Russian Sleep Experiment

The Russian Sleep Experiment is a creepypasta which tells the tale of five test subjects being exposed to an experimental sleep-inhibiting stimulant in a Soviet-era scientific experiment, which has become the basis of an urban legend.[1]

Origins

According to Russia Beyond, the story originated from a forum challenging users to create "the scariest 'urban legend'".[2] Many news organizations, including Snopes, News.com.au, and LiveAbout trace the story's origins to the Creepypasta website,[3] now known as the Creepypasta Wiki, being posted on August 10, 2010 by a user named OrangeSoda, whose real name is currently unknown.[4][5]

Story

The story recounts an experiment set in a late–1940s Soviet test facility. In a military-sanctioned scientific experiment, five political prisoners were kept in a sealed gas chamber, with an airborne stimulant continually administered in order to keep the subjects awake for 30 consecutive days. The prisoners were falsely promised that they would be set free from the prison if they completed the experiment.

The subjects behaved as usual during the initial days, talking to each other and whispering to the researchers through the one-way glass, though it was noted that their discussions gradually became darker in subject matter. After nine days, one subject began screaming uncontrollably for hours while the others had no reaction to his outburst. The man screamed for so long that he tore his vocal cords. The man didn’t know why he was screaming. He was paralyzed. When the second one started screaming, the others prevented the researchers from looking inside by pasting torn book pages and their own feces on the porthole windows. A few days passed without the researchers being able to look inside, during which the chamber was completely silent. The researchers used the intercom to test if the subjects were still alive, and got a short response of a subject expressing compliance.

On the 15th day, the researchers decided to turn off the stimulating gas and reopen the chamber. The subjects did not want the gas to turn off, for fear they would fall asleep. Upon looking inside, they discovered that the four surviving subjects had performed lethal and severe mutilation and disembowelment on themselves during the past days, including tearing off flesh and muscles, removing multiple abdominal internal organs, practicing self-cannibalism, and allowing 10 cm (4 inches) of blood and water to accumulate on the floor by jamming pieces of flesh from the first subject into the drain, who was found dead on the floor as soon as the chamber was opened. The subjects also violently refuse to leave the chamber and begged the scientists to continue administering the stimulant, murdering one soldier and severely injuring another that attempted to remove them. After eventually being removed from the chamber, all subjects were shown to exhibit extreme strength, unprecedented resistance to drugs and sedatives, the ability to remain alive despite lethal injuries, and a desperate desire to stay awake and be given the stimulant. It was also found that if any one of the subjects fell asleep, they would die.

After being somewhat treated for their severe injuries, the surviving three subjects were prepared to return to the gas chamber with the stimulant by the orders of the military officials (though against the will of the researchers), with EKG monitors showing short recurring moments of brain death. Before the chamber was sealed, one of the subjects fell asleep and died, and the only subject that could speak screamed to be immediately sealed in the chamber. The military commander ordered for three other researchers to be closed inside the chamber along side the two remaining subjects. One researcher immediately drew his gun and killed the commander and the mute subject by shooting both of them in the head, causing the other personnel to flee the room. With only one surviving subject, the terrified researcher explained that he would not allow himself to be locked in a room with monsters that could no longer be called people. He desperately asked what the subject was, to which the subject smiled and identified himself and the other fallen subjects as an inherent evil inside the human mind that is kept in check by the act of sleeping. After a brief pause, the researcher shot the prisoner in the heart, and with his dying breath on the floor, the subject muttered his final words; "So...nearly...free..."

Popularity and reception

The Russian Sleep Experiment became immensely popular upon its original publication. It is considered by some to be the greatest and most shared creepypasta story ever made and Dread Central's Josh Millican has called it "one of the most shocking and impactful urban legends of the Internet Age".[6][4] Much of the online and offline debate surrounds the belief held by many that the story is real rather than fiction, and many articles therefore seek to debunk this claim.[3] It has also sparked more general discussion of the viral nature of creepypasta stories.[7]

The creepypasta is often shared alongside an image of a grotesque, demonic figure, which is implied to be one of the test subjects. The image is actually of a life-size animatronic Halloween prop called "Spasm".[8]

Literary criticism

In the chapter "Horror Memes and Digital Culture" in The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic, Tosha R. Taylor wrote that the creepypasta "reflects residual political anxieties as it purports to reveal a top-secret effort by Russian scientists in World War II." [9] Aleksandra Serwotka and Anna Stwora examined "Russian Sleep Experiment" and other creepypasta, stating that most creepypasta that focused on experiments feature scientists who "are frequently somehow related either to the Nazi Germany or the Soviet Russia".[10]

Sonali Srivastav and Shikha Rai drew comparisons between "Russian Sleep Experiment" and the 2018 miniseries Ghoul, noting that the series took inspiration from the creepypasta.[11]

Adaptations

The Russian Sleep Experiment's popularity has led to various adaptations over the years. A novel inspired by the original short story was published in 2015 but is now out-of-print.[12]

The 2019 play Subject UH1317 - When Science Traces A Deadly Turn is based on the short story.[13]

In early 2018, a psychological thriller based on the short story began production, directed by John Farrelly, and is set to be released in 2020.[14]

Several other adaptations have been created, including a film based on the short story entitled The Soviet Sleep Experiment, with Chris Kattan starring and Barry Andersson directing.[15][16] Filming for the movie took place in Lakeville, Minnesota during 2018.[17]

See also

References
  1. Considine, Austin (2010-11-12). "Bored at Work? Try Creepypasta, or Web Scares (Published 2010)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-10-30.
  2. Yegorov, Oleg (March 21, 2019). "What was the Russian Sleep Experiment?". Russia Beyond. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  3. Mikkelson, David (August 28, 2013). "Was the Russian Sleep Experiment Real?". snopes.com. Retrieved June 9, 2019.
  4. Fernando, Gavin (June 15, 2016). "How the Russian Sleep Experiment became a global phenomenon". news.com.au. Retrieved July 29, 2018.
  5. Emery, David (December 31, 2018). "The Russian Sleep Experiment Urban Legend". LiveAbout. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  6. "Video: The Infographics Show Explores THE RUSSIAN SLEEP EXPERIMENT". Dread Central. 2020-04-06. Retrieved 2020-10-30.
  7. Griffin, Andrew (February 20, 2015). "Creepypasta: the digital campfires where the Slender Man was born". independent.co.uk. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
  8. "Ten Infamous Creepypastas Based on a Single Terrifying Image".
  9. Taylor, Tosha R. (2020), Bloom, Clive (ed.), "Horror Memes and Digital Culture", The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 985–1003, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-33136-8_58, ISBN 978-3-030-33135-1, retrieved 2020-10-30
  10. Serwotka, Aleksandra; Stwora, Anna (2019-02-05). "Powrót do dyskursów internetowych: język creepypasty". Media - Kultura - Komunikacja Społeczna. 4 (14): 11–25. doi:10.31648/mkks.2958. ISSN 1734-3801.
  11. "Metanarratives of Identity in Web-series: A Narrative Analysis of Netflix's Ghoul (2018)" (PDF). International Journal of Media and Information Literacy. 4 (2). 2019-12-05. doi:10.13187/ijmil.2019.2.50.
  12. Rigney, Todd (September 1, 2015). "Russian Sleep Experiment Creepypasta Becomes a Creepy Novella". Dread Central. Retrieved July 29, 2018.
  13. "The war between science and human race - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 2020-10-30.
  14. "I Love Limerick, John Farrelly Set to Release Debut Feature Film, 'The Sleep Experiment'". February 22, 2019.
  15. Sprague, Mike (December 14, 2018). "Creepypasta's Russian Sleep Experiment Is Becoming a Horror Movie". Movie Web. Retrieved December 31, 2018.
  16. Squires, John (2018-12-14). "That Crazy Disturbing "Russian Sleep Experiment" Urban Legend is Getting Its Own Horror Movie". Bloody Disgusting!. Retrieved 2020-10-30.
  17. "Blood, guts and lots of coffee: 'Soviet Sleep Experiment' finishes shooting in Lakeville". Twin Cities. 2018-12-28. Retrieved 2020-10-30.

Further reading
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