Word has been spreading around Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) campus following the spotting of a student who, according to multiple of the pupil’s classmates, seems to simply have no thoughts.

This mysterious student—who shall remain nameless to protect their identity—was first spotted on campus last Tuesday afternoon. Multiple students reported seeing someone snacking on a box of twenty old-fashioned plain Timbits in the Kerr Hall Quad.

“I didn’t even know you could just order plain Timbits,” one bystander told The Eyeopener. “I’d always assumed they were just there to act as fillers for when you order an assorted box.”

Dr. Crane E. Yum, a neuroscience professor at TMU and a self-proclaimed “medical school graduate,” says that eating bland food is a common symptom of “head emptiness.”

“Craving the consumption of bland and uninteresting things is a common sign of those with head-empty conditions (HECs),” says Dr. Yum. “Eating plain foods, listening to terrible music by artists like Drake or Taylor Swift and watching trashy Netflix reality shows can also be common coping strategies for individuals with HECs,” said Dr. Yum.

They went on to express that there is a critical difference between “head empty, no thoughts” and “head empty, just vibes,” individuals who are more commonly referred to as stoners.

“It’s not that there is a lack of brainwave activity,” says Dr. Yum. “It’s actually quite the opposite. The lack of activity is the activity.”

The causes of HECs are still largely unknown, although some preliminary research is pointing towards potential links with overpriced Balzac’s coffee. The repetitive mental strain of using a transit system that is about as unreliable as MyServiceHub on open enrollment days has also been found to be common in HEC patients.

In their classes, the no-thoughts student has been reported to exhibit other common thoughtless symptoms like interrupting lectures to ask questions that are already thoroughly explained in the class syllabus. Furthermore, according to TMU engineering professor Ed Emtea, the student answered ‘ all of the above ’ to multiple true or false questions during their midterm last week.

“When I watch them in my lectures, it’s like they’re in a haze,” explained Emtea, who has dealt with multiple no-thoughts students in the past. “I mean, if this student's mind was any hazier, it could be part of a fraternity.”

Despite the negative connotations often associated with having no thoughts, for some, the prospect is actually a welcome one.

“I mean, look around you,” says second-year philosophy student Noah Thauts. “Having no thoughts is living the dream. If we could all just turn off our brains for even half a second, I think the world would be a much better place.”

A TMU admissions spokesperson said that although thoughtless students are more common than people think, they aren’t commonly found on TMU’s campus because “they more typically attend the University of Toronto.”

Exact population figures for how many thoughtless students attend TMU are hard to calculate because it can be challenging to differentiate between students who truly have no thoughts and ones who simply have pointless ones (such as any student who has ever played devil’s advocate in a classroom debate).

Despite the lack of some population data, studies indicate that roughly 95 per cent of thoughtless students tend to grow out of their head-empty phases by the age of 25 and go on to live relatively normal lives. As for the remaining five per cent that never develop the ability to think critically, most become politicians or TikTok influencers.

Note: The Eye reached out to the student for their thoughts on this story and received the following statement: “                                .”