{
  "abstract": "Reduced spontaneous thought during meditation is often described phenomenologically, but a mechanistic account should specify how a dynamical system can enter and persist in such a regime. Here we formulate a minimal statistical-mechanical model in which a dimensionless coordinate, q, represents a coarse-grained propensity for spontaneous-thought activity, and a slowly relaxing variable, r of t, represents the history-dependent effect of an attentional manipulation. The model combines a tilted double-well landscape with Langevin noise, allowing a high-q and a low-q dynamical regime to coexist. We numerically integrate the model under a controlled focusing protocol followed by removal of the drive and quantify low-state occupancy, first-passage times, dwell times, occupancy entropy, and transition entropy. For the chosen dimensionless parameterization, increasing the drive amplitude produces a sharp crossover in low-state occupancy near the deterministic spinodal threshold, A-sub-sp, approximately equal to 0.0148. At a noise intensity of D equal to 0.01, the probability of occupying the low-q regime at drive removal increases from 0.094 at A equal to zero to 0.994 at A equal to 0.02, while the mean first-passage time decreases from 48.0 to 13.5 model time units. Noise produces a non-monotonic effect: for A equal to 0.01, low-state occupancy at drive removal is only 0.033 at D equal to 0.0025, rises to 0.842 at D equal to 0.02, and falls to 0.718 at D equal to 0.04. Strong driving also reduces the effective number of occupied states while changing transition entropy much less, illustrating why a single entropy measure cannot identify thoughtlessness. These results do not establish that human neural dynamics obey this model. Instead, they show that a driven stochastic bistable system can generate the qualitative sequence of focusing, switching, relaxation, and metastable low-activity residence, and they provide quantitative predictions that can be tested against time-resolved neural recordings and independent reports of subjective experience.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "IIT Kharagpur"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 1,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "S. Karmakar"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dr4t0ayzv41za.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.10.11.758288",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.11.758288v1.full",
  "id": "dr4t0ayzv41za",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.11.758288v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "animal behavior and cognition"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3203|Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7222786274",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.11.758288v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-11",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dr4t0ayzv41za.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:28:18Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.10.11.758288",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.11.758288v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:animal behavior and cognition",
      "subfield": "zoology-behaviour"
    }
  ],
  "title": "From Wandering Thoughts to Mental Stillness: A Minimal Computational Statistical-Mechanical Model of Driven Relaxation",
  "title_text": "From Wandering Thoughts to Mental Stillness: A Minimal Computational Statistical-Mechanical Model of Driven Relaxation",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:28:18Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dr4t0ayzv41za",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}