Daily use is almost three times higher in the non-college group.In the past five years, daily marijuana use has continued to rise for non-college young adults, reaching its highest level in 2017 at 13.2%.Daily marijuana use continues to rise for non-college young adults.Figure 1: Marijuana use is lower in college students than in their non-college peers.Still, whoever came up with the story of the Russian sleep experiment in the first place deserves points for their creative writing. “Consequently, those soldiers would’ve been useless even if they miraculously managed not to sleep for 30 days.” “Since the brain can’t function properly after being sleep-deprived for 11 days, it’s safe to assume things would get much worse if one tries to stay awake longer,” he says. And studies have found that after just 48 hours without sleep, people tend to become slower, disoriented, prone to making mistakes, and ultimately less effective as a soldier. While there is some truth to the claims that amphetamines have been used to keep soldiers alert in historical times of war, there is no scientific evidence of a gas existing that could keep anyone awake for 15 days. He also experienced mood swings, memory issues, severe difficulty focusing, paranoia and hallucinations. Gardner experienced severe behavioral and cognitive changes during those 11 days (even though he wanted to prove that nothing bad would happen when a person doesn’t sleep), Dr. The current documented world record for staying awake is a bit longer than 11 days, which was achieved by Randy Gardner in 1963. So how long can someone truly stay awake? The 20 Best Pillows for Sleeping Peacefully.“Even after a few days, a person can start hallucinating, which would make it extremely hard for them to perform simple daily actions, let alone deal with military assignments that require extreme focus,” he says. “Some drugs and high caffeine dosages may grant a couple of days without shut-eye, but 30 is impossible,” he says.Īdditionally, this experiment is unlikely because of the effect sleep deprivation has on the brain, Dr. There's no scientific ground proving that gas (or any other substance, for that matter) can keep a person awake for 30 days, says Po-Chang Hsu, MD, an internal medicine physician and medical content expert at SleepingOcean. But even the science doesn't hold up.Įxperts are quick to refute this myth as well. For one thing, there's the fact that the story's sole original source seems to be a website dedicated to telling creepy (made-up) stories. Is any of the Russian Sleep Experiment actually true?Īccording to a video from The Infographics Channel on YouTube, which provides animated summaries of events from history, current events and literature, the Russian sleep experiment almost certainly has its basis in fiction. Finally, when one of the researchers asked what exactly these men had become, the last surviving test subject told him that they represented the potential for evil that exists in all human beings, which is usually contained by sleep, but had been unleashed by their constant wakefulness. There, they discovered that one of the men was dead, and the four surviving test subjects were all sporting horrendously violent injuries, some of which appeared to be self-inflicted.Īttempts to sedate the men were either unsuccessful, or led to their deaths the moment they lost consciousness. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to playġ5 days into the experiment, when scientists could no longer see the men through the thick glass of the chamber, or hear them through the microphones, they filled the room with fresh air and unlocked it. But as time went on, they began to act even more strangely. Within a few days, the men were exhibiting the kind of paranoia and psychosis that is a typical symptom of sleep deprivation. They locked the five men in a hermetically sealed chamber and began pumping in the gas. They decided to test their new gas on five prisoners, promising them their freedom upon completion of the experiment. The story goes that Soviet-era scientists created a stimulant which they believed would enable soldiers to not require sleep for up to 30 days. But could this deeply unsettling legend have had some roots in fact? The Russian Sleep Experiment is a popular urban myth which began to circulate online in "creepypasta" forums (so-named for the ease with which you could copy-paste spooky content) in the early 2010s. Exactly how long could you stay awake without cracking as a result of sleep deprivation? Some people say there was an over-the-top experiment for that. Especially if you haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately, you might wonder just how long you can go on like that.
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