The Russian Sleep Experiment | Creep Cast
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Welcome back to another episode of Creepcast! Let's go, baby! Episode 3! Let's get it, I'm so excited. Episode 3. So it seems like we are... We were talking about doing Baras... Do you pronounce it Baraskis or Baraska? I've always pronounced it Baraska, but I have no idea if that's correct or not. I only read it, so... Yeah, we could be completely wrong here.

But we're going to do that one, but it's a bit of a long one, so I think that we're going to wait to get all of the holiday rigmarole out of the way with visiting people and, you know,

Back-to-back holidays all that jazz so I think we're gonna save Boroska for the new year And it'll probably break that up into two parts since that's a bit of a longer one But I to me I was like you know episode 3 What's a great way to end the year and it's on another classic in my opinion, which is the Russian sleep experiment You know I feel like that. I honestly am wondering if this is the first creepypasta that I ever read or saw

I want to say that it is. It's one of like the OGs. I remember, I don't know if it was the first one. Honestly, Jeff the Killer might have been the first one I read. That or something like Laughing Jack.

But the Russian Sleep Experiment had to be the first 10 I ever read, right? Like it's one of the earliest creepypastas out there. And it's definitely one of the ones that's most well remembered because I don't remember that much. Before we get into it, I don't remember that much around like specific story beats. But I remember the ending and I remember obviously the image that got associated with it. So it had things that worked for me.

Things that I liked, even looking back on them, I'm like, yeah, that was well done. I'm not as, what's the word, pessimistic going into this as I was Jeff the Killer. No. But I'm also, I'm a little worried. I don't remember a lot of the bones of this story, so we'll see. Yeah, and I guess to, well, here's the thing. This is a short enough story to where me and Wendy, we were like,

Why don't we just read it? It's not that long. I feel like we've been getting more and more feedback that people like when we read this stuff. So I figured, why not? I will say, I am not as pessimistic as Jeff the Killer, like you are, going into it as well. I think we're on the same boat there. But I do think that there is...

There's definitely going to be a level of cheese and angst. If I remember right, the ending is chock full of some Joker-level energy lines, whatever, that I fuck with. I think that even from a personal level, I think that that has even translated into my work. I like really cheesy, grandiose, almost like...

theater-driven dialogue. You know, regardless if you think that this... The problem is, when people write it, they feel like Shakespeare, when really it looks like it should be a line on the side of a Monster Energy drink can. That's the juxtaposition that's happening. And I guess before we get into it as well, well, here's the thing, too. Like, you were saying that the imagery stuck with you

that the, what is it, that it tied in in some really good ways. To me, when I first read this, I'm almost positive, well, 100% I thought it was real. Because what I love about this is that

It branches into the fantastical in a way, but really it feels like any other fucked up war crime that would happen, and especially Russia? Sure, the things it gets to are fantastical, but the actual premise of where it starts, you're like, yeah, I could easily see this happening at a labor camp that's being used by scientists or something. It is a much less...

far out there premise than a lot of these other stories start with. And for that, I don't know if I thought it was real per se, but I remember as a kid thinking this could be real, uh, until it gets to, you know, where the story does in the end. Um, sure. So it's already, it's already tapering itself in a way. Most creepy pastas did it, you know, like it's, it's reeling itself back a bit. Um,

So, yeah, like I said, I'm kind of nervous to see where, how it goes from here, but we'll find out. Yeah, I mean, just the idea that, like, this is, I mean, this has to be one of the first creepypastas, and I'm speaking completely out of ignorance, totally out of my ass here, but it has to be one of the first ones that has based itself around trying to be something that is...

very... For people that don't know, this whole thing is that it's supposed to be a Russian sleep test done on Russian military... I don't know if they're participants. We'd have to find out the story, but the idea is that... If I remember right, it's political prisoners. Okay, so they're political prisoners.

But essentially, it's in the Russia in the 40s, which, you know, World War II, by this time, which also it's all through gas therapy or like some kind of gas treatment, which is more of a World War II kind of like early 1900s, like 1918, you know, World War I kind of vibe.

But still, the 40s, it has this kind of atmosphere to it that can... It can have some kind of realism just because...

Talk about stupid fucking American. All right? When I see a picture of just some old-timey gas masks and they're black and white, I'm like, this is real. This happened. I can't... Look, they're wearing the masks. How could this be fake? They're wearing the mask. All right? And also, you know...

as it gets on, it's more and more obvious. Okay. We were like, okay, well now we're good. This is, we're getting a little crazy. Sure. But even the image that got associated with the Russian sleep experiment and like all the iconography that's with it, because you know, um, which I have a little thing where our source that we're using today is creepypasta.com. All right. Which is, I mean, can you get any better? I don't know. I doubt it. Um,

They had something interesting here for the origin of the story that I thought was kind of interesting that plays into a bunch of different things, which this is all quoted from creepypasta.com, so don't yell at me. But they say that there is some disagreement as to where the story first originated. While...

Some sources claim that the first appearance can be linked back to a user known only as Orange Soda, who posted the story to Creepypasta's website on August 10, 2010. Others trace its origin to an August 8, 2009 post on the RIP747 WordPress blog,

pointing out that the story was also posted to the miscellaneous board of a bodybuilding forum by user named Falcon Punch on August 20th, 2009, which would again predate Orange Soda's post on Creepypasta. Which, this was funny when I read this because the amount of heinous shit to come out of bodybuilding forums in the early 2000s was unbelievable. Ha ha ha!

I don't know why it had to... Internet culture and all kinds of weird shit had to happen on bodybuilding forums. But anytime I do weird deep dives... There's this great YouTube channel called Danknut. Anytime that it's an interesting figure that started, I don't know, a military cult or a guy who thinks that he can bench press 6,000 pounds or something, it always starts on a bodybuilding forum somehow. It does. Yeah, it does. So...

We don't really know. I mean, like, you know, it goes back and forth of people saying that, you know, the original Creep Pasta was written by a British author named Ice. But we don't really know. So essentially, the story could have been posted. It's basically said that it started from 2009, 2010, which, if I remember correctly, is still a little later than Jeff.

a little later than Jeff the Killer, but still up there. But I think that this grew in popularity when it went on the Mr. Creepypasta channel on YouTube in 2011. That would have been where I saw it for the first time. Exactly. Which is where people also speculate where the imagery got tied in. The infamous picture and stuff like that. The one of the guy in a straight jacket on the ground. He's got the big teeth and the eyes, which it turns out that's actually a Halloween prop.

Just the images edited to make it look like it's some old timey photo. But like I said, as a kid, that worked. Even now looking back on it, I'm like, that's a creepy photo. That's a cool thing to say that like what these people got to by the end of an experiment. I think it still holds up. Even if I do know now it's just a Halloween prop.

Sure. And that's the thing, too, that I'm finding with more and more of these creepypastas. What I like about a lot of these early creepypastas is you didn't have to... It was like, we're getting into really vague Bigfoot territory, where it's like, I don't need a great video. I just want a solid photo that I can...

I can grab hold of and be like, this is my identity. And that's what all these creepypastas had. They had just one solid photo to carry the short story that they had, which is great. Which, you know, I love that. I love that it's just one solid little thing, usually some kind of obscure, weird photo that can just, like...

put someone in this situation where they're like, oh, this is amazing. I'm fucking horrified. So, you know. It's really great. But without further ado, why don't we start reading? Let's get into this classic. Let's see what it's got in store.

So we begin with Russian. Oh my God. We don't begin with that. You can do better. Yikes. I can't. You're a voice actor by God. Act like it. I know, but I'm, I'm a dyslexic voice actor. It's improvised. All right. I can't read scripts. I can voice act as long as someone says it to me first. I can't. The nice. Yeah. That's, that's a nice thing that you got. You just like a little chameleon. You're able to copy. Um,

Russian researchers in the late 1940s kept five people awake for 15 days using an experimental gas called... Using an experimental gas-based stimulant.

They were kept in a sealed environment to carefully monitor their oxygen intake so the gas didn't kill them. Since it was toxic in high concentrations, this was before closed circuit cameras, so they had only microphones and 5-inch thick glass porthole-sized windows into the chamber to monitor them.

The chamber was stocked with books, cots to sleep on, but no bedding, running water, and a toilet, and enough dried food to last all five for over a month. So already, let me tell you something. You know, yesterday was a nice big holiday. I sat there, and I stayed up far too late. So I'm already, you know, I'm feeling the repercussions of being kind of sleepy today. The idea of having to just, like...

like having to stay awake for more, especially at this age, dude, you know, unbelievable. Trying to stay awake for that long. This is hell. This would be legitimate hell. Now, I don't know. Okay, yeah. So the next deal, the next line is literally, the test subjects were political prisoners deemed enemies of the state during World War II. Which country do you think they're from?

I would guess German because it's saying that it's like political prisoners or it could also be like Russian, you know, leaders who like to send it against the state. But I mean, I would probably say German prisoners, right? Because that's who Russia would have. Yeah, but... What do you think? Well, I mean, I think you're completely correct. It's just, it's a bummer. It's a bummer, isn't it? Because now it's like, well, now they're a little more less sympathetic. No!

Right now, I don't really give a shit. I keep it. Now you can just leave it awake, see what happens. Yeah. I will say, like, hearing you read that first part, my hopes did perk up a bit because thinking about that, I forgot the detail that the purpose of the experiment was to test a stimulant. And that actually kind of tracks with potential, like, real world history. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Because during World War II, uh, it's, it's a known fact now that like German soldiers in like the Blitzkrieg and stuff or in Blitzkrieg formations were given like methamphetamine so that they could stay awake for like more than 24 hours at a time before the reinforcements replaced them. So the Germans were using all these stimulants to get, uh,

things done in the battlefield. So now it's like, oh, here's the Russians making a gas-based stimulant and just using human prisoners from the war to test it. Like, everything so far is incredibly valid as far as, like, potential alternate history. Well, it tracks

Exactly. It tracks with historical stuff that's going on already. I mean, there's no... I mean, think about all the movies so far, too, that have had people from World War II trying to create, like, super soldiers and all kinds of weird experiments and stuff that they did on their own people or whatever back then, to where even if it is skewed from the truth a bit, in media, we have been told this.

since, I mean, God, like the first thing I can think of is Indiana Jones and the Raiders lost arc, whatever. The Nazis are always looking for some kind of like superpower or whatever. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's like, it, it does that. It, it,

Immediately, like you're saying, I like the idea that it's playing with the idea that it is messing with your understanding of what is historical and also what is things in media that you've been told that you might have just believed because you were young. Right? Yeah. If I was young and I saw Indiana Jones, I'd probably be like, oh, okay, so the Nazis are trying to find...

buried gold that's going to turn them invisible and gods into gods or whatever. Sure. Like, I mean, I would be like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. You know, whatever. So I do like that. Yeah. It toes that line very well. It fits in each, I think works. And also like even the tech stuff where it says like, well, CCTV didn't exist at the time. So they have portholes and microphones and it's like, yeah, that is the technology that they would have.

Little pieces of... You know what? I'm feeling a bit better after that first paragraph. One paragraph in and we're already in. Yeah, because I'm in. I'm back in. It was over, but now we're back. We're so back.

We're so, so back. We're so, so back. Because in my head, I'm thinking, okay, was the Russian sleep experiment, were they trying to conjure, because I haven't read this in so long, were they trying to conjure demons or were they trying to make some super monster man? No, they were trying to test a stimulant. Okay, I'm interested. All right.

Hold on. Let me take this next paragraph. We'll see. We'll see if this dips off or when it dips off, but we'll keep going. I'm good for now. All right. Yeah. I mean, the idea too, which I was going to make a note to talk about this later as well, but I also like how they just say stimulant.

A lot of good storytelling with this kind of stuff. You don't want to keep everything so ambiguous that you lose the faith of the reader. Because if you keep things too ambiguous too early, a thing happens where a reader is just like, I don't even think the author knows what he's talking about. I have no faith in you.

But to just say a stimulant, you know, I mean, you can run, you can have your mind run with that. So I like the idea that it's just like, it's just a stimulant. We're not going to go, we don't have to like bog down the fucking story with what exactly it is. But I digress. It makes sense. It makes sense for everything that's happening.

So from there, next paragraph says, everything was fine for the first five days. The subjects, excuse me, the subjects hardly complained having been promised falsely that they would be freed if they submitted to the test and did not sleep for 30 days. Their conversations and activities were monitored and it was noted that they continued to talk about increasingly traumatic incidents in their past and the general tone of their conversations took a darker aspect after the four day mark.

That would have been me three hours into this experiment. I would have immediately been talking about how life is meaningless. I would have immediately gone into nihilism without a catnap. You find me without a catnap, I will be dead.

Just talking about all the dark things in my life. That's definitely... But how cruel is this? I mean, this is some next level torture. They're saying that it's an experiment, but this feels like torture. You're going to stay up for as long as you can. When's the first time you ever saw someone die in person? It's like, good God, dude. Just let me... Can I just sit here? Like, my God. And that's four days in. That's four days in. Four days. Four days. Four days.

Which, they said it's a 15-day trial, right? 30. 30-day. 30-day trial. Full month! Yeah. Okay. Four days in, and this is already happening. No thank you. So then it continues from... Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I didn't want to cut you off. So I was going to say, and then it continues to... After five days, they started to complain about the circumstances and events that led them to where they were and started to demonstrate severe paranoia. They stopped talking to each other and began alternately whispering to the microphones and one-way mirrored portholes.

Oddly, they all seemed to think that they could win the trust of the experimenters by turning over their comrades, the other subjects, in captivity with them. At first, the researchers suspected this was an effect of the gas itself.

Which I don't know about that. I don't know about that either. I probably just want to get out of there. Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, come on. That's fascinating, though, that, like, they were previously like, oh, it's us versus them, and now they're beginning to dissent after just the five-day mark. I'll continue off of that in the next paragraph that says...

After nine days, the first of them started screaming. He ran the length of the chamber repeatedly, yelling at the top of his lungs for three hours straight. He continued attempting to scream, but was only able to produce occasional squeaks. The researchers postulated that he had physically torn his vocal cords.

The most surprising thing about this behavior is how the other captives reacted to it. Or rather, didn't react to it. They continued whispering to the microphones until the second of the captives started to scream. The two non-screaming captives took the books apart, smeared page after page with their own feces, and paced them calmly over the glass portholes. The screaming promptly stopped. So did the whispering to the microphones.

Okay. You know what? We are so, so back. I forgot about that detail. That's dope. I love that. That's so cool. Okay. So, like, they're beginning to lose their mind and a couple of them are snapping. And those that haven't snapped, it's like, sure, they're using crude implements, you know, books and feces to cover up the portholes. But they're...

but there's a deliberation to what they're doing. There's some greater plan, and it makes it seem like they're all in on it in some like a ethereal sense, because as soon as the researchers can't see what's going on in there anymore, the screaming stops, the whispering stops. And it's, ah, it's so, it's like what's got a hold of these people?

It's so good. I like it. I like it. Well, I think there's also this from another angle to the juxtaposition of a man, like the uncomfortable and like haunting nature of a guy screaming until his vocal cords get completely snapped and fried and he's still doing it. It's painful. But then you also have the other people who are sitting there whispering. So it's like you have this juxtaposition between people who are whispering

This guy who's screaming and then people who are whispering. And like you said, sure, it's a little over heightened with them tearing the pages off and rubbing their asses with it and putting it up. But I think that it does a good job by it has a purpose of them then putting it up on the window. And then now all is quiet. It's just a very...

Very simple setup, very simple scene, but honestly, it's very nice. They all share a consciousness now, which kind of gets touched on later in the story, I remember. But it's like they all are in a unison about what they're doing, so they're taking deliberate moves to enact whatever this plan is. Being quiet, covering up the windows, etc.,

Well, it's also very animalistic. Yeah. The idea that it's almost as if they're trying to bait a response. It feels like a dying animal, like screaming and all this kind of things. And then once they kind of complete their ritual or they're sealing up so that people can't look in, then they are being more truthful. By truthful, I guess I mean they go quiet. They're achieving something. So it's just like...

It seems like it's mass hysteria. It seems like these people are going insane, but there's still a level of calculated chaos that's happening that's very intriguing. Yeah. To continue on, after three more days passed, the researchers checked the microphones hourly to make sure they were working, since they thought it impossible that no sound could be coming with five people inside.

The oxygen consumption in the chamber indicated that all five must still be alive. In fact, it was the amount of oxygen five people would consume at a very heavy level of strenuous exercise. On the morning of the 14th day, the researchers did something they said they would not do to get a reaction from the captives. They used the intercom inside the chamber, hoping to provoke any response from the captives they were afraid were either dead or vegetables. They announced...

To their surprise, they heard a single phrase in a calm voice response, "We no longer want to be freed."

Which I remember that. That's coming back to me now. Yeah, yeah. That's good. That's still good. That still works. I remember that being good and it's still good. I like that. So, you know, these researchers, they have... Because, like, otherwise the experiments to see what happens on their own without outside intervention after being awake for 30 days...

And now, because the whole time these people are in there whispering to the portholes and talking, they're not getting any response. There's no human input. So now they're giving human input to try to figure out what's going on inside there. And they respond, we no longer want to be freed. Terrifying. That is terrifying. They've become something else. They've become something that's no longer interested in getting out. They're no longer political prisoners or members of an army or a war. There's something beyond. Yeah.

Yeah, this still works. It's still cool. It may get lame in a bit. As a matter of fact, it probably will. But right now, I'm still into it. This is great. I am too. But we're branching into, even though we no longer want to be freed line, while creepy, like I said, we're getting into monster energy can levels of territory here. We no longer want to be freed. Yeah.

It's creepy and I like the setup, but it's cheesy. But I like that. I don't think it needs to be anything too crazy and serious. So I enjoy that. Now, just tell me if I'm wrong here. So are they... It's continuous gas being pumped into the room, correct? They said it's being monitored so that it doesn't become toxic. But yes, there is gas in the room. So it is. Okay. Yeah, I think. Yeah, for sure.

Okay, so I like that aspect. I'm glad that's what's happening. I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right, so from there, it says, after they hear the line, we no longer want to be freed, debate broke out among the researchers and the military forces funding the research. Unable to provoke any more response using the intercom, it was finally decided to open the chamber at midnight on the 15th day.

The chamber was flushed of the stimulant gas and filled with fresh air and immediately voices from the microphones began to object. Three different voices began begging as if pleading for the life of loved ones to turn the gas back on. The chamber was opened and soldiers sent in to retrieve the test subjects. They began to scream louder than ever and so did the soldiers when they saw what was inside.

Four of the five subjects were still alive, although no one could rightly call the state that any of them in... Call the state... Yeah, it's a typo, sorry. No one could rightly call the state that any of them were in, life. The food rations past day five had not been so much as touched.

There were chunks of meat from the dead TUS subjects' thighs and chest stuffed into the drain in the center of the chamber, blocking the drain and allowing four inches of water to accumulate on the floor. Precisely how much of the water on the floor was actually blood was never determined.

All four surviving test subjects also had a large portion of muscle and skin torn away from their bodies. The destruction of flesh and exposed bone on their fingertips indicated that the wounds were inflicted by hand, not with teeth as the researchers initially thought. Closer examination of the position and angles of the wounds indicated that most, if not all of them, were self-inflicted.

So already, before we get into the more intense details, these people have plugged up the drains to not allow anything to leave the room. More than likely to keep the gas in as high concentrations in the room as possible. And they're ripping out pieces of their own skin. They've already killed one guy and used his skin to clog up the drains. They've become like these starved animals just tearing apart flesh. Yeah. I mean, there's...

They clog the drain, too, with muscle and skin and stuff like that as well. There's a thin layer of liquid on the floor that you can't tell how much of it's water, how much of it is blood, which also leads you to believe, too, like, how much of it's piss, how much of it is, like, bodily fluids that they've just been, like, putting on the floor. It's getting...

extremely animalistic. I mean, even some of the descriptions here, it sounds like, I mean, like an ape attack or like a chimpanzee attack or something like that. They're like, they're de-evolving mentally and they're like now screaming and pleading to not let the nice air in, which, uh,

You know, I mean, at this point, it's got to be reminiscent of, like, some kind of smoking bar or something like that in New York. It's got to be some place where the hipsters go to smoke their European cigarettes. And, you know, whenever someone, like, lets the door open, they say, close it! That's what comes to your mind when you hear this. When you hear skin and flesh...

and bodily fluids all over the room, you're like, oh, Europeans, am I right? No, no, no, not Europeans. I think of five foot four hipsters in Hoboken, New York, sitting there, and they're opening, or New Jersey, where the fuck Hoboken is, and they're sitting there, and they're just like, they shut the door, you're letting all the good smoke out.

It's what they say. Because I've been to some of those places. Let me tell you, Andy, it's hell. It's its own little gas chamber, let me tell you. And it is not a fun place to be. There's always one pool table, and there's always two people that don't know how to play pool on the pool table. It doesn't matter. That's just as bad. Just as bad as what we're talking about. I hate to say it. I really don't want to be this kind of guy, but I do feel like it is just as bad. That's just me, though. All right? People might have their own experiences.

But to get a little more description of the gore, the gruesome nature that's happening, I'll continue reading. The abdominal organs below the ribcage of all four test subjects had been removed, while the heart, lungs, and diaphragm remained in place. The skin and most of the muscles attached to the ribs had been ripped off, exposing the lungs through the ribcage.

All the blood vessels and organs remained intact. They had just been taken out and laid on the floor. Fanning out around the eviscerated... Great word. Fanning out around the eviscerated but still living bodies of the subjects, the digestive tract of all four could be seen to be working, digesting food. It quickly became apparent that what they were digesting was their own flesh that they had ripped off and eaten over the course of days. Okay, so...

For one, this paragraph is very brutal, very graphic. It technically, technically is not 100% out of realm of reality because there are cases, like, you know, with surgeries, like they'll take your organs out and lay them on the table. Sure. Right? Still attached to you, still working as they operate on other things. So technically it could exist. However, this is the paragraph that brings the story into more fantastical, which to be clear is fine. Definitely.

It's fine. If you want to tell a supernatural story or an out there story, which is where this goes, that's cool. But for me, this is the paragraph where it leaves alternate history into the unfiction, zombie world. Which again, totally fine. You can still do cool stories with it. But I think this was the paragraph and from here on out,

That as a kid, I went from like, is this real? To like, oh no, it's just in a setting that could be real. Which is fine. It's cool. It is what it is. Well, for a lot of people too, I think what you're describing is like, once you leave that realm of reality, it's very hard for people to stay invested as like something that you're like, oh my god, what is this? You know? Something that remains more horrifying, which to be fair, like you're saying,

It's still fun. It's still fine. But I do agree. I think that this is a part where we're leaving the reality train...

And now it's like, now we're just having fun versus actually being super scared. Which, like, for me, I love obviously supernatural stories, weird stuff. It's most of what I read, what I intake, you know, fiction and horror, right? So, like, I'm still on board, but I understand this could be a point where a lot of people who were otherwise on board are like, okay, you know, and they dip out. Yeah.

It's entering schlock. With how grotesque and how descriptive it is, it's getting into the fantastical and it's getting into... Just like cheese. It's like a B-horror film now. The digestive tract of all four can be seen working, digesting food. And not only is it food, but it's like their own skin. It's awesome! That's brutal and fun in all the right ways.

But it is, you know, it's a step of like, it's a step between a man in a business suit and...

Like a chocolate factory owner. That's what I was going to say. Like you have a guy in a purple suit and you're like, oh, does he work at Chase Bank? And then now he has a top hat and now he owns a chocolate factory. That's the step that we just took. I see what's happening. It's a different world we're dealing in. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. But that being said, very cool. The idea that they laid out their organs and were eating themselves, that's awesome. That's dope.

It's the best part of every zombie film. It feels like something that would be in 28 Days Later or something. These are the parts of the zombie films where... Exactly. It's the fun body horror aspect of a zombie film that you're waiting for. So...

I enjoy it, but once again, we didn't get prepped for that thing, so we're stepping into kind of different town. You just gotta know what you're getting into, but it's still fun. And with that, it keeps getting fun, because I'm going to continue reading. It says, Most of the soldiers were Russian special operatives at that facility, but still many refused to return to the chamber to remove the test subjects. They continued to scream to be left in the chamber and alternatively begged and demanded that the gas be turned back on, lest they fall asleep.

To everyone's surprise, the test subjects put up a fierce fight in the process of being removed from the chamber. One of the Russian soldiers died from having his throat ripped out.

Another was gravely injured by having his testicles ripped off and an artery in his leg severed by one of the subject's teeth. Ugh. Yum. Another five of the soldiers lost their lives if you count ones that committed in the weeks following the incident. Or sorry, if you follow the ones that committed unalive. Haha, YouTube, in the weeks following the incident. Yeah, get fucked. Uh...

You know, the one thing that I like about this compared to something like Jeff the Killer is that it really holds no bar. But also, it makes you think about the actual anatomy of it. If you look at something like Jeff the Killer, which is definitely written by, I don't know, like a 10-year-old. Right.

Right. 12, 13, whatever. 13. 10's a bit harsh. I'm being rude. I'm being rude. You are. But what I mean is that it's juvenile where it's just like he cut him, whatever. And that's supposed to be the big thing. Like he bled tons, you know? Yeah. Instead here it's, you know, having his testicle ripped off and an artery in his leg severed by one of the subject's teeth. Which when I hear that, it makes me think of like,

like the brake line to a bicycle. Yeah. I mean like the stick, like cords, whatever getting ripped. It's, it's, it's nice imagery, which, which, you know, you can almost picture like the teeth tearing away and like the artery running down the thigh, pulling out. Oh, absolutely. Oh, it's, it's great. It's great. This is like this feeling that's like, oh, that's awful. That's body horror. That's what you're supposed to feel. That's the direction. So it's successfully getting across what the story is trying to get across.

It's that level of intrigue where you get into the area where you're like, I don't know why I'm intrigued, but I'm horrifyingly disgusted. That's that element of body horror that I think taps into that really disgusting part of our brain where it's almost like watching a live leak video or something. It's horrible, but what are you going to do? Look away? Very close play on the video, you know?

So, keep going on. In the struggle, one of their four living subjects had his spleen ruptured. He bled out almost immediately. The medical researchers attempted to sedate him, but this proved impossible. He was ejected with more than ten times the human dose of a morphine derivative and still fought like a cornered animal.

Breaking the ribs and arm of one doctor, when Hart was seen to beat for a full two minutes after he had bled out to the point there was more air in his vascular system than blood. Even after it stopped, he continued to scream and flail for another three minutes, struggling to attack anyone in reach and just repeating the word, more, over and over, weaker and weaker, until he finally fell silent. Like I said, let me tell you.

A little Monster Energy drink there. That's fine. But I do think that this also is beginning to feel like somebody definitely went to Barnes & Noble and just bought a Grey's Anatomy book is what it's feeling like. You're being a bit... I'm still into it. I think you're being a bit mean. No, no, no. I'm just saying I like it too. Listen, when I say these things, it isn't a direct...

Me being like, this is bad. I'm just saying that with how medical it's getting so quickly, it definitely feels like someone was just like, okay, well, what's this? And they just kind of were going into that. And there was no prep time also for this, right? I think that if... I'll get into more of this later, but it just feels like right now we're getting so...

Like, we're talking about so many of the specific organs. Which, sure, I mean, all he did was say spleen. But it's like... Yeah. It's so much extremely specific details to specific organs. I don't know. I kind of like the idea that, like, his heart's still beating and there's no blood and there's air flying through his system. But it's like...

It's like his body, you know how like when something dies and you electrocute it, the muscles still spasm, like they still react. It's like that. It's like some greater force is forcing his body to work, even though it can't anymore. And he's like a cadaver being thrown around by some imaginary thing. Um,

I think it works. Again, in the realm of the fantastical that we've established, I think it's creepy. I fully believe it works, right? I mean, I'll go into more of what I think of the official criticisms that I have for this later on, but I think it definitely works. I'm just saying that in my mind, I could see a person sitting here writing this with a nice glass of red wine, and they bust open one of those heavily illustrated Barnes & Noble collectibles

books, hardback books of Grey's Anatomy. I think the guy was just looking at tons of, you know, source material for old-timey doctors and stuff and all kinds of things that, you know, how do things connect with each other? But I appreciate that. I appreciate the level of detail

Well, I think you're a hater. I think this is... Okay, alright, man! Alright, man! It's not true! I think this is fraudulent. I think this is cheap shot at quality storytelling. Everyone won't stand for it. Me and the Russian Sleep Experiment truthers don't abide by this. Listen...

I like it, is what I'm saying. It doesn't matter. All I'm going to say is the only real criticism here, because whatever you can say about the Grey's Anatomy book, sure. But what I guess the big thing here is repeating the word more over and over, weaker and weaker, until I finally went silent. That's right up my alley. I like that. It's into the cheesy realm of like, you know, this is the part in the movie, too, where

He says that, and his eyes are all jaundiced up, and he's looking around until they roll into the back of his head. He's like, more, more, more, more, whatever. And then all the doctors look at each other, and they're like, gulp. Right? They probably don't say the word gulp, but they do gulp. And it's a nice beat. It's a nice beat. Gulp. I'm going to keep reading before you keep slandering, digging this hole for yourself. Okay. All right, all right. Okay. Okay.

The surviving three test subjects were heavily restrained and moved to a medical facility. The two with intact vocal cords continuously begging for the gas, demanding to be kept awake. The most injured of the three was taken to the only surgical operating room that the facility had. In the process of preparing the subject to have his organs placed back within his body, it was found that he was effectively immune to the sedative they had given him to prepare him for the surgery.

He fought furiously against his restraints when the anesthetic gas was brought out to put him under. He managed to tear most of the way through a four inch wide leather strap on one wrist, even though the weight of a 200 pound soldier was holding that wrist as well. It took only a little more anesthetic than normal to put him under. In the instant his eyelids fluttered and closed, his heart stopped.

Alright, that...

I'm so back. That goes so hard. They had so much oxygen in their system that their bodies were bulking up, that their muscles were becoming super strong. Just with the wrist, he's able to punch through the strap and the soldier holding it down. His bones are shattering from the mass of his own muscles. All this oxygenation. And then the moment he goes to sleep, he's dead.

I love it. That's cool. Yeah. No, it's definitely levels of anime that's being... Oh my gosh. That's it. We're going to fight right now. No, it's good. It's fun. I like how over the top it is. It is over the top. I'll give you that. The idea too is like with some of these things, the only complaint that I have with any of these, which one, even if I...

Listen, even if you were like, this is amazing, I think this is, like, brilliant, and if I'm like, this is, like, great B-level schlocky fun, you know, it's a fun hell ride, the only complaint I have so far is I wish that we got to, like...

Maybe we got to experience more of these scenes. I just wish there was more to it. Because right now, it's paraphrasing heavily. That's true. It's telling these huge actions that are happening very quickly, which is great for a short story. I think the pacing is great. But if anything, I'm just invested, and I wish that we could get more things of learning more about... Even if we don't know about the prisoners...

We know more about the people that are subduing them to where whenever you hear something like, you know, let's see, he managed to tear most of the way through a four inch wide leather strap, even though the weight of a 200 pound soldier was holding the wrist as well. It might not be important who that soldier is, but I, you know, would it make it more emotionally powerful? Would it make it more intense? If you knew who that soldier was, if you knew the name of that guy, what was going on?

how he's been acting through this whole thing so far. It's just, I want more of that. I think it's all great. It's paraphrasing, but I think it's working great. But to me, I'm like, oh, like that's where my mind goes when I hear all this is I'm like trying to picture the 200 pound soldier, like who he is.

How long has it been working there? Just like little shit like that to where we're like dead sprinting through these people and like they're crazy manic episodes. But really, I have no idea who any of the scientists are or these like people that are, you know, being involved in these experiments and stuff. To where I just wish there was a little more character building there. Is that a huge negative? Not at all. But that's just where my mind is at right now. I'll give you that. I'll give you that.

The story to me, it breaks it at some parts, especially later when there's so many quotes and stuff like that. But for at least the first half, it feels to me like it's almost a field report.

True. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, definitely, definitely. There's a lot of...

Yeah, well, that's... And see, I love that. I love stories like that. You get a lot of that stuff with, like, sailors. Or, like, a lot of, like, H.P. Lovecraft stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah. Where it's, like, sailors talking about things that are happening on specific days of their vessel or whatever. I love that. I love that stuff. It makes it feel much more formal. And also how informal it gets also shows, like, how crazy things have gotten. It's just a really fun narrative device to use.

But, you know, we could talk about more of this. I don't want to keep slowing down the story or anything. So the next part reads,

He shook his head yes when someone suggested it reluctantly. They tried the surgery without anesthetic. It did not react to the entire six-hour procedure of replacing his abdominal organs and attempting to cover them with what remained of his skin. The surgeon presiding stated repeatedly...

that it should be medically possible for the patient to still be alive. One terrified nurse assisting the surgery stated that she had seen the patient's mouth curl into a smile several times whenever his eyes met hers.

This is all stuff that would be great for a movie. Like, I'd love to see a miniseries on this. You know what I mean? I feel like... Little acting moments. Because while I do, I'm going to keep the idea... Sorry to interrupt you. I'm going to keep the sentiment that this is entering B-level schlocky territory. It would be... With good practical effects, this would be a really, really fun scene to see of just, like, this guy not talking...

Because I also imagine his eyes are wide open and he's just looking around and stuff. Yes, we do get into some Jeff the Killer vibes when his mouth curls into a smile several times. I could go without the Heath Ledger Joker aspect there. But I do still think it's really fun and creepy. So this story's been adapted. I don't think I've seen any of them, but this story's been adapted into some short films.

Has it? Yeah, there was... In 2018, there was a thriller directed by John Farley who made a film called The Sleep Experiment that was about it. There is a novel adaptation that was based on it. And there's another...

Several other adaptions in the works, yeah. And there's like a 2015 short film, I think, based on it. Yeah, it's been adapted several times. I don't know how good they are. I haven't seen any of them. But a lot of people share the same sentiment, that this would translate well visually. Yeah. Well, it's so packed full. Yeah. I mean, it goes with... I don't think H.P. Lovecraft ever went as grotesque or brutal, but just with how descriptive...

Just how descriptive he was. Yeah, H.P. Lovecraft's the king of being like, the monster was indescribable. It had four eyes and just describes it for the next... Yeah. Describes it in all of its glory. Like, basically, yeah, it takes seven pages to just be like, man, he was tall. Yeah, it was weird. Yeah. It was real strange. This was crazy. Yeah. But with how descriptive they're being with...

I mean, even some of these say, which also, if I had to be a bit of a... Does it make sense that if there are prisoners of war that they would be doing surgeries to sew back in their... Like, at this point, do you feel, just out of reading this so far, do you think that they would even perform the surgeries or do you think something more realistic would be that they would just shoot them and get new test subjects? Um...

I mean, they probably... So it depends on how much money is invested into this project. And I also think that they're curious why this happened, right? Like, not to get really dark, right? But to also get really dark. There's cases during, like, the Holocaust of, like, Nazi doctors...

when they were doing human experimentation on people in concentration camps, that they would keep them alive to undergo the experiment, right? Because they want to know what the effects are, what happens to you in the long run. So yeah, because they can get their money's worth and their research out of it, they might. If I recall right, the story actually ends with someone doing what you're suggesting. But if this happened in a lab setting, you'd probably want to know why it happened.

Yeah, definitely. I guess, yeah. I mean, that makes, whenever you say that, I think it makes sense. I guess when I hear that, like, they are replacing his abdominal organs and attempting to cover them with the remains skin, to me, I'm like, would they go through that effort for these prisoners? Or would they just be like, I'm going to get more prisoners to try the gas again? Does it say replacing or does it say placing? Because his stuff, the procedure of, maybe by, okay, it does say replacing. Maybe it means just placing them back in his torso.

Because remember, they have them torn out and laid around them. So it's just taking the ones he has and putting them back into place.

Yeah. I don't think they do an organ transplant. Yeah, sure, sure. No, I didn't think so either, but I'm even thinking, like, if your gutty works are just hanging out, I don't think you can just put your guts back in. And they're just, oh, it's fine. I mean, I could be wrong. It depends on damage, because, like, in surgery, right, they'll do that. They'll, like, they'll take your intestine tract out instead of the round. Sure, that's also, yeah, surgeons that are doing it, not feral apes. As we've established, we're in the realm of the... Yeah, devil's advocate, devil's advocate. I'm just saying, yeah. I'm just, yeah. Yeah.

Just a general thought. I'll continue off of that. It says, when the surgery ended, the subject looked at the surgeon and began to wheeze loudly, attempting to talk while struggling. Assuming this must be something of drastic importance, the surgeon had a pen and pad fetched so the patient could write his message. It was simple. Keep cutting.

The other two test subjects were given the same surgery, both without anesthetic as well, although they had to be injected with a paralytic for the duration of the operation. The surgeon found it impossible to perform the operation while the patients laughed continuously.

Once paralyzed, the subjects could only follow the attending researchers with their eyes. The paralytic cleared their system in an abnormally short period of time, and they were soon trying to escape their bonds. The moment they could speak, they were again asking for the stimulant gas. The researchers tried asking why they had injured themselves, why they had ripped out their own guts, and why they wanted to be given the gas again. Only one response was given, I must remain awake.

Yeah, I'm still in. How about you? No, I think it's sick. I'm just... I'm thinking out loud. I don't know. Here it goes. The hater. I'm processing. The hater. I'm not hating. First off, I haven't hated any of this. I don't know. I've been in full support. I've been in full support this whole time, all right? I'm just saying that...

I'm very curious to know what the gas is. More specifics on that. I wish I would know. There's such an emphasis on staying awake and wanting the gas. And the fact that it's vague makes it very interesting. Like, I'm really pondering what it is exactly.

And the obsessive idea of staying awake or needing this thing that has basically taken over their psyche. It's just becoming very... I love in this that they really don't relent on the obsessive nature of it. It's pretty instant. Instantaneous. The gas grips them like that. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

So it makes me wonder what exactly the gas was being used for, which these are all things, too, that obviously, when someone writes something like this, if they told you immediately what it was, it wouldn't have the same kind of weight because you could probably find a justification to why people wouldn't act this way. But it is interesting. Like, if there was a really fun way of, like, what kind of gas... What kind of purpose would the gas be used for to keep someone awake? Which, you know...

The idea of, like, oh, this causes people... Like, even just something stupid where, like, there's sometimes, like, there's been stuff in, like, sci-fi or even, like, weird horror films where people are trying to experiment with drugs that, like... Or even, like, Limitless. You know that movie Limitless with Bradley Cooper? The idea of, like, activating certain parts of your brain that you say they don't use, which I don't know how true that is. But even the idea of, like, trying to solve the idea... Like, I actually think this was an American Dad episode. There was a pill you could take

that you wouldn't have to sleep. Your body would just naturally get its rest so you never had to sleep. It's just like an interesting concept, especially for a horror film.

That I'm like, in my mind, that's where it's going. It's like this gas is supposed to be a stimulant to where your body is continuously going through REM sleep cycle and being rested. But you're consciously awake to where... I don't know. I'm having a lot of fun hypothesizing that in my head and trying to find some kind of fun answer to that. Because to me, it makes all of these lines that are so...

like almost like epically Shakespearean or theatrical of like, I must remain awake. It gives them a lot more weight, I think, and doesn't make them feel like by putting myself in the situation of trying to find like an answer to this, it gives these, these little one-offs and quotes a lot more, a lot more weight, which I enjoy. Yeah. I think, um,

I'm going to save my theories about what it is to the end. Sure, yeah. But I do have a theory for what I think the gas is and what happens here. I'm curious to hear it. We're near the end, too, so we'll get there. Yeah, I was going to say, we're almost there, so I'll wait to talk. I've been writing some stuff down as we've been reading through this, but...

All three subjects' restraints were reinforced and they were placed back into the chamber awaiting determination as to what should be done with them. The researchers, facing the wrath of their military's benefactors for having failed to state the goals of their project considered euthanizing the surviving subjects. The commanding officer, a former KGB agent, instead saw potential and he wanted to see what would happen if they were to put back on the gas. The researchers strongly objected but were overruled.

in preparation for, oh yeah, sorry. No, no, no, you're good. That's just a fascinating paragraph because that's kind of what we talked about. Like, why would they keep them alive? What would be needed? Um, like what, what they just killed them when they start over. And now it's like the KGB, like, which again, it's like the boogeyman of the story. Uh,

is like what if we put them back on the gas what happens then which is something I mean if you're experimenting with people who are effectively disposable to you then yeah you're gonna do weird stuff like that to see what happens especially since the first results were so strange yeah

I think this introduction of the commanding officer also introduces, which I kind of wish he was in the story a little earlier. Having such a commanding officer that is doing...

who is kind of the advocate for being like, "Oh no, fuck it, let's... we're already here, let's keep going." Yeah. Um, it's super interesting. And also, it kind of humanizes the other researchers who are just like, "We fucked up. We should not be doing this."

And then having an opposition to that is really interesting. But in preparation for being sealed in the chamber again, the subjects were connected to an EEG monitor and had their restraints padded for long-term confinement. To everyone's surprise, all three stopped struggling the moment it was let slip that they were going back on the gas.

It was obvious that at this point, all three were putting up a great struggle to stay awake. One of the subjects that could speak was human, was humming loudly and continuously. The mute subject was straining his legs against the leather bonds with all of his might. First left,

Then right. Then left again for something to focus on. The remaining subject was holding his head off of his pillow and blinking rapidly. Having been the first to be wired for EEG, most of the researchers were monitoring his brainwaves in surprise.

Fascinating.

I love that. Yeah, that like he he he's suffering brain death over and over to stay awake. And then for the split second he falls asleep, he's out for good. Dead. Especially just. Yeah, we're getting it's just we keep getting introduced to all these new things now that there's like now there's a nurse that's dealing with them and stuff. Because before when I first started reading this, I just assumed that it was like, OK, they're like in the mountains somewhere.

like some weird Russian mountain lab that you see in a movie. And it's just these like scientists who are hooking them up, but no, they have like a full operation team. I mean, have they like, they have the officers there, they have nurses and now they have scientists and commanding officers. It just keeps adding in these characters that are just little interesting things that, you know, yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm curious. Like I, I wish that there was just more to it. Um, but yeah, I, we're, we're so close to the end. We're so close. Yeah. I'll, I'll just finish it out. So,

The only remaining subject that could speak started screaming to be sealed in now. His brainwave showed the same flat lines as one who had just died from falling asleep. The commander gave the order to seal the chamber with both subjects inside, as well as three researchers. One of the named three immediately drew his gun and shot the commander point-blank between the eyes, then turned the gun on the mute subject and blew his brains out as well.

He pointed the gun to the remaining subject, still restrained to a bed as the remaining members of the medical and research team fled the room. I won't be locked in here with these things, not with you, he screamed at the man strapped to the table. What are you? He demanded. I must know. And if you would like to finish us out. The subject smiled. Have you forgotten so easily? The subject asked. We are you. We are the madness that lurks within you all.

Begging to be free at every moment in your deepest animal mind. We are what you hide from in your beds every night. We are what you sedate into silence and paralysis when you go into nocturnal haven where we cannot tread. The researcher paused, then aimed at the subject's heart and fired. The EEG flatlined as the subject weakly choked out, So nearly free.

And that's the end. That's the end of the story. I just want to say real quick before we get into the analysis, the little childhood me is squealing in excitement that he got to be the first to hear Meat Canyon do the narration of the final lines of the Russian Sleep Experiment. That feels like a storybook moment for me, so thank you for that. I appreciate it. Oh, yeah, of course. It's very...

I guess, where do we want to start? Do we want to start with criticisms? I have a lot I want to say. Let me say real quick what my theory is regarding the gas and what happened here. Yes, actually, please. I'm curious what you have to say about that. So, that part at the end where it says that the one subject is experiencing brain death over and over every time he starts to go to sleep. And when he finally does go to sleep, he flatlines. And then we have the ending, of course, that monologue.

Where the subject says, we are you, we are the madness that lurks in your mind, blah, blah, blah. Which, as you said, monster energy can moment. I get that.

But also, I excuse it a little bit because what I think is happening in this story, I also want to clarify this could not be the original intent of the author, but I have a habit, especially when I was a kid, of making stories better in my head. Like, for example, you remember in the original Terminator movie how everyone dunked on it because when Arnold's face gets ripped off, it just goes to like a plastic silicone mask?

Yeah. Yeah.

So like, I always do stuff like that as a kid at least. I'm like, oh, I see the best in this story. So what I saw as a kid in Russian Sleep Experiment, which again may not be the point,

is there's these theories in like spiritualism and stuff like that, that humanity is kind of the manifestation, or at least human souls are the manifestation of something in a plane we can't interact with, something in the realm of the spiritual. And that at any point we can fall prey to things that exist in the realm of the spiritual, albeit, you know, angels, demons, um,

whatever your belief system is. So my idea with this story, especially from that end monologue, is that every day people are constantly under prey from these effectively demons, these monsters of the unseen realm. And when we sleep, our body effectively builds up the immunity to fight them off.

But because these subjects are kept awake for so long, they no longer have that immunity and effectively become possessed by whatever these creatures are. So the stimulant wasn't what was causing this stuff to go wrong. The stimulant was just working as a drug that kept them awake. And in staying awake,

It let their bodies become the vessel for these spirits to come into. So these spirits possess them. I think the point that at which it happens is when they started screaming, when they start screaming, freaking out, that's the person in there about to die.

realizing that they're about to die, that something's going to take over their body. And then they're taken over. It's like a possession. So then now you have the possessed spirit in the human's body who says, I can only control this vessel for as long as it's awake. So they just start ripping up skin and eating their organs, pulling their organs out.

And I like to think even further that the human may still be alive in there feeling all of the pain and feeling all of this while the spirit possessing them doesn't feel anything. And it's just forcing them to experience the suffering. So the person becomes a helpless passenger in their own body while this spirit controls it. So I think this, the lines at the end of the story, uh,

or the spirit or the demon or what have you speaking to the researcher as the person's inside as just a victim of this whole thing that's how I always feared this story I mean and I also thought that maybe if they're in there for like 30 days or a longer period of time they take permanent control or maybe they could possess others which leads to the last lines that say so nearly free

Yeah, I mean, I love that theory. The theory of that, too, it makes the ending monologue feel a lot more like the exorcism whenever it's like, we are legion and stuff. Yes, exactly. But also at the same time, too, the idea of these people that are having to endure this pain and stuff, that's even more hellish. I mean, that's even more demented. That's what I feel like a demon would want to do in this situation of possessing somebody.

Like it's all about like, you know, it's, it's like them reveling in the idea of like torturing you. Yeah. Like they're probably giggling and all that kind of stuff, which makes it, I mean, there's so many little moments that I think could play into that really well too. Like the whispering and stuff. I wish there was more little whispering and, and those kinds of things. And like the, the, the buildup of this, of, of another entity, uh,

you know, vicariously speaking through you, I think can become more and more apparent and they can like, I think the longer that they're trapped inside or not, the longer that they're, uh,

manning this vehicle of somebody's body, they become more in control of it. They become louder. They're able to speak more coherently. That kind of thing. So I love that idea. I think that's really good. Now let me ask you this in terms of your theory here too. Do you think that the gas at all could have opened up some kind of receptor for

demon or put them in a space or do you think that it's just because the gas or do you think that just because the gas is keeping them awake and they're not able to like get their basically build your defense with sleep like you're saying that they were more susceptible to being possessed oh it could certainly be that maybe the gas is causing some kind of almost hallucinogenic effect maybe it's causing them to open up their brain to different spiritual paths or whatever for sure it's just in my theory I think it's just the act of

of not going to sleep is what allows these things to take over in my theory. Now, of course, the gas could do something else. I think that's...

I think that's more coherent for sure. I think that the idea that maybe like, because obviously the idea with like sleep health and stuff, like if you don't get, really there's like so many horrible repercussions with not getting eight hours of sleep every night. Like there just is. Like you will, you lose like years off your life if you do it too much. You know, like you'll go insane. You're more susceptible to like all these other mental illnesses and stuff. So the idea that being continuously awake and not being able to

Like, not being able to fortify your mental state makes you so much more susceptible for, like, basically some kind of other entity to be like, oh, perfect. Here's a vehicle for me to drive. That seems to make total sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think that...

I think that if you have... Which, first off, that's a great theory, man. That's really, really fun. I just... Like, it makes all of the criticisms I have for this... It feels like... No, go ahead. Open up the hater mode. Go for it. No, no, no. Well, first off, let me tell you something. I have to... I need to get this out there because I'm a narcissistic piece of shit. And I have to make sure that people know my opinions. Go for it. That's what... Hey, we're YouTubers, right? What's new? It's true. Which I have some notes here. Which it says...

It's mostly just about wanting more information. I think that if you said that it was a... If this was dedicated more as a field report, then I think that you could have done something to allude to either that paranormal aspect of them getting possessed or something. Some people might get their kicks off this just being the human mind basically turning to soup, and this is the essence of...

Like, the essence of pain and the essence of fear or the essence of anger that have just, like, boiled down into these subjects. I do think that the paranormal aspect of it's really fun. I think that if... The paranormal aspect, I like being ambiguous. Because I think if you paint too much of a picture of this demon, it could get into some clown-like territory to where you're like, oh, well...

I want this thing to be benevolent. I want it to be something that you could picture yourself to be its own version of... The version of it that you would be afraid of most, right? But I do think that

Just some of the stuff that I had planned, like, you know, we have that nine days in, the hysteria begins to start. That's when the guy tears his vocal cords. That's whenever, you know, that's whenever the people start whispering, the feces start going there. There's a lot of parts there where when I was reading or when we were reading through it that,

I just wish that we got to hear more about what the scientists were saying. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. More character buildup, because this is the reason why. If you have a story like this, and it isn't a field report, then it's just a story. Then you're kind of wanting to hear, okay, well, what's the perspective of what's going on with... Are the scientists like, okay, well, this is weird? Obviously, they know. We get little glimpses that they're like, this is not going right.

But at what point? Are we humanizing the scientists in a way that we're supposed to also perceive as being evil people because we're dealing with prisoners, right? But can you sympathize with these prison guards?

in a way to where you, you, you start out by being like, I feel so bad for these, for these, uh, prisoners. And then by the end of the story, you have flipped the lid where you're just like, please God, put them down. You know, I think that there's something fun with a narrative you can do there. But the thing, the reason I was going to say that too, is that there's just a little, there's other moments too, that just like little things like, you know,

not so much that I'm like, oh, this would have been better. But whenever they go in to retrieve the bodies, I think it's on day 15. Um,

It would have been cool if we did get to know who the scientists and these guards and these nurses were early on. You kind of almost get like a Chernobyl situation where it's like, you know that people are getting infected or people are getting, you know, like the radiation is going to get them in some weird way because the precautions aren't there. So whenever they walk in to grab these people, I mean, you assume that they're probably in gas masks and stuff, right? They're probably...

suit it up. That's what some of the pictures have here. But if these people are struggling, and they're breaking their bones almost like Baki characters, you'd almost think that what if they tore through the mask a little bit? What if they fucked something up to where...

Some of that gas got leaked into people who weren't supposed to be in on the experiment. And that, you know, maybe they started to like force themselves into the room as well. How does that trickling effect? Because it's reading so much like a zombie case that you almost want to see that slow infection take over to somebody who maybe has been rational this whole time is now also giving into some of these more depraved people.

feelings that these subjects are as well. You can have like maybe like an evil dead situation where, you know, the person in the basement is, you know, yelling and screaming and taunting you. The same way that these people that are in the gas chamber could be doing the same to people that are working there. Some of these people that are like, you know, I'm just a nurse. You know, I like I'm not I'm not suited for this stuff. Right.

Yeah, yeah, I think that like I think just more introduction of the characters could be cool and also same with like Same with like a lot of the biological talk and like the lexicon of things are saying with like these really in-depth like extremely specific Extremely specific like organs getting ripped out or like all of these things. I just wish that more of that was introduced earlier Just to be like this is what it's supposed to do to the brain

Or like things to where... Whenever... It didn't feel like just such a huge juxtaposition. Not that it's even bad that they were that specific. But I just wish it was a little more thorough throughout. Like it's like...

what the scientists are expecting this to do to the brain, even earlier stuff of how is their skin reacting to it. Just little things that build up to those extreme things where it's like, yeah, now their organs are on the ground digesting food. I think that you could have gotten away with that and not have it have been so cartoonish if you just would have introduced more of that language earlier on. Yeah, yeah. I get that.

And also, the biggest thing now, looking back at it, is I wish that the commanding officer was at play earlier on pushing the bar a bit more. He comes in towards the end, and he's like this figure that kind of does a fucked up thing at the end, but it seems like it would have been fun to have that boogeyman, like you're saying, at the beginning. We're establishing that this is obviously a means of torture, but...

Would have been cool to just see or to have that figure come up and be like, maybe like, you know, introducing more gas at certain parts. Like maybe he was the element that went wrong or he was the kind of like basically the devil that opened up this hell for these people. I think would have been nice for that story structure. And also I think that it just, it gives a bit more, I think it gives you a bit more weight to,

Somebody who's continuously pressing the gas on something. Like, by gas, I mean throttle for the story. Because for me, it is an experiment, but at the same time, I never felt once that these scientists were malicious. I don't know if you felt the same, but I never once felt like, yes, they're prisoners, but I guess I didn't ever picture them as being anything more than like,

researchers, which maybe that's just me being a fucking idiot, but... I mean, they're doing human experiments on political prisoners, so... True. True. True. I don't know if they're the most... Like, sure, they catch, I guess, morality at the end of the story when it's... Well, also, not really, because...

The reason the researcher shoots them and shoots the officer is so he doesn't have to be locked in there with them too. So it's not a moral decision. It's just a self-preservation decision. So...

I don't know. After they were screaming and ripping their vocal cords and smearing their feces on the windows, they were cool as a them. They were cool as cutting people open on the table. That's true. Well, to me, I mean, that's fair. I think that they're obviously doing bad things. There was just a couple moments where, one, how much of it is them...

I don't know. I'm trying to justify my... I'm trying to, like, justify the thought I had. Which is the idea that's, like...

Like, how forced are they to do these things? I hate the idea of the argument of they were just following orders, but how much of this was like... It's mostly just the introduction of the commanding officer at the end to where I'm like, how big of a play is that in there? Which really doesn't matter, but I guess it just... By figuring more of that out of them, if it was more of a field report and they were...

And if we could see the scientists saying more of like the lab rat aspect of it, like they're not looking at these people as humans. They're looking at them as lab rats, which that's what they're doing in this. But I don't know if we I don't. And maybe this is just me. And there might be the comment section might be like, OK, you're a fucking psychopath. But I guess it's just the idea that it's like we never get a moment with them ever doing it, like even like.

about them in that subject matter. It's more of them just retelling the horrors that's happening in front of them. So to me, I was almost reading it in this weird, sympathetic, horrified voice the whole time, even though it probably was very analytical and very shitty of like, oh, they're doing a field report. I do think that, like you said earlier, I do think that if it was in that field report,

that maybe it would have made them much more cold and stuff. And I think that even if that was the case too, it kind of makes the people that are freaking out and stuff, they almost become these like crazy people that you want to see, you know, see them break through their...

cuffs and stuff and break out of their imprisonment and fucking kill these people. I just didn't have a way to sway, right? So either way, it's like by the end, I feel like I'm like I feel like as characters the prisoners are evil even though I don't know if that's I don't think that's the correct thing to think.

Does that make sense at all? I see how your kind of mindset shifted to that, that the prisoners became evil. In my opinion, that's because of the possession aspect in my head.

But it could also be that, you know, if that's not the way the story is interpreted, then it could be, you know, the actual prisoners themselves became evil because of that primality that was unleashed in them because of the lack of sleep. I still like the theory that you're saying with the possession. I think that by the end, I'm not looking at them any... Like, especially after you said the possession thing, I'm looking at them as demons and stuff. Yeah, exactly. But the problem is that the...

Is that because there's no delineation of getting to, you know, and I don't think you have to like personally get to know these people, but I do think hearing more sympathetic screams and cries at the beginning, because you do have them screaming and stuff, but understanding what the whispers are, seeing that transformation happen, I think would make it more, I would be more sympathetic to these people instead of just being outright horrified. Because I think that the story does a great job by being like,

you almost feel like you're one of the scientists in the room being like, good God, this is crazy. Right? Instead of feeling in an odd way, which maybe this is just me being a fucking psychopath, less sympathetic and more about me being like, these people are terrifying me. Like, I don't, like almost, the beginning goes by so fast that the human aspect of the story is quickly shoved aside.

They kind of immediately go into feral apes. So I felt like I was more just horrified than sympathetic with those people. Yeah, that makes sense. I get that because they become so different from humanity. I can follow that.

I think the story would do a lot better if you, it would just be slight. If you slightly reorganized it to be a field report. So you open up like log day one, day two, you give it. And then at the ending, cause all that you had mentioned in the initial logs is there was an encounter researcher executed to executed guard as well as to awaiting whatever. And then at the end you would put like, uh,

a word said or transcript, you'd have a transcript of like dialogue. And from there you could have conversations between the nurses and stuff that get across what happens during the surgery and all that. And then you could end the entire thing with the dialogue of the patient on the stretcher. So nearly free, that could be like the final part of the transcript. So I think, and I do think, and I do think that would have translated better into a,

This would actually, if it wasn't that field report thing, it would be great to hear an audio storytelling of it with like other actors and stuff, because it could be like you have your main character, who's your main scientist guy who is writing these things out. And then you get to be like, you know, this is a recording from the booth or whatever. And you could add more to the story. I think a lot of storytellers could come together and add to the story with their own performances. Yeah.

and have those guiding lights of these one-liners that are peppered through the story, you could have more people add to this experience. But I strongly agree with that, though. I think that this would have been more effective as a field report. That would have been a really fun medium for this. That being said, though, the whole thing is great. I mean, this is the first story we've covered so far where I'm like,

I would love, love to see this into like a mini-series or like a really well done movie or something. This would be a great movie or mini-series. I'll probably lean more towards mini-series. Just because I want more of the subjects. I want more of the character development and growth of these people and stuff. Because I think if you... I really think that if you have all of that stuff and you can either get behind or hate characters...

Because that's, like, such an important part of stories is you hate a character. That's a great emotion to have with storytelling. If you're able to convey that, you've done something very well. And I think that, like, if you're able to hate these scientists or maybe you're able to sympathize with them or whatever, or you could hate the, you know, you could be sympathetic towards the prisoners and their change and

is so sad and horrifying and it's almost like, you know, it's terrible. I do think that like it would give this so much more weight and I think it would make the ending much, much more impactful. Yeah, I think so. I think there's a lot you could do with it. I think it could be fun to adapt. And you know what? After looking over that whole story, my memory of it was good, but I was kind of worried going back in. This still goes hard.

I still like it. I still like the direction. I like the pacing. Sure, some stuff could be changed, I think, to make it more impactful. But my theory I had then, I think, still stands up now. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, this is still a banger. I still like it. This is a good one. Yeah, no, I think your theory is great. And I think for, honestly, so far, I mean, I know we're only on episode three, but even some of the stuff that we've been introduced and stuff, for a story that is this short, you get so much detail. The flow is great. This is such a great, like, quick read. That's why I think also it's so accessible to...

It's because you're not getting bogged down in the weeds and stuff with people that want more of the monotonous, boring bullshit like I do. That's just my preference. I love that. But I do think that this thing is like...

It's just like a fucking hit and run. I mean, it just blows by, boom, and then it's gone. I mean, it's really, really fun. You know, when I say things like anime moment, or when I say things like Monster Energy can, I can see how very easily that can be perceived as negative, but mostly...

I think it's just me trying to find a fun way to be like, this is schlocky. And I like that. I think schlock is very, very fun. I mean, that was one of the positives we had from the Jeff the Killer thing, was that because it was so outlandish, it makes it a fun read. Just because something isn't concrete and not totally perfect doesn't mean it's not valid. I think that this story is...

Great. Structurally, well, first off, it's just leagues better than, obviously, Jeff the Killer and stuff. But I think, like, this is just... I love that it's embedded in history. I think it's going to be, like, something like a fun, timeless piece. And I think, like, as people...

you know, as people kind of stumble upon it, I still think like for years and years to come, it's going to have that fun allure to first time readers of like, is this how, how real is this? You know? And there's just that fun little spark that I think these creepypastas have. And that's what makes them so great. It's just like that little, that little itty bitty spark where you're like, Oh my God,

Because it's not a big published thing. It's just something that exists on the internet. And I think that's really, really special. So I'm glad we... I'm glad we did too. It goes hard. It stands up. In the current catalog of Creepcast recollections, we've got Stairs in the Woods. I'm a search and rescue officer. And Sleep Experiment in the banger category. And then we've got Jeff the Killer in the...

It's got to be in the Hall of Fame of bad. The Hall of Fame of bad. Yeah. Yeah. I think that it's not because I think that it's not bad to where it's like, I would never read that. It's bad as in it's really funny. It's so bad. It's good. And it's historical. It's the room of creepypasta stuff.

Don't we have the place for that?

is Baraska yes and also if anything changes we have a twitter account now at creepcast yes is it at creepcast or is it creepcast hold on I should probably know this as the well the thing is that there's creepcast isn't the most original title so we have had to combat the DLC creepcast actual is the name of the app currently

currently so cast actual so yeah go to go there and if there's any updates or you want to know what the next story is early go follow that on Twitter and you can get in on that yeah we need to do also I'd like to make a reddit or something to where people can submit

story suggestions or even I am a big advocate for people writing their own stuff and being able to read some viewer stories or something like that. That could be pretty cool. I'm sure just throwing it out there someone could do someone will do it on their own if we don't want to oversee it but if we do want to oversee it we could probably make that happen

I never made the Wendigoon subreddit. People just went ahead and made it, you know. Yeah, same. And their own. So, yeah, so maybe that will happen, but who knows? There could already be one for all I know. But yeah, more fan interaction, more stuff like that sounds cool. Thank you all so much for the support you've been showing the show, by the way. It's really insane. It's been awesome. Oh, one thing I want to mention that I forgot. I talked about mentioning this with you, but I didn't think of it until now. So...

The author of the Search and Rescue Woods. I'm a search and rescue officer. I've spoken to her. Great person, great writer. And I meant to shout this out when we did the episode about her work with the stairs in the woods, but I forgot to mention it then. I wanted to mention that she is currently doing a lot of caption work and is very proud of the work she did on the Amazing Digital Circus. Is that the name of the series? Yes.

Insanely, insanely popular. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's I, I haven't watched it yet, but I just see the view count and I'm like, Oh my word. So fun internet lore, the author of the search and rescue staring in the woods did the caption work for that. Uh,

And she also does a lot of other caption work. You can reach out to her if you're interested in getting her work from that series on any of your stuff. She's very talented. We'll probably have her on in the future whenever we invite writers and authors on to speak. But yeah, I wanted to mention that because I didn't mention it in the previous episode. So just letting you all know about that. Yeah, no, I think that's great.

I think that's great, and I'm, you know, I think it's another successful episode. I think so. I think that was pretty cool. Three in, and we haven't destroyed the channel from the inside out yet. So doing pretty good. Doing pretty good. I think it feels good. This will officially be the last episode of the year. I know that this is only the third episode, but it feels... I think the biweekly schedule feels fun. I think we're going to continue that into the new year. But we will see you.

In the new year. So happy new year to you all. Hope you all had great holidays. Stay safe out there. And, you know, get, you know, get drunk. I'm going to get drunk. If you're of age, I would say. And then for me, as the other end of the spectrum, go to church. So that anywhere on the spectrum between those two, have at it. There it is. There's no room to complain. The whole spectrum was filled. We got it.

So we have it perfectly down. Preferably don't do both of those at the same time, but other than that... I would not recommend it. Even though it would be a funny story and I'd love to hear it sometime, I do not recommend it. We don't condone it. But if you're going to do it, please record. All right. Take care, everybody. See you, everyone. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. See you all. Take care.