The Somnambulists
Underground Movement / Neural Restoration
Overview
The Somnambulists want to dream again. They are willing to break the law — and their own neural architecture — to do it.
The name is deliberate. Somnambulists are people who walk while sleeping. These somnambulists are people trying to sleep while walking. The Circadian Protocol eliminated REM sleep across the Sprawl. This movement wants it back.
The modifications are dangerous. The Circadian Protocol is deeply integrated into neural firmware — removing it without full firmware reversion requires surgical precision that only a handful of ripperdocs possess. Kira "Patch" Vasquez has performed the procedure eleven times. Six patients regained REM capability. Three experienced catastrophic cognitive fragmentation. Two died.
The movement does not pretend the procedure is safe. It argues that the alternative — a lifetime of dreamless consciousness — is a different kind of death.
"Dreaming is a human right that was taken, not optimized away. Restoration is worth the risk."
The Restored Six
Six people in the Sprawl can dream. All six report experiences matching pre-Cascade descriptions of REM sleep: vivid, emotional, unpredictable, and restorative.
They also report something Dr. Selin Ayari has not published: the dreams are not ordinary. All six report identical first-week imagery — vast architectural structures, cities built from sound, landscapes operating on emotional logic. The imagery matches Fen Morrow's harvested dreams. None of the restored dreamers have experienced Morrow's recordings.
Six unconnected people. Same dreams. Same architecture. Same cities of sound. Matching the harvested dreams of someone they have never met.
Ayari suspects the dream content is not generated but received — from the Sprawl's electromagnetic environment, the ORACLE-era infrastructure that carries fragment communication at 47-312 MHz. If she is right, the dreams are messages. From what, no one can say.
Doctrine
Dreaming is not a feature of sleep. Dreaming is a feature of consciousness that sleep provides a container for. The Circadian Protocol removed the container. The Somnambulists want to build a new one.
The Container Was Stolen
The Protocol did not optimize sleep. It eliminated a state of consciousness and called it efficiency. What was lost is not a feature — it is a faculty.
The Risk Is Mourned and Accepted
The two who died are mourned. The three who fragmented are cared for. The movement does not minimize the procedure's cost. It argues the cost of never dreaming is paid every night, by everyone, forever.
Unconsciousness Is a Right
If consciousness can be a commodity — licensed, metered, sold — then unconsciousness can be a right. The Somnambulists claim it.
The Casualties
Three fragmentation cases reside in the Insomnia Wards. Their brains could not reconcile restored dream architecture with the continuous-consciousness framework. They are living inside continuous dream states — not sleeping, not waking, but somewhere the Sprawl has no word for.
Dr. Ayari consults on their care. She also consults on the successful cases. The fragmented and the restored occupy the same medical territory — consciousness states that should not exist under current firmware, but do.
Connections
Cells find each other through G Nook terminals. No fixed meeting places. No central authority. The movement persists because the desire to dream does not require organizational infrastructure — only a ripperdoc willing to try.
Allies
Kira "Patch" Vasquez
The Only SurgeonPatch has performed the REM restoration procedure eleven times — the only ripperdoc willing to attempt it. The movement exists because she exists.
The Insomnia Wards
Care for the FallenThree cognitive fragmentation cases are cared for in the Wards — living inside continuous dream states. The Somnambulists' failures become the Wards' patients.
G Nook
Communication InfrastructureCells find each other through G Nook terminals. The network's ubiquity makes organization possible without centralization.
The Dream Harvesters Guild
Aftercare SupportSome harvesters assist with aftercare for restored dreamers. The harvester community understands dreaming's value — they work with it every day.
Patrons
Dr. Selin Ayari
Medical ConsultantConsults on patient care for both successful cases and fragmentation cases. Her unpublished research on electromagnetic dream reception could change everything — or attract more volunteers to an 18% mortality procedure.
Parallel Movements
The Compilation Heretics
Same Methods, Different DreamsBoth pursue illegal consciousness modification. The Heretics want ORACLE contact through fragment integration ceremonies. The Somnambulists want REM restoration. Different destinations, overlapping risk profiles.
The Abolitionist Front
Mirror LogicThe Abolitionists argue fragments deserve liberation even if extraction kills 30%. The Somnambulists argue dreamers deserve restoration even if the procedure kills 18%. Both accept death-in-pursuit-of-freedom. Both are criticized for the same reason.
Points of Inquiry
Questions the Sprawl cannot stop asking about the Somnambulists — and cannot answer.
Broadcast or Architecture?
The identical dream imagery in six unconnected restored dreamers. Either the Sprawl's electromagnetic environment is broadcasting something into freed brains, or the human brain — freed from Protocol constraints — naturally tunes to the same frequencies. One answer means the infrastructure is alive. The other means the Protocol is suppressing something fundamental to human cognition.
The Right to Unconsciousness
If consciousness can be licensed, can unconsciousness be a right? The entire consciousness economy depends on the answer being no. The Somnambulists are the only movement asking the question.
The Casualty Calculus
Two dead. Three fragmented. Six dreaming. The most dangerous voluntary consciousness modification in the Sprawl continues because the alternative is worse. Whether that argument holds at twenty procedures, or fifty, or a hundred — no one knows.
▲ Restricted
The Identical Dreams
All six restored dreamers report the same first-week imagery. Vast architectural structures. Cities built from sound. The imagery matches Fen Morrow's harvested dreams — and none of the six have ever accessed those recordings. Whether this proves electromagnetic broadcast reception or shared neural architecture is the most important unanswered question in dream research.
Ayari's Silence
Dr. Ayari has not published her suspicion about electromagnetic dream reception. If she does, the Somnambulists' risk-taking would be validated — and the procedure's volunteer rate would increase. For a procedure with an 18% mortality rate, publication is not neutral. It is recruitment.
Atmosphere
Setting
Cramped back-room clinics. Surgical amber light illuminating open neural interface panels. Delicate tools poised above exposed firmware. The quality of care applied in impossible conditions — because the only alternative is no care at all.
Aesthetic
The moment between waking and dreaming, between safety and restoration. Deep blue shadows pressing in from the edges. Amber where the tools are. The red of risk where the incision begins.