeking alongside longer-term quests for meaning or healing. Brooks Dollar reports examples and short participant recollections to illustrate these themes but does not provide inferential statistics beyond counts and frequency estimates.

Brooks Dollar interprets the findings as a corrective to a narrowly clinical narrative: while contemporary psychedelic science emphasises regulated, therapeutic administration, these interviews show that recreational and socially embedded motivations remain central for many users. The study emphasises the coexistence of pleasure-oriented use and existential or therapeutic aims, arguing that social-contextual consumption matters for understanding real-world patterns. Brooks Dollar also highlights tensions between the medicalisation and commercialisation of psychedelics and persistent non-clinical use, noting parallels with broader debates about drug policy and pharmaceutical interests. The authors acknowledge several limitations: the sample was relatively racially homogeneous and recruited via snowball sampling, which may bias who participated; analytic procedures are not fully detailed in the extracted text; and the data are based on retrospective self-report, which can include post-hoc rationalisation. Brooks Dollar stresses the need for more systematic study of self-managed use—particularly among diverse populations—and argues for intersectional approaches that attend to how nationality, sexuality, socioeconomic status, age, religion, race, and gender shape motivations and meanings of use. Finally, the discussion recommends caution against allowing mediated, medicalised stories to eclipse subjective accounts from social users, because those accounts illuminate personal and cultural contexts that are essential for a full understanding of psychedelic use.