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[[include :scp-wiki:component:anomaly-class-bar-source
|item-number= 9147
|clearance= 2
|container-class= safe
|secondary-class= none
|secondary-icon= none
|disruption-class= keneq
|risk-class= caution
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**Special Containment Procedures:** SCP-9147 is to be stored in a Standard Class-3 document locker at Site-73. The locker is to remain sealed except during approved testing. All reproductions of SCP-9147 must be printed on paper with a minimum weight of 100gsm, as thinner paper has been found to accelerate onset. Foundation researchers have speculated this is because thinner paper more closely resembles actual IB examination booklets. This has not been confirmed. Nobody wants to confirm it.
SCP-9147 must not be read aloud in shared spaces. SCP-9147 must not be distributed via email. SCP-9147 must not be left in break rooms, lobbies, or waiting areas, regardless of the perceived entertainment value of watching new recruits encounter it.
Personnel assigned to SCP-9147 are to be issued high-caffeine rations (Tier 3 — equivalent to approximately four (4) espresso shots per hour) for the duration of active research sessions. Personnel who fall asleep during testing are to be left undisturbed, provided with a blanket, and logged. Subjects who have not woken within 72 hours are to be transferred to Site Medical. Subjects who have not woken within two (2) weeks are to be given a slightly better, weighted, blanket.
Personnel seeking to use SCP-9147 to fall asleep are advised to disregard the caffine guidelines from the paragraph above and instead consume as little as possible. Large amounts of caffine can cause the sleep duration to vary unpredictably and induce sleep far longer than desired.
Automated wake-stimulus devices (Models JOLT-4 and JOLT-5, colloquially referred to as "the buzzer") are approved for use during testing. The JOLT-6 prototype is not approved for use following Incident 9147-I04, in which its application was deemed by the Site-73 Ethics Committee as "technically effective but completely unreasonable."
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**Description:** SCP-9147 is a 44-page academic assessment booklet consistent in format with an International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme Theory of Knowledge (TOK) prescribed essay. The cover reads:
> **INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE ORGANISATION**
> **THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE — PRESCRIBED TITLE ESSAY**
> **Session: [REDACTED] | Candidate Number: [ILLEGIBLE]**
> **Title: "To what extent can we trust our senses as a source of knowledge?"**
The essay is 3,912 words long and addresses the prompt using examples drawn from mathematics, the natural sciences, the arts, and human sciences, all four IB Areas of Knowledge per the [REDACTED] session curriculum. It is written in clear, competent academic English. It uses the phrase "on the other hand" forty-seven (47) times.
Researchers who have been permitted to read the non-anomalous opening section (pages 1–6) describe the experience as "fine," "It's a TOK essay, let's call a spade a spade here," and "honestly, probably a 5 out of 7, good structure, weak real-life examples."
**Anomalous Properties:** Any person who reads SCP-9147 past page 6 will fall asleep within 90 seconds. This is not figurative. Subjects do not become drowsy. They do not yawn, lose focus, or slow down. They simply stop, mid-sentence, and fall asleep. Subjects have been observed to fall asleep while standing, while eating, while in the middle of sentences, and in one notable instance (see Test 9147-T08) while already complaining about how boring the essay was.
The resulting sleep state is designated **SCP-9147-B** and has the following anomalous properties:
**Duration scales with depth of reading.** Subjects who read to page 7 sleep for approximately 20 minutes. Subjects who reach page 20 sleep for approximately 8 hours. Subjects who read past page 35 have, in two documented cases, slept for over a month. One subject read to the final sentence. He has been asleep for ██ months. His vitals are normal. His expression is peaceful. Staff have started leaving him birthday cards.
**Subjects cannot be woken by conventional means.** Shaking, shouting, cold water, and the JOLT-4 device produce no response in subjects with moderate to high page exposure. The JOLT-5 device produces temporary arousal in subjects who read no further than page 18. Beyond this threshold, subjects sleep through the JOLT-5 with no response. Several have been observed to smile.
**Subjects dream.** EEG monitoring confirms continuous, intense REM activity throughout SCP-9147-B. Upon waking, subjects universally describe elaborate and highly detailed dreams. In all recorded cases, dream content is thematically consistent with IB Theory of Knowledge curricula: subjects report debating epistemology with Plato in infinite school corridors, writing extended essays against impossible deadlines, and dreaming that they are once again 17 years old and have forgotten to submit an IA or EE before deadline. This last scenario provokes significant distress and has resulted in three (3) formal requests for trauma counselling upon waking, which the Foundation has approved.
**Upon waking, subjects remember everything they read.** This produces the secondary effect of post-SCP-9147 subjects delivering unprompted lectures on sense perception and the limits of empirical knowledge to colleagues who did not ask, typically during lunch.
The essay itself does not appear to be unusually well-written. Three independent academic reviewers (amnesticised post-review) rated it as "competent," "borderline," and "I've seen better, I've seen worse, honestly fine." The source of its anomalous properties remains unknown. Whether the effect originates from the essay's content, its structure, its philosophical argument, or some property of the paper and ink is a matter of ongoing debate. This debate has itself put two junior researchers to sleep, though not anomalously, they have since been transferred to another SCP.
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**Addendum 9147-A: Recovery Log**
SCP-9147 was recovered from ████ International School in ██████████, Denmark following an internal report describing an unusual cluster of "dozing off" in classes.
A Theory of Knowledge teacher had distributed photocopied excerpts of SCP-9147 as "a sample student essay for marking practice." Eight (8) students read past page 6 during a 50-minute lesson. All eight fell asleep before the period ended.
The teacher, who had read only the cover page and introductory paragraph (which he described as "promising"), graded the remaining conscious students, sent the sleeping students to the school office, and filed the incident in her lesson plan as "challenging class — low engagement." He did not flag this as unusual, but did remark the number of sleeping students was higher than usual.
Foundation agents retrieved SCP-9147 and interviewed all affected parties. The teacher was administered Class-C amnestics and released. He has since changed careers and reports being much happier.
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**Addendum 9147-B: Selected Testing Log (Abridged)**
**Test 9147-T02**
//Subject: D-30041 (no prior IB exposure)//
//Task: Read SCP-9147 aloud; stop at page 6.//
//Result: Subject stopped at page 6 as instructed. Did not fall asleep. Described the essay as "kind of slow." Cleared after 24-hour observation. When asked if he had learned anything, subject said: "not really." Research team noted this as baseline.//
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**Test 9147-T05**
//Subject: D-44892 (former IB student, graduated ████)//
//Task: Read SCP-9147 in full.//
//Result: Subject fell asleep at page 7, mid-sentence. The sentence contained the word "epistemological." She slept for 11 days. Upon waking, her first words were: "The thing is though, you can't //really// trust your senses." She then could not stop talking for approximately four hours. Debriefing researchers noted a possible correlation between prior IB exposure and increased verbal output upon recovery. Further testing recommended. No researcher has volunteered. Personnel in the area described D-44892's speech as "extremely boring", "Who needs the SCP to fall asleep when you can use this", and "Lunch break could not come sooner".//
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**Test 9147-T08**
//Subject: D-50017 (no prior IB exposure)//
//Task: Read SCP-9147 in full.//
//Result: Subject fell asleep at page 7 while in the process of saying, "This is so boring, I honestly feel like I could just — " Subject slept for 9 hours. Upon waking, he seemed confused. He asked what had happened. When told, he said: "I wasn't even properly reading it." This has been classified as anomalously unimportant.//
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**Test 9147-T13**
//Subject: D-51100 (no prior IB exposure, ACS 7.8, described by supervising researcher as "extremely alert and frankly quite smug about it")//
//Task: Read SCP-9147 to completion while consuming Tier-3 caffeine rations continuously.//
//Result: Subject consumed six (6) Tier-3 caffeine rations prior to and during the test. This is the equivalent of approximately 24 espresso shots. Subject fell asleep at page 7, mid-word. The word was "epistemological." It is always "epistemological." Subject slept for 19 days. Upon waking, he asked for a glass of water and then, without prompting, summarised Descartes' First Meditation in full. He is currently doing fine. He will not stop bringing up Descartes, much like many TOK professors. His colleagues have begun eating lunch, and even scheduling water cooler visits at staggered times to avoid him.//
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**Test 9147-T17**
//Subject: Dr. ████ (ACS 9.6 assigned following staff shortage)//
//Task: Skim SCP-9147 for structural analysis only; no sustained reading.//
//Result: Dr. ████ was found asleep at her desk at 14:32. Her research notes end mid-sentence: "Introduction clear, thesis well-formed, moves into Knowledge Question on page 4, page 5 has an interesting example of -" The remainder of the notebook contains a drawing of a cat, apparently produced while unconscious. The drawing is passable as a cat from certain angles. Beneath it, in the same hand, is written: "at least the cat doesn't have to do TOK."//
//Dr. ████ woke after four hours and denied drawing the cat. She denied it again when shown the notebook. She denied it a third time when shown the handwriting analysis report confirming it was hers. She received a framed print of the drawing for her birthday. She did not say thank you. She has not removed it from her desk.//
//[Cat drawing appended as Appendix D. See below.]//
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**Addendum 9147-C: D-63002 - Ongoing Status**
D-63002 read SCP-9147 to its final sentence on ██/██/20██ at 09:41. He has not woken as of the date of this document's most recent revision. His vital signs are entirely normal. EEG activity indicates continuous, vivid dreaming.
Research staff maintain a whiteboard outside his room. As of last revision, it reads:
> **D-63002 - Day ██**
> Still out. Vitals good. Dreaming extremely hard.
> Fav snack (for when he wakes): Digestive biscuits
> Wake-date sweep pot: $340
> Longest guess: Dr. ████████: "sometime next spring, probably"
> //New rule: no more guesses after Day 200. Might as well just not have the sweep pot then.
Site Director ██████ has formally requested the sweep pot be dissolved on grounds of "poor taste." Her request was denied, 11–3. She was one of the three. Security detail srgt. ████ wanted to append this addendum with,
"It would be fine if i got my money back, but last time they cancelled a bet i never saw my $10 dollars again..."
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**Addendum 9147-D: Appendix D**
//[Scanned image attached — ██/██/20██]//
//[The image depicts a small, round cat sitting in what appears to be an open field. It has a content expression. It is not doing a Theory of Knowledge essay. The handwriting analysis is on file. Dr. ████'s position has not changed.]//
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**Addendum 9147-E: O5 Council Note**
> Proposal to reclassify SCP-9147 as Safe (submitted by Dr. ██████, on the grounds that "it mostly just makes people take quite a nice nap") is under review. Counterarguments citing the ongoing status of D-63002 have been noted and are considered compelling.
>
> The vote was held on ██/██/20██. O5-4 fell asleep during the proceedings. We are not certain whether this was anomalous. She maintains it was not. She had a great deal to say about the reliability of sense perception when she woke up.
>
> Classification was changed to safe provided that blankets and pillows would be issued on a loan basis, and that personnel who use SCP-9147 to sleep do so at a safe place.
>
> "'Why not just buy new blankets?' Why not just buy everyone in the facility a Lamborghini?" - O5-7
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