A truly frightening picture of how sleep deprivation has been used as torture can be extracted from a series of communications that appeared in a torture victim’s support and news group on the Internet. Let’s focus on one person’s account, which unfolded in several messages over a period of about 2 weeks:
We were all very frightened. We expected to be beaten. They slapped us and hit us with sticks. They wrapped the sticks in wet cloths. They told us that this was so that they would not leave marks on our bodies. They took away our clothes and stood us in a room. Next they made us do plantón….
For us plantón was to stand in one place and not move and not sleep. We could not talk. If we talked they would come in and hit us. Then they would make us stand with our arms out, like a cross, with broken bricks in our hands, for weights….
The worst part about plantón was the no sleep. I do not know how long we stood without sleep. All of the windows were covered, so I never saw day or night. There was a bright light on all the time. Sometimes they would turn on loud music that hurt our ears. I think that I got sleep while I was standing. Sometimes I must have lay down because I wakened up on the floor. If they catch you asleep, it was bad because they did teléfono [teléfono is a form of physical torture where the victim is boxed on the ears with cupped hands, causing intense pain]….
After we were awake for a long time, I was afraid that my mind was ruined. Once I saw white snakes come out of the floor. They were big and they bit me. I could feel their teeth in my skin. I could feel their poison burning in me. I knew I would die from this. Later I looked but there were no marks where they bit me. This made me know that they were from my mind. This scared me even more because it showed how my mind was not working right….
With no sleep I think Carlos had a bad thing. He saw something. He was crying all the time and saying that they were eating him. Sometimes he would punch things in the air. Soon he started falling asleep anyway. They would hurt him to make him stay awake. It didn’t work much. They had to be there all the time. Then Viejo [apparently, the nickname of one of the guards] said Carios was cold. When they get cold they always die, he said. Him and the doctor left Carlos on the floor. I could see that he was asleep. I thought he would be OK with sleep. After what looked like a long time sleeping, he stopped breathing. They took him away….
Sleep Thieves
Stanley Core