Spooky Stories!

The Russian Sleep Experiment

I'm sorry, I had to... All of this belongs to the original writer and sorry if I'm copyrighting!

In the late 1940s, a group of Russian researchers held 5 people awake for fifteen days using an experimental gas based stimulant. They were kept in a sealed environment to carefully monitor their oxygen intake so the gas didn't kill them, since the gas was toxic in high concentrations. This was before closed circuit cameras so they had only microphones and 5-inch thick porthole-sized windows into the chamber to monitor them. The chamber was stocked with books, cots to sleep on but no bedding, running water and toilet, and enough dried food to last all 5 for over a month.

The test subjects were political prisoners deemed enemies of the state during World War II.

Everything was fine for the first 5 days; the subjects hardly complained having been promised (falsely) that they would be freed if they submitted to the test and did not sleep for 30 days. Their conversations and activities were monitored and it was noted that they continued to talk about increasingly traumatic incidents in their past, and the generic tone of their conversations took on a darker aspect after the 4 day mark.

After 5 days they started to complain about the circumstances and events that lead them to where they were and started to demonstrate severe paranoia. They stopped talking to each other and began whispered into the microphones and one-way portholes alternately. Oddly they all seemed to think they could win the trust of the scientists/experimenters by turning over their comrades, the other subjects in captivity with them. At first they suspected that it was an effect of the gas itself.

After 9 days the first of them started screaming. [cue creepy screaming noises] he ran the length of the chamber repeatedly yelling at the top of his lungs for 3 hours straight. He continued attempting to scream, but was only able to produce occasional squeaks. The researchers postulated that he had physically torn his vocal cords. The most surprising thing about this behaviour was how the other captives reacted to it... Or, rather, didn't react to it. They continued to whisper to the microphones until the second of them started screaming. The 2 non-screaming captives took the books apart and [prepare for fits of laughter] smeared the pages with their own faeces and pasting them over the glass portholes. The screaming promptly stopped.

So did the whispering to the microphones.

After 3 more days passed, the researchers checked the microphones hourly to make sure they were working, since they thought it possible that no sound was coming with 5 people inside. The oxygen consumption within the chamber indicated that all 5 of the captives must still be alive. In fact it was the normal amount of oxygen 5 people would consume at a very heavy level of strenuous exercise. On the morning of the 14th day, the researchers did something they said they wouldn't do to get a reaction from the captives. They used the intercom inside the chamber, hoping to provoke a response from the captives they were afraid they were either dead or vegetables.

They announced: "We are opening the chamber to test the microphones; step away from the door and lie flat on your back or you will be shot. Compliance of this will earn one of you your immediate freedom."

To their surprise, they heard a single phrase in a calm voice respond: "We no longer wish to be freed."

Debate broke out among the researchers and the military forces funding the research. Unable to provoke any more response from the captives using the intercom, it was finally decided to open the chamber at midnight on the 15th day.

The chamber was flushed of the stimulant gas and filled with fresh air and immediately voices from the microphones began to object to this. 3 different voices began begging, as if pleading for the life of a love one, to turn the gas back on. The chamber was opened and soldiers sent to retrieve the test subjects.they began to scream even louder, and the soldiers did so too, after seeing what was inside the chamber. 4 of the 5 subjects were still alive, although the state that they were in could not rightly be called 'living'.