Laugh Laughing
Release of tension, effort to sympathise or calm, ridicule of another or self, taking things lightly, misunderstanding, depending on dream. Sometimes much laughter can hide tears or sadness.
A spontaneous eruption of joy, merriment or sense of the ridiculous. Sometimes a form of mockery at the expense of others. Release of tension; attempt to put others at ease; ridiculing or feeling embarrassed by some aspect of self; taking things lightly; attempt to hide the truth. Sometimes much laughter can hide tears or sadness.
Fast full breathing is an accelerator. It speeds produces the sort of physical state of excitement, high activity and high emotion such as laughing or crying. It reduces the muscular and psychological barriers we may habitually hold to prevent ourselves openly expressing emotions through the physical movements of sobbing or laughing. This is why it is used a great deal in popular therapy movements such as Rebirthing and Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork. Its use may produce the release of long held emotions or spontaneous fantasy, including powerful body movements and emotions.
Laughing also gets rid of seriousness or stiffness of soul, as this description shows “I tell them that I sense too much unnecessary stiff seriousness here. Such a situation only imprisons mind, I say. I ask the group to get up and move to the sunny part of the room, where I am standing. As a perfect example and symbol of the whole teaching I suggest that everybody kick each other in the butt. I ask them to not forget, as they are doing this, about mutual respect and the oneness of everything. I call it a lesson in perfect connection and liberation. With every passing moment of this unusual activity the feeling of stiffness disappears, being replaced with a sense of mutual understanding and fun. At first it is just myself, but after a short while all of us in the room, burst out laughing loudly while carefully kicking each other in the butt. I stagger with laughter in the middle of the room, watching the other people also laughing intensely. I see how they are enthusiastically raising their long colorful dresses, jumping around on one leg while aiming hearty kicks with the other. They jump and kick each other, laughing, while the sunlight shimmers on the rainbow-colored patterns of their costumes.” Quoted from Working With Dreams By Marek A. Kowolik
Example: There was a young girl on the bus who seemed equally confused. She was either Hawaiian or of Asian descent. I couldn’t tell. Then the bus driver, a man, turned around and laughed maliciously, like he wasn’t going to stop the bus or crash. Finally we came to a narrow cobblestone street, and I grabbed the girl by the hand and jumped off the bus.
Example: I pushed down and “plop,” the baby was born. “My 4th one,” I thought, “so it was easier.” I lay there exhausted. The doctor, who only stood there, didn’t even catch the baby. For that matter, I didn’t even see him. I just knew he had to be there. The nurse started to do the after birth things. The man pushed my table around fast, in circles. It made me dizzy and frightened. I cried out and clutched the table. They laughed. “Don’t be so silly,” they said. The nurse then repeated it. She rushed me on the table across the gym to the opposite wall. I got off the table. They were taunting me.
Example: I felt terrified (I realised afterwards it was terror that I was dying). Then I remembered reading about experiences such as this and was laughing uncontrollably through release from terror.
Example: I realised that our real existence is formless and beyond conception. It is the realisation that frees us from the prisons of recrimination, of feelings of defeat, of ideas and words – even of constant failure. Being formless, there is no mood, no passion, no philosophy that can hold us. So we can slip away from the agony of guilt or self judgment, we can laugh at the phantom of being right or wrong.
Example: I can remember that in the dream another person and I, a male but very indistinct and shadowy, were facing mythical creatures in some sort of odyssey. A strange sort of crocodile or alligator type creature was supposedly attacking me. I had mixed feelings about this. Partly I felt there was nothing to fear about the creature, but another feeling was that it might be able to do some damage. In fact it was biting me across my chest, but all I felt was a very strong tickling feeling that made me laugh.
Example: I feel like a powerful ape at the moment. I am not holding myself back in regard to my fellow creatures. I am ready to fight, play, love, laugh. All the different bits of me are available. This wonderful experience of existing, of being alive with all the powers of a living creature – physical strength, emotions of anger, tenderness, passion and sexual excitement, curiosity, awe and wonder in meeting life and the stars.
Idioms: a barrel of laughs; don’t make me laugh; for laughs; laughing gas; laughing stock; get a laugh; have a laugh; hollow laugh; laugh in somebody’s face; laugh it off; laugh up ones sleeve; laugh on the other side of your face; laugh your head off; laugh yourself sick; laugh yourself silly; kill ourselves laughing; laughing stock; the laughing stock
Useful Questions and Hints:
What type of laugh was in the dream?
Do you laugh often?
Do you have fun in your dreams?
See Avoid Being Victims – Dream Yoga – Using the Voice – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams