The senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch are pointed forwards in time; when you give full attention to one of them you perceive what is breaking in on you. Sensory memory may be an essential component of perception but this so as all the better to delineate what is coming to be encountered through sensory experience in the present. To be present for the senses is to be directed towards the future, or perhaps it could be said that futurity is first of all defined by the orientation of the senses. Thought, on the other hand, is always backwards directed; even new thoughts are built up out of the known. In thinking we proceed backwards and perhaps this is the only way in which we can be surprised by thoughts; we suddenly find ourselves in the midst of something new, realising this a moment after we have arrived. In this way you can tell that the 'sense of self' is really just a form of thought, because it is experienced backwards in this way. The question remains as to whether there is another hidden dimension of self that is experienced forwards, or in a different and exclusive direction entirely?