Scopolamine as a functioning “Truth Serum"
In the early 1920s, Scopolamine, along with morphine and chloroform, was used to induce a state of insensibility to pain during childbirth. This state was referred to as “Twilight sleep” amnesic condition characterized by insensibility to pain without loss of consciousness, induced by an injection of morphine and scopolamine. Scopolamine was known to produce sedation and drowsiness and disorientation, incoordination, and amnesia for events experienced during intoxication. However it was noted that women in twilight sleep answered questions accurately and often volunteered exceedingly candid remarks. In 1922, Robert House arranged an interview of two prisoners in a local jail whose guilt seemed clearly
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Also, the subjects were kept in twilight consciousness (twilight sleep) longer than usual. This state proved richest in yield of admissions prejudicial to the subject. In it his speech was thick, mumbling, and disconnected, but his discretion was markedly reduced. This valuable interrogation period, lasting only five to ten minutes at a time, could be re-induced by injecting more amytal and putting the patient back to sleep.
The technique used in the interrogation varied from case to case according to the background information of the patient/suspect in question, the seriousness of their crimes, and the attitude towards both the narcosis and the doctor administering the drug (Bimmerle, G. 2007) When the it became obvious that the subject was lying about a certain topic, his denails were passed over and ignored and any key questions that were required would be reworded in a new approach. Several patients ended up revealing fantases, delusions, fears and much of which was very distingushible from reality, since these fantasies were obscure in the way only our deepest unconsciousness would make sense of (Bimmerle, G.