Don’t sleep
Today I am writing to talk to you about one of the most popular, or at least well-known, Creepypastas.
The Russian Sleep Experiment.
This story is not, in itself, unique, I’m not even sure if it was the first Creepypasta to play with the idea of preventing people from sleeping and the consequences there of, but it is certainly the first one to become so popular.
I have come across a fair few Creepypasta’s trying to recreate the same kind of atmosphere and chills that this story is known for, alas while they can tell a similar story very few manage to recreate the feeling of foreboding and dread that this story does.
Summary
Russian researchers in the late 1940s kept five people awake for fifteen days using an experimental gas based stimulant. The chamber was stocked with books, cots with no bedding, running water and toilets, and enough dried food to last all five for over a month.
Everything was fine for the first five days. Though it was noted that the subjects talked about increasingly traumatic incidents in their past, and the general tone of their conversations took on a darker aspect.
After five days they started to complain about the circumstances and started to demonstrate severe paranoia. They stopped talking to each other and began alternately whispering to the microphones and one way mirrored portholes. The researchers suspected this was an effect of the gas itself.
After nine days the first of them started screaming. The other captives didn’t react to it. They continued whispering to the microphones until the second of the captives started to scream. The two non-screaming captives took the books apart, smeared page after page with their own feces and pasted them calmly over the glass portholes. The screaming promptly stopped. So did the whispering to the microphones. There was no more communication from within the chamber though there was evidence that the subjects were still alive.
On the morning of the 14th day the researchers announced: “We are opening the chamber to test the microphones; step away from the door and lie flat on the floor or you will be shot. Compliance will earn one of you your immediate freedom.” In response they heard a voice response: “We no longer want to be freed.”
It was finally decided to open the chamber at midnight on the fifteenth day.
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