I'm going to start this short essay very abruptly. Just the way in which, suddenly stopping on the street to tie our shoelaces or to orient ourselves to get to our destination faster, we can have an insight, an 'Aha!' moment in which all things seem to align, all questions seem to converge towards a single answer, or as all answers become, spontaneously, one. So, I will start like this, without introduction. Let's say that we wake up in the morning and, after the first few seconds when we detach ourselves from the dream (if we remember it) we fall back into our physical 'shell', we remember who we are. We get out of bed, looking for our slippers in the semi-darkness of the room. Outside, a new day lurks just outside the window: we feel it's there, ready to sail towards us, with new demands, worries and pressures. But we don't open the window. Not yet. And here is the great leap of faith. How do we always know who we are? How do we pick up our identity from the evening, precisely, to the millimeter, exactly where we left off? How did it not get lost in our sleep? How did it not get lost in dreams or nightmares? How did it not remain trapped in a purgatory of Theta and Delta waves? Every day, the miracle happens, again and again, with a power that can only be equaled by faith. I find myself, ME, whole, feet on the floor, ready to get out of bed. It's the same me as last night, I have no doubt. And I begin to put on, layer by layer, my clothes. But I'm not talking about textile clothes. It's the social clothes. I have a certain status and a set of associated roles. Status refers to a person's position or rank in a social hierarchy or group. It can be assigned (conferred by birth or circumstance, such as royal status or heir in a wealthy family) or acquired (gained through personal achievement, education or career). Status influences how people are treated by others and the expectations society has of them. I don't have ascribed statuses, I only have those earned through work and learning. So I remind myself that I am a professor at the University. Okay, then I have some roles. Role is the set of behaviors, responsibilities and norms associated with a particular position or status in a social group or society. Roles are prescriptive and dictate how people should behave in different situations based on their status. For example, a teacher's role includes teaching and assessing students, while a student's role includes learning and participating in class. I'm a teacher- so I know what I have to do, every day Monday through Friday, and sometimes Saturday. And assessment sometimes happens on Sundays, so there you have it, every day I exercise behaviors appropriate to my social status. Nobody is surprised or questions what I do. I've come to do them almost automatically. In my home, social roles almost overlap with family roles. I get to evaluate my children on their performance. When they don't know how to do their homework, I help them - I teach them. The line between social life and family life becomes blurred. Sometimes it's hard for me to draw boundaries. I even get to evaluate people standing in line at the supermarket, movie theater spectators, passers-by on the street. It's become second nature. But what is actually first nature? Leaving aside my social status and the roles I play, what do I do? What do I fill my day with? How do you recommend me to others? Do my titles and positions really represent me? For someone who comes from a totally different cultural, social, geographic sphere, do they still represent something, do they still have any meaning, any significance? And if not, who am I really? And where is that I that I find with precision in the morning? But what if it is not my authentic SELF that is waiting for me to wake up? What if it's not just the social self, the set of social statuses and roles? What if the real me got trapped in the dream? I started to pay attention to what I dream. Often in my dreams, wild animals appear to me. But I, the one who identifies in my human carcass, am not there. Animals, in my dream, do various actions, run, fly, attack, chase someone. For example, wolves about to reach a fountain. I'm there, I know I have to go, I pack some bags I have with me and start running. But I don't recognize myself as being in the waking state. I'm just a thought, an idea, a concept. I wake up confused, I don't know if I am the wolves or the one  running, without a well defined body. In this part of reality that we call the WORLD, MY feet are on the cold floor, groping for shoes. The morning, like a hungry, massive beast of prey, it's waiting for me stacked behind the window. I feel her. I have only to open the window, and all my conventional layers will sail toward me, settling in perfect order, one on top of the other, on top of my self. I am teacher, colleague, evaluator, writer, researcher, mother. I mustn't forget that. But from time to time, during the afternoon, when I bend down to tie a shoelace or look for a second at the clouds or at the moon that has risen in broad daylight, I have brief flashes of memories of other worlds, other states. A wolf waiting for me by a fountain. He knows I'll return there sooner or later. And when I do, I'll be completely naked.