Forced-water regimen sustaining sleep deprivation

The forced-water regimen sustaining sleep deprivation was a method Mohamedou Ould Slahi describes in his memoir as part of his treatment at a secret detention site. Water was given repeatedly through the day and night, at intervals chosen by the guards, so that he could not sleep. The account also places this routine within a larger pattern of manipulated meals, isolation, and commands governing when he could rest. Its significance lies in the way a basic necessity became a mechanism for keeping him awake and subject to continuous control.

Context and Setting

The account of the regimen follows a period of isolation and threats, and describes a secret place where Mohamedou Ould Slahi could not distinguish day from night or tell how much time had passed. The timing of meals was deliberately disrupted: long periods without food alternated with food delivered under conditions that gave him little or no time to eat. This loss of an ordinary daily rhythm formed the setting for the water routine. Rather than serving simply as refreshment, drinking became part of a schedule controlled by others.

The surrounding narrative describes movement from detention in a camp to a secret location, after a period in which Mohamedou Ould Slahi had been kept apart from other detainees. His account of the transition emphasizes uncertainty about place and time, as well as the abrupt change in conditions. The memoir does not present the water regimen as an isolated practice; it appears within an environment where isolation, disrupted routines, and interrogation were combined. That context helps explain how repeated drinking could function as a means of preventing rest rather than meeting thirst.

How the Regimen Worked

The memoir describes water being provided in bottles of about 25 ounces at intervals of one to two hours, around the clock. The interval varied according to the guards’ decisions. The recurring schedule prevented a sustained period of sleep: even when the immediate demand was to drink, the next round followed before rest could become reliable. Mohamedou Ould Slahi says that he could not close his eyes for ten minutes, because the repeated drinking kept sending him to the bathroom. The account identifies this repeated interruption, rather than a single episode, as the practical mechanism by which sleep was denied.

The water routine was paired with deliberately unpredictable feeding. At times, he was given food after going hungry but allowed only a very short period to eat. A guard might announce a three-minute limit, then take the plate after roughly half a minute. At other times, the practice reversed: he was given more food than he could readily manage and compelled to finish it. When he asked for water because the food was difficult to swallow, the response was to require him to drink two bottles of 25 ounces. The memoir describes these opposing instructions as parts of the same system: food and water were not governed by his needs, but by shifting demands imposed on him.

Effects and Repetition

The consequences described are practical and cumulative. Frequent drinking interrupted sleep, while unpredictable meal timing made it difficult to anticipate when he would be permitted to eat or how long he would have. Mohamedou Ould Slahi recounts refusing or being unable to drink more, yet being compelled to continue. This account does not describe a stable rule applied at set hours; the amount and timing of water varied, and the guards’ discretion shaped the routine. The instability itself meant that he could not plan around the next demand or rely on a predictable interval of rest.

The method’s persistence is apparent in the memoir’s later reference to the water diet continuing to affect him harshly. The guards also told him that he had not yet seen further measures, presenting the routine as one part of an escalating threat. During shift changes, new guards made their arrival conspicuous and introduced additional demands. These included shortening the time allowed for meals and forbidding him to lie down, with an expectation that he remain awake when a guard approached. The evidence thus connects forced drinking to a broader discipline of wakefulness, not merely to the repeated provision of water.

Place in the Account

Earlier in the narrative, Mohamedou Ould Slahi describes a different period of sustained interrogation in which sleep and comfort were also made conditional on cooperation. He recounts being told that cooperating would bring sleep and hot meals. The later water routine intensifies that connection between bodily needs and control: instead of offering rest as a possible reward, it repeatedly interrupts the possibility of sleeping. The two accounts show recurring pressure around food, sleep, and compliance, while preserving the distinction between the earlier interrogation block and the later secret-site episode.

The memoir is a handwritten account composed in detention, and its narration makes the regimen legible through specific intervals, bottle sizes, meal limits, and repeated interruptions. Those details convey the method without reducing it to an abstract label: water arrived every one or two hours, sleep remained out of reach, and the time to eat could contract to seconds. The account presents a routine in which the ordinary cycles of eating, drinking, and resting were reorganized around guards’ commands. Forced water therefore stands not as an isolated deprivation but as a repeated technique of sleep denial within the wider system of isolation and coercive interrogation described in the book.