The article presents a model of identity as a segment of the contact-barrier - a slice of the preconscious ‘dream’ which, according to Bion, is continuously in process of formation during both waking hours and sleep. Reframing Lacan's theory of identity formation in terms of Bion's theory of preconscious ‘dreaming’, the proposed model of identity offers a diachronic, dynamic alternative to the synchronic, static concept of self-image and furnishes the clinical phenomenon of the ‘secret self’ with a theoretical explanation. By situating identity within the contact-barrier, the author hopes to fill a gap in psychoanalytic literature where identity has as yet no meta-psychological status, and more importantly to bring psychoanalytic theory closer to clinical phenomena: if questions and assertions about identity haunt the discourse of analysands both persistently and insistently - and increasingly so in the shadow of identity's topicality in the extra-clinical world, from academia to social media - then to listen to an analysand whilst holding in mind theoretical frameworks which have yet to find a place for identity is to run the risk of foreclosing, of unwittingly filtering out, elements of the analysand's discourse which concern something much more complex than constellations of Imaginary identifications.