Sleepwalkers don’t suffer the Curse. They don’t see the Truth the way that the Awakened do, they don’t understand the Supernal, but it doesn’t bother them the way it does Sleepers. They don’t increase Paradox. They don’t cause Dissonance, and they don’t forget what they’ve seen.
By its nature, the Lie is imperfect. As insidious as the Curse is, it is not flawless, and entropy works on everything given enough time. For these reasons, and in certain cases, out of very specific design, there are people who escape the Curse without fully Awakening.
All Shapes and Sizes
Some people are Sleepwalkers because they just don’t experience the Curse.
A minority, though, have their own unique powers and strange innate abilities that set them apart from humanity. Perhaps it’s a connection to the Supernal that the human mind cannot fathom, even the Awakened mind. Perhaps they draw on a connection to some other source, and that shields them in some ways from the Lie.
Maybe it’s just that the strange accept the strange.
While not always brought into Awakened society, the Fallen World hides a wide spectrum of human beings who qualify as Sleepwalkers, though they may never have any run-in with direct evidence of the Supernal or Abyss.
Any character possessing Integrity and a Supernatural Merit that reflects an internal talent or inborn ability is immune to the Curse.
Having a cursed camera that shows you when people will die does not make you a Sleepwalker.
Being able to know what a serial killer is thinking due to a strange ability to get in his head does push back the Curse.
Drinking the blood of a vampire does not make you a Sleepwalker, but developing mystical powers from that bond would.
Being a kin to shapeshifters and half-spirits would make you a Sleepwalker.
Sleeper to Sleepwalker
Forcing a Sleeper to become a Sleepwalker is possible with the Prime spell Stealing Fire, something desperate or conniving Awakened have always known. It’s a brutal experience, though, and is always considered an obvious Supernal power for the sake of determining if the spell causes a Breaking Point and Wisdom roll. Even if the spell is successful, the Sleeper is not a Sleepwalker until after it is cast. Even then, once the spell’s duration expires, Quiescence takes effect on any memories of obvious magic the temporary Sleepwalker witnessed.
Aside from the brute-force method, mages don’t know how to make people Sleepwalkers any more than they know how to make people Awaken.
Any of the potential roads to Awakening could, falling short of triggering an actual Awakening, coax a Sleeper into Sleepwalking.
The Orders have dedicated countless studies to determine if being the blood relative of mages makes someone more likely to Sleepwalk, but if it does influence things it does so in such a subtle way that it’s impossible to prove. The raw power of the relative has no effect; for every apprentice whose child sees her cast spells and remembers, there’s a near-archmage with only Sleeping children and grandchildren.
Skilled, cunning, or otherwise powerful Sleepwalkers often have no problem fitting into Awakened society should they be allowed to know it exists. They make useful members of any cabal and Consilium, as they can do things mages are too preoccupied to handle or simply do not have the same affinity for.
While it’s unlikely that any Awakened polity would put a Sleepwalker in a position of absolute authority over cabals or have them make declarations about magical matters they cannot understand, that doesn’t mean that some Assemblies, Caucuses, cabals, and even Convocations haven’t found special positions of respect for qualified Sleepwalkers in their midst. Some Awakened sneer at this practice, or disallow it locally, but it does happen.
Moments of Genius
Some Awakened believe that a Sleepwalker who is exposed to Awakened society or magic on a secondary level is less likely to Awaken than, say, a totally ignorant Sleeper who just stumbled across the Truth.
The logic goes that by regularly exposing them to the radiation of the Supernal, they’ll tend to not have moments of complete Gnostic revelation, much like the Thai nuns who do not allow themselves to learn among the priests and believe that understanding and enlightenment will simply come to them while they go about their mundane tasks.
There is no solid way to study this phenomenon, to prove or disprove it, and so it remains a traditional assumption, but one that is challenged from time to time.