If nothing else, it's pleasant to consider the possibility. He likes the thought of ships moving over the water, toward another world just out of sight.

In both pleasant experience producing karma effect (shata vedaniya) and unpleasant experience producing karma effect (ashata-vedaniya), there is indeed a constant inner burning (antardaah, inner suffering). But because one has moorcha (worldly engrossment/fascination due to deluded worldly view), one does not notice it; he remains in a state similar to being unconscious.