By punctuality, I mean the claim that consciousness is like a"point." We have already met the dogma of punctuality, thatconsciousness lives totally in an instantaneous now. In effect,Husserl is claiming that if we look without bias at the structureof consciousness, we will see that it is dispersed over time.Consciousness lives in the past and future as well as in thepresent. It is, as Heidegger will later say, "ecstatic," that is,it stands outside itself, or rather outside of the momentary now.Retention and protention are aspects of this dispersed structure.Consciousness extends beyond the present moment to encompass thepast and the future, but it does this in an articulated, not anhomogeneous fashion.