Sleep experts say that sleeping seven to nine hours per night is ideal for a healthy adult. With a good night’s sleep, you can refresh your brain, rest and recover your muscles, and keep your immune system strong. Still, that didn’t stop Russian scientists in the 1940s from discovering a gas mixture that they believed would eradicate the need for humans to sleep. To test the solution, researchers gathered a few enemies of the Russian State and locked them in a chamber for a 30-day period while they pumped this gas into the chamber.
The results? Let’s just say that researchers observed more than they would have thought possible…
The Experiment Begins…
In the late 1940s, five men the Russian State considered enemies were chosen to take part in an experiment involving sleep deprivation. The goal was to use small doses of an experimental gas stimulant that could supposedly eliminate the need for sleep in humans.
Sealed Inside
The subjects were kept in a sealed environment so that the researchers wouldn’t be exposed to the gas, and the prisoners only had microphones to communicate with them. They were provided with books, a toilet, running water, enough food to last each of them a full month, and a cot with no bedding.
The First Three Days
For the first three days, everything went well: researchers falsely promised the prisoners that if they cooperated and didn’t sleep for 30 days, they would be freed. To pass the time, strangely, the prisoners opened up about past traumas to one another. After four days, the conversations turned darker…