The Russian sleep experiment: fact or fiction?

Is it possible to stay several weeks without sleeping thanks to the action of a gas? Let's see.

Throughout history, human beings have tried in every possible way to expand their knowledge, which is mostly a good thing.

However, there have been many times when ethics have been put aside in order to, like mad scientists, try to have a deeper knowledge of our species, even if this meant sacrificing the health of our fellow human beings.

In the last few years the case of the Russian sleep experiment has been circulating on the web.It is said that it was a Soviet program that has caused real nightmares to more than one person who has had knowledge of it. Let's see it in more depth and let's discover to what extent what is told in it was real or not.

The Russian dream experiment

Human beings have tried to satisfy their curiosity to learn more about the world in which they live and their own nature in the most diverse ways, some of them morally dubious.

Many experiments have been done in the pursuit of science and progress, which have involved violating scientific ethics and even human rights violations. To name but a few, widely known experiments such as the Standford prison and the Milgram experiment, which, despite producing neither deaths nor injuries, started a real debate on experimental ethics in both psychology and psychology. debate on experimental ethics both in psychology and in science in general..

However, these experiments are not at all harmful compared to those committed in World War II by the Nazis. Doctors in concentration camps used thousands of prisoners as human guinea pigs, subjecting them to all kinds of tortures: putting them in ice water, trying to change the color of their eyes, amputations....

That is why, when a few years ago the case of the Russian sleep experiment appeared on the Internet, it seemed that, although the story didn't sound very credible, it didn't seem entirely surreal either.It was not even a century ago that real barbarities were committed that have been documented as true facts.

The story takes place in the late 1940s. Nazi Germany has just been defeated and the Second World War is over. Although the armed conflict is extinguished, the threat of a Third World War is becoming more and more evident, especially since the United States demonstrated its nuclear power. The Soviet Union had to do as much research as possible in order to overcome the American enemy.and ethics was an impediment to winning the Cold War that had just begun. The story of the Russian sleep experiment bases its narrative on this historical context, and describes the following situation, which supposedly would have taken place in the USSR.

The gas that avoids having to sleep

A new gas had just been synthesized which promised to eradicate a need for sleep. promised to eradicate a basic need of every human being: sleep.. The gas, if it worked, would be a great step towards increasing the productivity of the USSR. A proletariat that does not need sleep is a proletariat that can work harder, late into the night.

However, the gas could not be tested just like that in the factories of the USSR, since Soviet scientists did not want to risk applying something that, if it failed, could mean great losses for the Federation. An experiment had to be done first, with human beings, and what better human guinea pigs than the enemies of the regime?And what better human guinea pigs than the enemies of the regime?

The research group took five people who were interned in gulags, i.e. forced labor camps, who had been arrested for treason against the Union, and put them in a secret base. There they were promised that after 30 days, if they managed to hold out, they would be granted their longed-for freedom; all they had to do was to They had to live at the base for that period of time while a new psychoactive gas was introduced into the chamber that would prevent them from sleeping. that would prevent them from sleeping.

The individuals were placed in a sealed room, from where the research group could monitor the effects of the promising new gas. The human guinea pigs lived in small rooms with books, running water, a sink, bedsteads without bedding, and enough food to survive for a month. In every room there were microphones set up to pick up any sound emitted by the subjects in this experiment.

During the first five days the subjects did not feel bad, mainly because of the motivation that, once the research time was over, they would achieve their freedom. The individuals talked among themselves about banal things, without much experimental interest, such as their common likes and dislikes, their opinion about the experiment and the room they had been put in, or what they would do once they were released. Everything seemed normal until the fifth day arrived, the day of the beginning of the madness.

Changes in behavior

It was from day five onwards that there was a change in the topics of conversation.. These became darker, and the complaints, physical and mental, began to hint at episodes of paranoia. The subjects, who until a few days before had been friendly with each other, began to distrust each other. Suspicions began to appear and, in order to avoid any information being used against them, they stopped talking to each other and began to act strangely.

All these strange behaviors were considered an unwanted effect of the gas, although the researchers did not decide to stop the experiment at that point. They wanted to know how far this new invention would take them, how the experiment would evolve.

The days went by and on the tenth day one of the subjects began to shout out. The screams lasted for almost three hours and suddenly there was silence, followed by strange sounds, guttural noises. The investigators wanted to know what was going on and went to find out, but when they saw him they were truly horrified by the scene. The man who, until a few minutes ago, had been screaming at the top of his lungs, was no longer physically able to say a word: he had torn out his own vocal cords.

But the amazing thing about this scene was that the other roommates did not seem to be aware of the atrocity that one of the subjects had just committed. They didn't even flinch when he ripped out the cords. The rest continued with their personal paranoia until one of them started screaming like his roommate. The others opted to take the books in the room, open them and defecate on them, tearing out pages and sticking them on the walls, using the excrement as if it were putty or glue.

Between days ten and thirteen the subjects remained in a gloomy silence. Not a word was spoken, not even to talk about their personal paranoia, nor was there any shouting. No noise was coming from the cubicle. What was going on? The experiment was nearing its second week and, seeing the very spooky results they were getting, the group of scientists decided to make a decision that they had said they were going to take to the next level, the group of scientists decided to make a decision they had said they would not make: to open the room..

Through the loudspeakers inside the room they announced that they would open the cubicle and, to safeguard against any aggression from the subjects, they made it clear that they would shoot anyone who tried anything. They also said that, if they obeyed all of the scientists' orders, one of the inmates would be released, but what the investigators did not expect was the response they would receive. One of the subjects, in a calm voice, told them 'We don't want to be released anymore'.

Going in to see the prisoners

On the fifteenth day, it was finally decided to open the door, and a group of well-protected and armed soldiers entered the room. What they saw they had never seen before, not even in a war field: the subjects were screaming, desperate and, of the five who started the experiment, they saw that one of them was no longer alive.

The food had hardly been touched, only the food of the first five days had been eaten.But the subjects had fed themselves in a different way: the inmates had torn off part of their muscles and skin, with their bare hands, and then eaten them in a self-cannibalistic act.

They tried to get them out of the room, but the subjects no longer wanted to leave the room, and wanted to be given more psychotropic gas, they needed it to stay awake and alive.. Seeing that their demands were not being met, they went into action, attacking and killing several soldiers and, in that mad fight, one of the subjects who was still alive was seriously wounded.

When they managed to immobilize the subjects, a group of doctors took charge of the one who was most wounded. Despite attempts to sedate him with a dose of morphine 10 times higher than normal, he was not getting enough. He kept screaming in desperation and assaulting the doctors. He screamed that he wanted more, but the screams ended when he himself bled to death on the stretcher.

The other three subjects, without as many injuries, were also transferred to medical facilities. Two of them still had their vocal cords and were still insisting that they be given more psychotropic gas. They needed to stay awake at all costs. As they demanded more of the experimental substance, they wore creepy smiles that chilled the Blood of the nurses, who were terrified at having to assist in this research.

One of them, who had managed to remove part of his organs while in the cubicle, needed surgery. During the operation, in which no anesthesia was administered, he was talking to the surgeon, screaming in despair.in desperation, shouting at him. The phrase was very simple and clear: 'Keep cutting! The other two subjects, who also needed surgery, made it difficult for the doctors, as they laughed uproariously and could not stop.

They needed more gas. As damaged as their bodies were, they didn't seem to care how bad their bodies were. They only seemed to care about the psychotropic gas. Were they addicted to it as if it were a drug? Did they need it to stay alive? To resolve these unknowns, and taking advantage of the fact that some subjects could still speak, the researchers asked them why. Their answer:

"I must stay awake."

The outcome

The three survivors were returned to the room, and since the experiment to find out if the promising sleep gas had failed, the question arose as to what to do with the subjects who were still alive. One of the KGB officers in charge of the research suggested seeing what would happen if they were administered the experimental gas again and, since they no longer had anything to lose, the research went ahead, but with an entirely different objective. The subjects, upon inhaling the gas again, immediately calmed down.

To the researchers' surprise, the subjects' brains seemed to die and revive every so often, with no possible scientific explanation.. One of the inmates lay down on one of the beds, rested his head on a pillow and closed his eyes, as if, after several days without sleep, he decided that it was time to relieve that basic need. After closing his eyes his death came almost instantaneously.

The investigators re-entered the cabin and, to ensure that no more soldiers would die, shot down one of the subjects. Now only one remained. One of the scientists asked him, "What are you?" The last of the survivors smilingly replied.

"We are you. We are the madness that circulates through your bodies, begging to be released from your mind, which is housed in its most animalistic part. We are what you hide from when you go to sleep at night. We are what you keep silent about.

After these words, the researcher froze and, without another word, picked up his rifle and shot the last of his research subjects straight through the heart.

As creepy as it is surreal: what's so true about it?

This whole story leaves no one indifferent. The idea that, in recent decades, all kinds of unethical and morally reprehensible experiments have been carried out is something that, even if we are very skeptical, we do not label as completely false. Because of this, the idea that an experiment was done in which a mysterious psychotropic gas was used, the subjects went crazy and started to self-mutilate and become aggressive, among other things in the story, in addition to scaring us, we see it as something that could be true.

However, of course, it is not. The story of the Russian sleep experiment did not take place in the 1940s, nor is it the result of obscure Soviet research on how to make people not need to sleep. This story, or rather, creepypasta, arises and spreads thanks to the Internet.

In fact, it is on the CreepyPasta website itself where you can enjoy the complete story, with a few details changed since, as you know, word of mouth and the fact that there are several pages copying each other makes that, as with the telephone game, the creepy tale evolves as the myth that it is.

The origins of this story date back to the late 2000s and early 2000s.. In one of the forums of the aforementioned page, users were invited to invent the scariest urban legend, the one that would generate the most nightmares.

The story of the Russian dream experiment turned out to be the clear winner of this challenge. It spread far and wide, appearing on YouTube mystery channels, blogs debating its veracity, and even appearing in newspapers.

Although it is to be imagined that most people get the idea that this is nothing more than an urban legend, there are more than a few who dare to add fuel to the fire and say that the origin of the leaks of this story are a well-kept secret by the KGB or the Russian Federation.

But if we think coldly, it is easy to understand why this experiment is pure fiction.. The first is that no penitentiary institution, such as the gulags, would ever promise its prisoners freedom for the simple fact of conducting an experiment, no matter how dangerous it might seem. What good would it do the USSR to release state traitors for simply participating in Soviet research?

One may think that, logically, the subjects were deceived and that, if the experiment had gone the way the researchers wanted it to go, they would end up executing the prisoners at the end of the experiment, but, equally, the participants in the research would not be fools. Whether they were forced or not, it was to be expected that participation in the experiment would end with their execution, or at best, a return to forced labor.

Finally, there is the existence of the gas itself and the injuries inflicted on the alleged human guinea pigs. To date, no gas is known to be capable of the effects that have been attributed to the creepypasta gas. creepypasta. In addition, no matter how drugged one is, tearing off large amounts of skin and muscle causes the subject to bleed to death within hours or even minutes. A person who has his intestines out and is gushing blood is not going to live another day without proper medical assistance.

Bibliographic references:

• Creepypasta wiki (n. d.) The Russian sleep experiment. Creepypasta wiki. Retrieved from https://creepypasta.fandom.com/es/wiki/El_experimento_ruso_del_sue%C3%B1o.