Anyone here ever hear of the… Russian Sleep Experiment?
*Shines flashlight creepily upward under chin*
Oooh… mystery mists that drive you crazy?
Getting possessed by the sleep deprivation devil?
Unfortunately, now that I’ve gotten you all excited, I also have to be the one to tell you:
It ain’t true.
Yep. It’s a myth. A believable one (that they’d do the experiment at all – I mean – not that everyone turned into Gollum), given all the equally stuff that actually went down in that era – but a myth, no less. I know, I know. It’s tough because we like to believe in the possibility of verge-of-supernatural things happening. It makes our lives less boring. So, yes, I was upset too. However, I tried my hardest to get over the shock about this lie I’d just been told (since it’s so unlike the internet to do something like that to us) and find some truth in it. How? By asking a related question: well, what if you kept someone awake for fifteen days?
Now, though I went full throttle on my Googler-mobile, I couldn’t seem to spot a comparable tale.
But what I did find was what happens when you stay awake for eleven days.
Because a high schooler called Randy Gardner actually tested the theory back in the 60’s (when kids could still think outside some app-infused box sitting in the palm of their hands). The reason? Just to see what’d happen to his brain and bod. I think what makes this next-level badass of him is that he did it over the course of his winter break. While many of us have just spent all of our winter holidays voluntarily putting ourselves into food induced comas, this kid was doing the total opposite by staging an experiment out of school – with his own mind and the meat puppet it lived in as the laboratory.
So what happened?
Well, after the first day of no sleep, Randy found focus to be an issue.
When handed familiar objects, it took him a bit of extra effort to recognize them (I do that anyway most mornings when I put my tea in the cupboard and look for the reheat button – not that unexpected). And day three of the experiment wasn’t that much more surprising: he was becoming a bit moody and mad at his pals (I wonder if he tried throwing dishware at the wall. Always soothes my soul) and a bit confused. To be fair, though, some of the tests they did to confirm his confusion were a bit unreasonable. Like, who here can do the “Peter Piper picked a pecker” tongue twister effectively on a full night of sleep? Oh, what – I’m the only one who can’t?
Liars…
Moving on.
Because it was the next day that shiz started to get interesting.
Around day four, Randy began having hallucinations and delusions. He was so far down the slumber bereft rabbit hole that he mistook traffic signs for people and even came to believe he was some famous dude who played for the San Diego Chargers. (TBH, this sounds more fun than a buncha satanic Soviets if you ask me.)
So, what did we learn from Randy Gardner in the end? Well, not very much – except that lack of sleep won’t necessarily kill you (unless, ya know, a school of sirens summons you with song into a wood chipper or something during your hallucination phase). Mostly, it’ll just dampen your sanity, temporarily, and maybe cost you a few relationships when you morph into a moody douche. Other than that, Mr. Gardner went on to live a perfectly normal and happy life. (After a fifteen hour nap at a hospital).
In sum: nada fascinatingly demonic was educed from Randy as a result of his sleep deprivation.
But if it makes you feel any better…
I can promise the portals of hell would’ve opened by day one had I been the test subject.