Then, after the examine, members had been requested what they had been doing, whether or not their thoughts was wandering, and the character of the topic they had been fascinated with. Had their minds wandered to a “pleasant” topic, a “neutral” one, or an “unpleasant” one?
The researchers discovered that about half the time, individuals’s minds wandered to a nice matter. In these cases, the examine members described themselves as being no happier or much less glad than after they weren’t experiencing thoughts wandering.
In different phrases, an individual having a nice daydream is not essentially a happier particular person.
Meanwhile, the opposite half of the time (on common), examine members described their minds as wandering to a impartial or disagreeable topic. In both case, these individuals had been sad.
“In conclusion,” the researchers wrote, “a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”