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

However, it has not been uncommon for ethics to be set aside in order to try, as mad scientists, to gain a deeper understanding 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 circulated on the web, which is said to have been a Soviet program that has caused real nightmares for more than one person who has had knowledge of it. Let’s look at it in more depth and discover to what extent what is told in it was real or not.

The Russian Sleep 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 varied ways, some of which are morally dubious.

Many experiments have been carried out in the pursuit of science and progress, which have involved violations of scientific ethics and even human rights. To say a few, there are widely known experiments such as Standford prison and the Milgram experiment in which, despite not producing any deaths or injuries, they initiated a real 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. The doctors in the concentration camps used thousands of prisoners as human guinea pigs, subjecting them to all kinds of torture: putting them in cold water, trying to change the colour of their eyes, amputations…

That is why, when the case of the Russian dream experiment appeared on the Internet a few years ago, it seemed that, although the story did not sound very credible, it did not seem completely surreal either , taking into account that 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 has ended. Although the armed conflict is over, the threat of a Third World War is becoming increasingly apparent, especially since the United States demonstrated its nuclear power. The Soviet Union had to investigate everything 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 dream experiment bases its narration on this historical context, and describes the following situation, which supposedly would have taken place in the USSR.

The gas that prevents you from having to sleep

A new gas had just been synthesized which promised to eradicate a basic need in every human being: sleep . The gas, if it worked, would be a great step to increase the productivity of the USSR. A proletariat that does not need to sleep is a proletariat that can work more, until late at 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 before, with human beings , 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 labour 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 the longed-for freedom; all they had to do was live together at the base during that period of time while a new psychoactive gas was introduced into the chamber 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 together in small rooms where books, running water, a sink, bedsteads without bedding and enough food to survive for a month were available. In all the rooms there were microphones prepared to capture any sound emitted by the subjects of this experiment.

During the first five days the subjects did not feel bad, mainly because of the motivation that, once the time of the investigation was over, they would achieve their freedom. The individuals talked among themselves about banal things, without much experimental interest, such as common tastes, their opinion about the experiment and the room where they had been put, 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 the fifth day on that there was a change in the topics of the conversations . The conversations became darker, and the complaints, both physical and mental, that hinted at episodes of paranoia began. The subjects, who until a few days ago 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 started acting 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 time. They wanted to know how far this new invention would take them, how the experiment would evolve.

The days passed and when the tenth subject arrived, he began to shout . The screaming lasted up to almost three hours and suddenly there was silence, followed by strange sounds, guttural noises. The researchers wanted to know what was going on and went to find out, but when they saw it they were truly horrified by the scene. The subject, who even a few minutes ago was screaming at the top of his lungs, could no longer physically say a word; he had torn out his vocal cords himself.

But what was surprising about this scene was that the other roommates didn’t seem to be aware of the atrocity that one of the subjects had just committed. They didn’t even flinch when the ropes were pulled out. The rest continued with their personal paranoia until one of them started screaming like his partner. The others chose to take the books from the room, open them and defecate in 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 dismal silence. They did not say a word, not even to talk about their personal paranoia, nor did they hear any screams. No noise came from the cubicle. What was going on? The experiment was close to its second week and, seeing the very frightening results they were obtaining, the group of scientists decided to make a decision they had said they would not make: to open the room .

Through the speakers inside the room they announced that they would open the cubicle and, to safeguard themselves from 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 the scientists’ orders, one of the inmates would be released, but what the researchers 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.

Entering 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 camp: 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 from the first five days had been eaten , but the subjects had been fed in a different way: the inmates had torn off part of their muscles and skin, with their own hands, and then they had eaten them in an auto-cannibalistic act.

They tried to get them out of the room, but the subjects didn’t want to go out anymore, and wanted to be given more psychotropic gas, they needed it to stay awake and alive . Seeing that their demands were not met, they took action, attacking and killing several soldiers and, in that struggle of madness, one of the subjects who was still alive was seriously injured.

When they managed to immobilize the subjects, a group of doctors took charge of the one who was most injured. Despite attempts to sedate him with a morphine dose 10 times higher than normal, he did not have enough. He continued to scream in desperation and assault the doctors. He screamed that he wanted more, but the screaming stopped 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 on more psychotropic gas. They needed to be kept awake at all costs. As they demanded more of the experimental substance, they drew eerie smiles that froze the blood of the nurses, who were terrified of having to help with the 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 anaesthetic was administered, he was talking to the surgeon , shouting at him in desperation. The sentence was very simple and clear: ‘Keep cutting! The other two subjects, who also needed surgery, made it difficult for the doctors, as they laughed outrageously without being able to stop.

They needed more gas. No matter how damaged their bodies were, they didn’t seem to care how bad they were. All they seemed to care about was the psychotropic gas. Were they addicted to it like a drug? Did they need it to stay alive? To answer these questions, and taking advantage of the fact that some subjects could still talk, 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 very 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 to see what would happen if they were given the experimental gas again, and since they no longer had anything to lose, the research continued, but with a completely different objective. The subjects, by sucking in the gas again, immediately calmed down.

To the researchers’ surprise, the subjects’ brains seemed to die and come back to life from time to time, without any 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 it was time to calm that basic need. After closing his eyes his death came almost instantly.

The researchers went back into the room and, to make sure that no more soldiers were killed, they shot one of the subjects. Now there was only one left. One of the scientists asked him, “what are you?” The last of the survivors answered with a smile

“We are you. We are the madness that circulates in your bodies, asking to be released from your mind, which is housed in its most animal part. We are what you hide from when you go to sleep at night. We are what you keep quiet.

After these words, the researcher was paralyzed and, without saying another word, he took his rifle and hit the last of his subjects directly in 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 the last decades, all kinds of unethical and morally despicable experiments have been made is something that, even if we are very sceptical, we do not label as completely false. Therefore, the idea that an experiment has been done in which a mysterious psychotropic gas has been used, the subjects would go crazy and start to self-mutilate and become aggressive, among other things in history, besides being scary, we see it as something that could be true.

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

In fact, it is on the CreepyPasta website itself where you can enjoy the whole 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, as with the phone game, the creepy tale evolve as the myth that it is.

The origins of this story date back to the end of the 2000’s and the beginning of the following decade . In one of the forums on the aforementioned page, users were invited to invent the most terrifying urban legend, the one that would generate the most nightmares.

The story of the Russian dream experiment proved to be the clear winner of this challenge. It spread everywhere, appearing on Youtube mystery channels, blogging about its veracity and even appearing in newspapers.

Although one can imagine that most people are convinced that this is just an urban legend, there are many who dare to add fuel to the fire and say that the origin of the leaks in this story is a well-kept secret of the KGB or the Russian Federation.

But if we think coldly, we can understand why this experiment is pure fiction . The first is that never ever a prison institution, as the gulags were, would promise their prisoners freedom just for the sake of doing an experiment, no matter how dangerous it might seem. What good would it do the USSR to free state traitors just for the sake of participating in Soviet research?

One might think that, logically, the subjects were deceived and that, if the experiment had gone the way the researchers wanted it to, 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, return to forced labour.

Finally, there is the existence of the gas itself and the wounds inflicted by the alleged human guinea pigs. To date, there is no known gas that is capable of doing the effects that have been attributed to creepypaste . Furthermore, no matter how high you are, pulling out large amounts of skin and muscle causes the subject to bleed to death after a few hours or even minutes. A person who has his or her intestines out and is dripping with blood will not 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.