In the Sleep Room: The Story of the CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada

by Anne Collins

In August 1977 Canadians reacted with horror and revulsion when they learned that in the 1950s and early 1960s, one of the most eminent psychiatrists in the country had used his vulnerable patients as unwitting guinea pigs in brainwashing experiments funded by the CIA and the Canadian government. This is the spellbinding true story of unchecked ambition and the misuses of medical power.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Psychology, Canada, Biography, True Crime, Politics

275 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1988

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a journalistic work, and there are a lot of names and titles that sometimes make it slow going. It's worth the effort, though - the details of early psychological experiments are truly horrifying, and Collins thoroughly examines the context in which they occurred. This isn't something I'd pick up on a whim, but if you're interested in the subject matter it's well worth the read.

[rabbitprincess · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to imagine that Cold War skulduggery such as brainwashing experiments could actually take place, let alone take place in Canada with CIA funding, but take place they did, at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal. This book tells the victims' stories, the treatments they received and the horrifying effects. The events are also placed in context to provide a broader picture and show how Dr. Cameron came to develop his treatments. The last few chapters chronicle the victims' fight for justice by suing the CIA itself, a section that feels incomplete, mainly because the book was published in 1988. However, it, like the rest of the book, is written clearly and contains extensive details.

There is also a TV movie called "The Sleep Room" based on the events told in this book. It is very good and, since it was released ten years after the book was published, contains a bit of an epilogue that elaborates on the fates of the victims and the outcome of their lawsuit. Both forms of the story are illuminating and chilling and should definitely be explored.

[Jon]

Very good, very disturbing book about Dr. Ewen Cameron's sickening CIA-sponsored Cold War-era psychic-torture experiments in Montreal, focusing largely on the patients, particularly the women, who became Cameron's victims.

[Judy Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an eye-opening book! It's hard to believe, but CIA-funded brainwashing experiments on unsuspecting mental patients in Canada in the 1950's really happened. The doctor in charge was well respected, a leader in many psychiatric organizations. Anne Collins did a very good job of covering all aspects of the story. It is well researched. She interviewed as many people as would apparently talk with her, including former patients, their families, and doctors and nurses who were tangentially or directly involved. The story of the coverup attempts on the part of the U.S. and Canadian governments is also told. I wish it could have been more comprehensive, but most of the documentation of the CIA's involvement was destroyed before the story was made public.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dryly written but well-written. The facts of this historical episode are crushingly sad; infuriating.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Sleep Room is a deeply disturbing book about how psychiatrist Ewen Cameron destroyed the lives of numerous mentally unwell patients during the 1950s and ‘60s via excessive and amped-up electric convulsive treatments, sleep therapy, LSD psycho-pharmaceutical therapy, and psychic driving, where patients were subjected to repetitive tapes that played statements or sounds for hours on end. McGill University's Allan Memorial Institute was the site of these purported treatments. The book outlines how Cameron received funding from the CIA, America’s intelligence agency, in support of the CIA’s research program titled MK Ultra Subproject 68—a mind control program the agency explored for military and combat purposes. Collins writes about Cameron's connection with the CIA—how damaged patients years later sued to receive compensation and, at the very least, an apology from the American government, to no avail. Cameron, it turns out, also received funding from other sources, as Collins describes how Cameron’s treatments continued after the funding from the CIA ceased.

Dr. Cameron appears a callous, arrogant man who sought prestige and recognition within the medical community over any consideration for patients’ well-being. He strove to bring psychiatric medicine to the forefront—to legitimize the field of psychiatric medicine with the treatments and methods he was experimenting with. To that end, he expressed little concern for his patients—to Cameron, patients were vessels for his experiments rather than human beings with a life beyond their mental illness. The outcomes of Cameron’s treatments that included incontinence, inability to walk, talk, and remember family members, as well as anxiety and insomnia, were devastating and difficult to comprehend. Below is an excerpt from the book of just one story of a ruined life.

Linda Macdonald, a Vancouver woman, claimed to have lost the memory of the first twenty-six years of her life, including the births of her five children, during a few months of Dr. Cameron’s care. Between May 1 and September 12, 1963, according to Macdonald’s Allan Memorial files, she received more than one hundred electroshock treatments, eighty-six days of drugged sleep, and intensive psychic driving, from which she emerged “completely disoriented and [needing] complete nursing assistance… She is incontinent of both urine and feces.” She had to be taught how to dress, eat, read, write, cook… (pp. 235-236).

Though the writing of The Sleep Room was stilted at times, it's an important book—one that records the history of horrendous treatments that select members of the medical community carried out in the name of science.