Awakened Dreams: Raji's Journeys with the Mirror Dede

Synopsis

Awakened Dreams was written in the early 1900s at the end of the Ottoman era by Ahmet Hilmi—humorist, revolutionary, and Sufi mystic. Raji—a young man disillusioned with science, philosophy, religion, and with life as he knows it—meets a grandfather-like "madman" who lives in a cemetery and wears clothes patched with bits of mirrors. The Mirror Dede, though apparently mad, makes more sense than anyone Raji has ever met. From time to time they drink coffee together, and as the old man plays a reed flute, Raji's transformation is mirrored through a series of awakened dreams.