A Eulogy for the Nightmare Lab

Written and photographed by Ryan Berkebile

I’m not a ghost chaser or drawn to stories of the paranormal. I don’t explore abandonments purely for the thrill-seeking rush. My goal in my explorations is to find some evidence to compose a faithful narrative of a place I’ve found, free from myth and tall tales. The former Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital (곤지암 정신병원) had its fair share of ghost stories, but the physical evidence I came across showed it was once a functional hospital. There were no eerie premonitions or supernatural spirits, just a lot of spray painted walls. In contrast, the most spine-chilling building I’ve ever examined, known as the Nightmare Lab, contained actual vertebrae and other anatomical parts on its premises. There are no murders or suicides (at least not that I’m aware of) connected to the Nightmare Lab. Still, it’s not every day you come across an abandoned science lab. Everything about this old educational laboratory was mysterious, a tad creepy, but exponentially more wondrous than any other place I’ve explored in Korea. Now that this place no longer sits as an eyesore, I can give it the fitting send-off it deserves.

First off, the Nightmare Lab isn’t the real name of this place. The laboratories and professors’ offices that had comprised the building sat unused for more than a decade on a branch campus of a well-known university in Korea. The Nightmare Lab was christened by a fellow urban explorer friend who came across this particular building while wandering around rural Gyeonggi-do around 2013. The name captures the imagination, as does the contents inside the building itself. My first visit to the Nightmare Lab was with said urban explorer friend on a group excursion during Chuseok a few years ago. The cream-colored facade of the building was weather beaten, with high patches of paint chips swaying loose from the walls. The building could’ve been a perfect setting for David Fincher’s grimy, suspenseful films Fight Club or Seven.

Entrance into the building was an iffy matter. You need timing and a little bit of luck on your side. Whenever one broken window was boarded up, another freshly shattered window took its place. An active battle raged between campus maintenance and the trespassers who made their own entrances. Personally, I’ve never smashed windows in order to get into a building. If there isn’t an easy, less intrusive way in, then it’s not worth it. Over the three times I’d been there, I used the same way in, possibly an indicator the caretakers resigned themselves over the matter. Or maybe they already knew what was going to happen with the building. During my last visit, I saw signs of refurbishment and revitalization. Buildings that’d been neglected had been given fresh paint jobs and fresh windows. The dormitory and dining hall that were shuttered up and fitted with alarms were suddenly being renovated – a sign of things to come for all buildings on the campus.

A jagged hole big enough for contortionists stood between us and the path to the Nightmare Lab. With gloved hands, we carefully took out the large shards of glass and finessed our way in. Walking through the hallways and peeking into the laboratories, we saw vials, beakers, and microscope slides splayed out all over the ground, perhaps by another curious visitor. The numerous calendars we witnessed ended between late 2003 and early 2004. Chalkboards in laboratories were either defaced by young thrill seekers or served as time capsules retaining the last written messages from the professors to students. In a former instructor’s room laid discarded pictures of past-attended agricultural science conferences. The person also seemed to be a honey connoisseur. Jars labeled “bush-clover [sic] honey,” “chestnut honey,” along with other varieties, were labeled from the early to late 1980s, well past a reasonable date of consumption. Quite a few of the professors’ offices were filled with personal effects left behind, which, as an urban explorer, are always fun to go through and ruminate on. However, the room our guide directed us to on the second floor left us all awestruck.

Entering this professor’s room, we came face-to-face with a mounted skeleton of a medium-sized dog. I’m not sure whether it was a bonafide mutt or just a model used to study its structure. It’s the first thing that gave me goosebumps. I felt surprised but not shaken. I was more disorientated from the stained floral wallpaper, which added this David Lynch-esque surreality to the moment. Coming across the bodies of cats, birds, and mice in various stages of decay is a common occurrence when checking out an abandoned location. If you’re squeamish about such things, this hobby is probably not for you. Entering this room, I wasn’t ill at ease from disintegration but rather from an immense scene of preservation. Starfish, snakes, a cat’s nervous system, and other creatures prevailed from rot in jars filled with formaldehyde. Glass containers were labeled with their scientific names, dates, and locations from which they were procured. Collection dates ranged from the mid-1950s up to the late ’60s. These jars were easily the oldest objects I’ve encountered on an exploration, and it was an entire shelf filled with mummified life! I felt like Indiana Jones coming across King Tut’s tomb. Unfortunately, some of the creatures didn’t survive the test of time.

In the end, none of the artifacts and specimens achieved immortality. Within a few years of my first exploration, the building was targeted for refurbishment. I haven’t gone back since early 2017, but I’ve seen from a friend’s post to a group page that there are still buildings on campus lingering in obscurity. Unlike Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, this location has been a well-kept secret. While the Nightmare Lab did attract its fair share of misfits and curio seekers, this campus has stayed under the radar, possibly due to a lack of scary legend connected to it. Hallelujah, it didn’t die from tourism and media hype. Only in its death do I feel comfortable talking about the Nightmare Lab, albeit in a slightly guarded way. You know what? It’s okay for people to have secret places that aren’t Instagrammed or Facebooked, feeding the hype machine and leading to over-visited places. The Nightmare Lab died in a dignified way.

The Author
Ryan Berkebile is an English teacher, analog camera fanatic, and urban explorer living in Gwangju. He has been teaching in Korea since 2005 with brief stops in Vietnam and Japan along the way. Visit longdistancerunner.org or @zen_compass to see photos of his explorations.