So it's pretty easy to see why, in general, the Russian Sleep Experiment caught on, right? It's got just enough realistic touches, just enough over-the-top nonsense, glosses over too-technical stuff that might turn away some readers, and gets right down to what body horror fans want: blood, guts, and the lightest touch of thematic relevancy about "the darkness of human nature" or some such thing. Plus, it employs legitimate real-world connections between psychoses, drug use, and sleep deprivation, as sites like the National Institute on Drug Abuse discuss.

After it was posted in 2010 by Orange Soda, the Russian Sleep Experiment spread through the internet like wildfire. News Corp Australia summarizes how the creator of such a story, with almost near-scientific rigor and accuracy, can craft something that the public will latch onto. With the right elements of anecdotes versus overarching narrative, cliffhangers, murder, monsters or supernatural beings, unexplained phenomena, and so forth, a creepypasta is almost guaranteed to be a hit. A chart by Sara McGuire, former content editor and content marketing manager for Venngage, does a superb job of portraying all such factors. As it turns out, the Russian Sleep Experiment simply incorporated the most elements of a successful story into one, single creepypasta. Voila, instant virality.

By 2013, Snopes debunked the story, saying directly, "This account isn't a historical record of a genuine 1940s sleep deprivation research project gone awry." And yet to this day, some folks still wonder if it really happened.