The Russian Sleep Experiment

What do you think would happen to a person who is forced to not sleep at all for 30 days? They would literally become monsters as their non-human part would take over. Let’s see how that transformation took place through the Russian Sleep Experiment. This happened in 1947 at a secret Soviet test facility. The Russian Sleep Experiment was a military-sanctioned experiment. The researchers chose five prisoners to participate in this experiment.

The researchers lied to the prisoners that they would be set free if they participated in this experiment for 30 consecutive days. The prisoners agreed to participate unbeknownst that they would never get freedom. This was very sad. The purpose of this experiment was to test a sleep-inhibiting stimulant that the researchers developed. This stimulant was a gas. It was developed to revolutionize the war and make superhumans out of Russian soldiers who need not sleep for 30 days. So the five prisoners were the guinea pigs to test out what would happen to a person who was kept awake for 30 days by that gas. The prisoners were kept in a sealed gas chamber and the stimulant was administered continuously for 30 consecutive days. They were provided with beds, dry food, water, books and a toilet. For this story, I’ll name the prisoners Alexei, Igor, Viktor, Nikolai and Dmitri.

The researchers monitored and communicated with the prisoners through porthole windows which were one-way glass. Everything was normal.

This was when slight changes in the prisoners’ behaviours were noticed. They were still talking to each other and the researchers as usual but the topic of their conversations went darker and darker. Some of them started talking to themselves as if they were hallucinating.

Nikolai screamed at the top of his lungs non-stop for three hours. The screaming finally stopped when Nikolai tore his own vocal cords.

The other four prisoners didn’t react at all to this screaming as they were heavily hallucinating and didn’t hear the screaming.  Then Alexei started screaming. The others prevented the researchers from looking by pasting torn book pages and their faeces to the porthole windows.

A few days went by without the researchers being able to look inside and they were worried as there was total silence.

The researchers decided to go inside the chamber and see what was going on. They turned off the stimulant before they entered. What they saw inside repulsed them.

Igor was lying dead on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. The other four prisoners had mutilated and disembowelled themselves! Alexei had ripped his own chest open with his bare hands. Dmitri had torn his own flesh and muscles from his arms and legs and had bones coming out of his fingers. Nikolai had removed his own internal organs. Viktor had a devilish smile and practised self-cannibalism. He was eating his own body! The researchers decided to abort the experiment and wanted to evacuate the prisoners with the aid of soldiers. However, the four prisoners became violent as they didn’t want to leave the chamber. Instead, they begged the researchers to turn the stimulant back on. They were now very addicted to it.  During the attempt of evacuation, they murdered one soldier by ripping out his throat and severely injured another. After they were successfully evacuated, the researchers noticed that the four prisoners exhibited extreme strength, high resistance to any sedatives given and were desperate for the stimulant. It was also found out that if they were to fall asleep, they would die. This was how Dmitri died and now three prisoners were left. When the doctor was putting back the organs into the prisoners’ bodies, they wanted the doctor to mutilate them further instead.

Although the researchers decided to call off the experiment, they were given an order by military officials to continue with the remaining three prisoners. Against the will of the researchers, the prisoners were once again to be sealed inside the chamber. Suddenly, Viktor fell asleep and died. He fell asleep due to not getting the stimulant. The military commander then ordered three researchers to be sealed in the chamber with Alexei and Nikolai to monitor them.

The researcher pulled out a gun and shot the commander and Nikolai in the head. The researcher said that he would not be locked in a room with monsters that were no longer human. Now there was only Alexei left. He asked Alexei, “What are you?” Alexei laughed eerily, “We are the inherent evil inside the human mind that is kept in check by the act of sleeping”.  Upon hearing this, the researcher shot him in the heart.

Alexei was on the floor and right before he died, he whispered his last words: