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Inside the Black Room – Dr Jack Vernon

Soon after entering the confinement cell most subjects went to sleep and slept almost uninterruptedly for ten to twenty-four hours. These are gross estimates, for there was nothing by which the subjects could determine elapsed time, and if anything they probably underestimated sleeping time.  We know for certain that one subject slept for nineteen hours but insisted that he had had a nap of less than one hour. According to the monitoring microphone, which was capable of picking up the deep breathing of sleep, it seems more likely that most subjects slept almost all of the first twenty-four hours.

We felt that so much sleeping in the first day wasted the effects of confinement, so we started placing subjects in S.D. early in morning.  We reasoned that after a night's sleep our confined subject would be unable to dissipate the effects of S.D. by sleeping.  Such was not the case. As far as we could determine they went to sleep just as quickly and slept just as long as the previous subjects. We then started entering the subjects at midmorning, midday, and mid-afternoon. As it turned out, it made no difference when during the day and, presumably, during the night we started the confinement; the initial sleep period was always about the same……………

Two men came to us with severe cases of poison ivy. Obviously we would not have allowed them to serve as S.D. subjects had we known, but, as it turned out, both men were completely cured at the end of their confinement, which for one was forty-eight hours, and for the other seventy-two hours.

Thinking back on it, I do not see how they endured that situation, for the gauntlets so covered their hands they could not scratch, and, also, they had been asked to lie still. To be sure, each could have pulled off the gauntlets and scratched to his heart's content and we would have been none the wiser. But both men insisted that they carried out our instructions to the letter, that at no time did they scratch their itching poison ivy, for they felt to do so would be contrary to our instructions to lie as quietly as possible. It may not be surprising that the poison ivy was cured in such a short time; medical counsel indicates that this affliction, if not most skin diseases, can be readily cured merely by not scratching the affected areas. It is very surprising, however, that our two subjects could resist scratching. Both men claimed that it was easy to resist scratching because of SD.   Apparently they both felt that the itching sensation was a welcome relief in circumstances devoid of stimulation.