Saturday, February 6, 2016

The Story: Toward the end of the 1940s, Soviet researchers sealed five WWII prison inmates in an airtight chamber and dosed them with an experimental stimulant gas to test the effects of prolonged sleep deprivation, with the promise of freedom is they could stay awake for 30 days. They were observed via two way mirrors and microphones.
Picture commonly believed to be of the Russian Sleep Experiment subjects.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened the first few days. By the 5th day, however, the subjects began showing signs of stress. They “stopped conversing with their fellow inmates”, and instead gave away each other's secrets, hoping to win the favor of the researchers.
On the 9th day they began hysterically screaming. They were seen “running around the chamber screaming at the top of [their] lungs for hours on end”. They then began to rip apart the books left in the chamber and smeared the pages with their own feces. The prisoners then plastered the pages over the mirrored windows so the researchers could no longer observe them.
All of the sudden it was quiet. They had stopped screaming and communicating all together. After 3 days of silence, fearing the worst, the researchers addressed the subjects via the intercom. They told the prisoners that they were going to open the chamber to check the microphones, and that complying would earn one of them immediate freedom. A voice from inside answered, “We no longer want to be freed”.
Two more days passed without any contact as the scientists debated what to do next, but finally decided to terminate the experiment. At midnight on the 15th day the stimulant gas was flushed from the chamber and replaced with fresh air in preparation for the subjects release. Unhappy with the idea of leaving the chamber, the subjects “began screaming as if in fear for their lives”, and begged to have the gas turned back on. Instead, the researchers unsealed the door to the chamber and sent armed soldiers inside to retrieve them. Nothing could have prepared them for what they saw upon entering the chamber.
“One subject was found dead, lying face-down in six inches of bloody water. Chunks of his flesh had been torn off and stuffed into the floor drain. All of the test subjects were found to have been severely mutilated... What's worse, the wounds appeared to be self-inflicted. They had ripped open their own abdomens and disemboweled themselves with their bare hands”.
When the soldiers attempted to remove the remaining four inmates by force, they fought ferociously. One suffered a ruptured spleen and “lost so much blood there was literally nothing left for his heart to pump”.
The remaining subjects were restrained and transported to a medical facility for treatment. The first to be operated on fought so furiously when they tried to administer an anesthetic that he tore muscles and broke bones during the struggle. As soon as the anesthetic took effect his heart stopped and he died. The rest underwent surgery without sedation. They laughed hysterically on the operating table. “So hysterically that the doctors, perhaps fearing for their own sanity, administered a paralytic agent to immobilize them”.
After surgery the survivors were asked why they had mutilated themselves, and why they so desperately wanted to go back on the stimulant gas. Each gave the same answer: “I must remain awake”.
The researchers considered euthanizing them to obliterate every trace of the failed experiment, but were overruled by their commanding officer, who ordered that it be resumed immediately, with three of the researchers joining the inmates in the sealed chamber. Horrified at the thought, the chief researcher pulled out a pistol and shot the commanding officer and killed him. He then turned and shot one of the two surviving subjects. Pointing his gun at the last one left alive, he asked, “What are you? I must know!”.
“‘Have you forgotten so easily?’ the subject said, smiling. ‘We are you. We are the madness that lurks within you all, begging to be free at every moment in your deepest animal mind. We are what you hide from in your beds every night. We are what you sedate into silence and paralysis when you go to the nocturnal haven where we cannot tread’”.
The researcher fired a bullet into his heart. The EEG monitor flat-lined as the subject murmured these last words: “So...nearly...free” (David Emery, The Russian Sleep Experiment).


Analysis: There is no evidence that such an experiment took place. It is  known that unethical russian experiments took place during this time, but none that follow this story. The first record of this story was in December 2010 on the scary story site CreepyPasta. Since then, popularity for this story peaked in 2013 and 2014, and has since then been retold, rewritten, and made into a movie. This wives tale is meant to scare, but is also meant to show the perceived side effects of not getting enough sleep. Sleep deprivation, insomnia, and other sleep related issues have been a big topic lately, and the evidence, testimonials, and research done thus far busts the results found in this mythical experiment.


Randy Gardner and friends as he gets his routine
 checkups during his experiment.
Personal Accounts: In 1963 Randy Gardner, a high schooler in San Diego, broke the Guinness World Record of the longest time without sleep. He managed to stay awake from December 28th 1963 to January 8th 1964, a total of 264 hours without any stimulants. He kept a record of his self-implicated experiment, and noted the side effects he experienced. The first day went without a hitch. By the second day, however, “he had began to drag, experiencing a fuzzy-headed lack of focus” (Alex Santoso, Eleven Days Awake). The next day Gardner was “uncharacteristically moody…[and] had trouble repeating common tongue twisters” (Santoso). On the 4th day, he began hallucinating. After 11 days, doctors found no physical abnormalities, yet he seemed “out of it and zombie like”. Gardner slept 14 hours and 40 minutes, and afterwards felt “alert and refreshed” (Santoso). As of 2007, Gardner is alive and well, and has suffered no long term ill effects to this experiment. He no longer holds the Guinness Record (the new record  of 18 days was made by Maureen Watson, who also has not suffered long term effects, nor did she reach the level of brutality of those in the alleged Russian Sleep Experiment), and many others have experienced longer without real sleep.
In a recent reddit thread, user 1fmzai asked, What’s the longest you’ve gone without sleep? People then answered with their experiences with insomnia.
User retloc11tee recalled not fully sleeping for over a month almost 12 years ago. They reported being in a “zombie like haze…[and] getting really mad and frustrated”. The resorted to drinking themselves to sleep, and reported sleeping for “about a day and a half” and not experiencing insomnia since..
Another user, pattop, had a similar experience. The stressful emotions after a separation caused them to develop insomnia. They “slept but only about 15-20 minutes a day of real sleep [that] lasted about 3-4 weeks”. Like the previous user, they reported looking zombie like. Mentally, they were also unstable. Their “mind would race and I would start questioning my whole worthiness as a human”.


Insomnia is a common illness that affects one's ability to
properly sleep and has awful side effects.
Relevance: Many people have experienced far more than 15 days without true sleep, and none have had the gruesome effects that are amplified in the Russian Sleep Experiment legend. It does however, leave us with questions. Why did it peak years after it was first published, and what is our fascination with sleep, or lack thereof? Aubert Vilhelm and Harrison White researched sleep  with a sociological lens. They looked at the many stages of sleep, and how society has deemed what is normal in terms of sleep.The academic report, titled “Sleep: A Sociological Interpretation”, states that “The normal state of sleep means to occupy a culturally determined role” (Vilhelm, White, 47). They then describe how we have culturally defined sleep and all it entails, such as how we dress,the lack of noise, assuming one of the handful of sleep positions, and closing our eyes, even though our rooms are pitch black. We have been taught and groomed to fit into this routine revolving sleep, and anyone who breaks any of these boundaries is seen as strange. Another common social idea is that when we sleep, our dreams are “unreal and irrational” (48). But how much of this is true? While we may have some dreams due to certain emotional triggers, our dreams also seem to be our imagination unleashed. The dream world is a place where no boundaries, laws, or norms are found. Vilhelm and White quote Plato, who once said “in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless, wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep,” and that in the fear of the beast may lie one of the roots of insomnia, “a deviance from the normal sleep-pattern” (50).
Does this mean that insomniacs cannot sleep simply because they are afraid of the inner demons that are unleashed in sleep? Do they make their way to the real world when we don’t quench their thirst by sleeping? Or does sleeping tame the beast and eventually chains it to the part of our minds he cannot break from? Maybe there is madness that lurks within us all, begging to be free at any moment in our deepest animal minds. It’s what we hide from in our beds at night. It’s what we sedate into silence and paralysis when we enter the nocturnal haven where they cannot tread. Or maybe, just maybe, sleeping only brings out our inner beasts true colors.

Works Cited:
Aubert, Vilhelm, and Harrison White. "Sleep: A Sociological Interpretation. I." Acta Sociologica 4.2 (1959): 46-54. JSTOR.org. Web. 30 Jan. 2016. 

Emery, David. "The Russian Sleep Experiment." About Entertainment. N.p., 5 Jan. 2016. Web. 30 Jan. 2016. <http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/internet-scares/fl/Russian-Sleep-Experiment.htm>.

reddit.com. N.p., 2014. Web. 31 Jan. 2016. <https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1fmzai/reddit_whats_the_longest_youve_gone_without_sleep/>.

"The Russian Sleep Experiment." Creepy Pasta. N.p., 8 July 2012. Web. 30 Jan. 2016. <http://www.creepypasta.com/tag/the-russian-sleep-experiment/>. 

Santoso, Alex. "Eleven Days Awake." Neatorama. N.p., 24 Oct. 2007. Web. 30 Jan. 2016. <http://www.neatorama.com/2007/10/24/eleven-days-awake/>.


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