We are aware of consciousness in many forms, including that which is not conscious, which we call sleep, where time is forgotten. If remembered for its moments, it is the remembrance we call dreams and these seep back into that forgetfulness like water into sand and so often disappear. If we remember anything, it is remembrance of the remembrance.

There are also the simultaneities of consciousness of which we are aware, the many moving parts of ourselves—sensations, perceptions, within, without—and finally the engineer, the pilot to the motion, attending to the machinery of it, the signals demanding decision and coordination. Our actor.

The actor is our presence of mind, at least that is the billing he gets. If he is incoherent, then so am I. If out of his mind, so am I.

But what is mind? What is presence of mind? A will? Not merely. A coherent thought? Not always. Logic? Language? Not always. Although it is difficult to distinguish mind from thought in words, since thought in words is how we understand our mind. But all of us know, that words seem to drape like cloth the form of what we mean, to give appearance to what lies beneath, and thus some words with more elegance and charm than others. We like nice clothes.

But we are also naked. Music is naked thought, thought without words. The athlete thinks naked. When doing is thought. The artist thinks naked. When what is created and the creator melds, the creation is thought.

At any rate we can sense the way in which thought with words is both artificial and artful. It is not quite the real, but it is a semblance, a verisimilitude, and in itself is highly attractive, colorful, and often so beautiful it can be evocative of what that ineffable consciousness is. It can indeed seem to be so exact to the truth that we mistake for what is real.

But what if there is more than one actor here? What if I am a whole stage full of actors? What if there are not just representations of me from different times of my life, but roles I have not played, except subconsciously, or maybe roles that I have never played? What if I can be anyone I have ever met or anyone I can imagine? And what if these actors play? What if I am that drama?