The difference between the future and the past

Details. Without details you would not get swept into the imagination of the past. This came to mind when I, unscrewing a lid from a coca cola bottle, remembered my mother had liked lemon coke. The pang I felt recalling her was all imagination, she is gone, she doesn't haunt me. What is the point though of occupyng my mind with a fantasy. I am reminded of a Saki story that I will not go into now. The point is the past is composed of details, points that sketch a big picture, like stars in a constellation, and like the constellations, the pattern is all fantasy.

There are no details in the present. Just like there is no dimension to a mathematical point. Most, almost ALL, people fill up their present moment with details, but these details are fumes of the past, without the vibrant knock of the now. Breath in and a new present circles the drain of the past. As soon as you could point to a detail that would count against my outline, you are in the past, proving my thesis. 

As Jan Cox said once, regarding Istanbul as a metaphor for mystical attainment, as soon as you look around at Istanbul, you are back in Paris. 

Does this mean that a mystical experience is a current dimensionless present which does not swirl down the drain (immediately)?

Not exactly.