The Russian Sleep Experiment is a creepypasta which tells the tale of 5 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. Many news organizations, including Snopes, News.com.au, and LiveAbout, trace the story's origins to a website, now known as the Creepypasta Wiki, being posted on August 10, 2010, by a user named OrangeSoda, whose real name is unknown.

The story recounts an experiment set in 1947 at a covert Soviet test facility. In a military-sanctioned scientific experiment, five prisoners that were deemed Enemies of the State were kept in a sealed gas chamber, with an experimental gas-based stimulant compound continually administered 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 in the specified 30 days. The subjects behaved as usual during the initial 5 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 the subject matter. After 9 days, one subject began screaming uncontrollably for hours while the others did not react to his outburst. The man screamed for so long that he tore his vocal cords, and was rendered mute as a result. 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.

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