posted April 12, 2009 06:52 AM         

In high school my best friend and I would get this way WAY too often. In and out of school. We wouldnt even have to say anything, just look at each other and know what was funny and 'lose it'. One year we were in the same Algebra class and got to pick where we wanted to sit. Of course we sat next to each other which was a bad idea. I don't even know what it was about our teacher that cracked us up, but it was not good and we were quickly seperated. We tried to control ourselves but couldnt. She had to sit in the first row and i got moved to the back. It was really bad; we tried not to laugh but still did even when we got seperated. A few other's would "catch" it and laugh too at whatever the teacher said or did or at us laughing. The poor teacher probably thought we were high....and i'm positive some were (we werent though, not often anyway).

Anyone have a friend like this? Damn i miss her.

I caught the laughter bug from these videos,
this one in particular. Had to wipe away the tears. The guy lost his job over it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X1VIyZe3Ws

posted April 12, 2009 06:53 AM         

laughing fit. dude loses it. funny! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLqZP31upTw&feature=related

religious host laughs at singing caller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQjq2MXsWbs&feature=related

posted April 12, 2009 07:19 AM         

he's definitely not laughing at those people, you can see where the man's high pitched voice catches the host off guard when he starts speaking after his wife. that's when his laughter begins.
....then the second male speaker...whoa. deep.

posted April 12, 2009 04:21 PM         

The sound of roaring laughter is far more contagious than any cough, sniffle, or sneeze. Humor and laughter can cause a domino effect of joy and amusement, as well as set off a number of positive physical effects. Humor and laughter strengthen our immune systems and help us recover from illness, as well as bring joy into our lives. The question is, how do we gain access to this priceless medicine?

Health benefits of humor and laughter
"Laughter activates the chemistry of the will to live and increases our capacity to fight disease. Laughing relaxes the body and reduces problems associated with high blood pressure, strokes, arthritis, and ulcers. Some research suggests that laughter may also reduce the risk of heart disease. Historically, research has shown that distressing emotions (depression, anger, anxiety, and stress) are all related to heart disease. A study done at the University of Maryland Medical Center suggests that a good sense of humor and the ability to laugh at stressful situations helps mitigate the damaging physical effects of distressing emotions.

Laughter lowers blood pressure.

People who laugh heartily on a regular basis have lower standing blood pressure than the average person. When people have a good laugh, initially the blood pressure increases, but then it decreases to levels below normal. Breathing then becomes deeper which sends oxygen enriched blood and nutrients throughout the body.

Humor changes our biochemical state.

Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases infection fighting antibodies. It increases our attentiveness, heart rate, and pulse.

Laughter protects the heart.

Laughter, along with an active sense of humor, may help protect you against a heart attack, according to the study at the University of Maryland Medical Center (cited above). The study, which is the first to indicate that laughter may help prevent heart disease, found that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease.

Laughter gives our bodies a good workout.

Laughter can be a great workout for your diaphragm, abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg, and back muscles. It massages abdominal organs, tones intestinal functioning, and strengthens the muscles that hold the abdominal organs in place. Not only does laughter give your midsection a workout, it can benefit digestion and absorption functioning as well. It is estimated that hearty laughter can burn calories equivalent to several minutes on the rowing machine or the exercise bike.

Humor improves brain function and relieves stress.

Laughter stimulates both sides of the brain to enhance learning. It eases muscle tension and psychological stress, which keeps the brain alert and allows people to retain more information

posted April 12, 2009 04:29 PM         

quote:

---

Good health is one of the many benefits of laughter. Laughter reduces our stress levels by reducing the level of stress hormones, and also helps us cope with serious illnesses.

Physiologically, laughter promotes healing, by lowering the blood pressure, and by increasing the vascular blood flow and the oxygenation of the blood.

Physical fitness stemming from laughter is a benefit known to few. Scientists estimate that laughing 100 times is equivalent to a 10-minute workout on a rowing machine, or to 15 minutes on a stationary exercise bike. The mere act of laughing exercises the diaphragm, as well as the abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg, and back muscles.

Another benefit of laughter is that it improves our over-all mental health. Pent up negative emotions, such as anger, fear, and sadness, can cause biochemical changes in our bodies that can produce a harmful effect.

Laughter provides a harmless outlet for these negative emotions, and provides a coping mechanism for dealing with difficult or stressful situations.

---

posted April 12, 2009 04:53 PM         

Greek Goddess of Humor/Goddess of the Belly Laugh

The goddess Baubo was a fun-loving, bawdy, jesting, sexually liberated—yet very wise—goddess who played a crucial, role in in preserving the fertility of the land in ancient Greece.

Baubo is celebrated as a positive force of female sexuality and the healing power of laughter. Her power and energy have survived in the spirits of women down through the centuries.

Because of the scarcity of written references—and the contradictory nature of the writings that we do have—she remains a somewhat mysterious figure.

The goddess Baubo played a pivotal role in the myths of Demeter and Persephone.

Persephone had been violently abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld. Abandoning her goddess duties of bringing fertility to the land, Demeter was wandering the Earth in deep mourning over the loss of her beloved daughter.

Eventually she stopped to rest in the city of Eleusis. The disheartened goddess, disguised as an old woman, was brought into the home of the king to serve as a nanny to their newborn son.

Although everyone in the household tried to console the depressed woman, it had no effect—until the elderly servant Baubo appeared. The two women started chatting and Baubo made a number of risqué remarks which brought a small, tentative smile to Demeter's face. Then, Baubo suddenly lifted her skirt in front of Demeter.

Whatever the goddess glimpsed under Baubo's skirt, she responded with a long and hearty belly laugh and her depression lifted.

Ultimately, with her spirits and confidence restored, Demeter persuaded Zeus to command Hades to release Persephone. So, thanks to the bawdy antics of Baubo, the fertility of the land was restored and starvation averted.

Some translate the word Baubo to mean "the belly". This interpretation of her name is revealed in some ancient figurines of the goddess that have been found in Asia Minor and elsewhere.

These sacred objects depict Baubo's face in her belly, with her vulva forming her chin.

Other unearthed figurines of Baubo depict her playfully exposing an exaggerated vulva between her legs.

Baubo appeared as Demeter's "sacred fool" in ancient Greece's annual festival where women were taught the profound lessons of living joyfully, dying without fear, and being an integral part of the great cycles of nature.

posted April 12, 2009 05:01 PM         

Well after reading these all posts even i started to smile and then laughing remembering those sweet funny moments hahaha...

You always raise interesting topics in which i get embedded and surely i realize new things,
thanks for always coming up with new topics of different kinds.

Had a good time going through all these above mentioned video links.

Haven't seen your new postings in entity thread?

Keep smiling

posted April 12, 2009 05:05 PM         

No, no new posting on that thread. I've lost interest in that subject. Not sure where I stand with it either.

You keep smiling too!

posted April 12, 2009 05:23 PM         

Divine Play, Sacred Laughter, and Spiritual Understanding
Patrick Laude

Drawing materials from mythology, theology, anthropology, and literature, and from a variety of cultural areas, Patrick Laude demonstrates that the comic--sacred clowns, tricksters, and laughter--is at the core of any fundamental and comprehensive understanding of the religious.

posted April 12, 2009 05:36 PM         

On Joy, Pain, and Divine Laughter

"I saw an angel close by me, on my left side in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord’s will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful - his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call Cherubim I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of his goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying." -St. Theresa of Avila

This piece of sculpture and St. Theresa’s vision had a profound effect on me when I visited Rome in my early twenties. When you see the piece, it is as if it is floating on air, the marble is to thin in places that it seem transfused with light. Both the sculpture and the vision are a paradox. The sculpture is both heavy stone and ethereal light, the vision is joy and pain captured in the same moment.

I have been wondering about pain and joy over the last several days. I’m beginning to feel I too serious. I think maybe the Divine does not expect us to be so solemn. As usual, I’m thinking about making art and about the emptiness and silence it requires, the pain and suffering it can bring up. I discussed fear and pain on numerous occasions, but never joy and I have to ask myself why.

St. Theresa’s vision shows us that pain and joy can coexist. The pain implicit in having a physical form need not stamp out the joy of our connection to the Divine. In fact, in St. Theresa’s vision, her joy is felt physically as well as spiritually. She describe pleasure, the vision is almost sexual in nature. When I discuss and think about Divine creativity, I always feel very serious and solemn. I’m sure I take myself much too seriously! I’ve been rereading Wendy Beckett’s The Mystical Now, Art and the Sacred and I came upon this quote:

If we confuse ‘the sacred’ and ‘the solemn’, we are only allowing God to come to us from one direction. (p. 34)

What if I allowed that the possibility of joy while creating is equal to the possibility of pain? What if I embrace art as play with the Divine? Could I capture the abandon of a child at play as well as the meditative silence of a monk at prayer? I think I do when I work. Making art is definitely a form of play, but my mind is more sensitized to the suffering and difficulties. Would a small shift in perception change my whole experience of creating?

In his book Coming Home: The Experience of Enlightenment in Sacred Traditions, Lex Hixon has an essay entitled The Landscape that laughs: Jewish Soul Masters of the Hassidic Way. This essay is all about the experience of joy and laughter as a direct experience of the Divine. It’s an amazing essay with so much to quote, but this passage really struck me:

Awakening to our own Divine Nature is not achieved automatically by going through certain steps in a sacred system, by prayers or meditations or rituals, no matter how sincere we may be. Ecstasy must first burn away these efforts of grasping God, leaving us with only apparent nonsense…Whatever bizarre or sublime form the holy presence may choose to assume and speak through, It redirects us to our original home, to the priceless spark of our intrinsic nature.

…Elie Wesel writes about these stories of Rebe Nachman: “Laughter occupies an astonishingly important place in his work. Here and there, one meets a man who laughs and does nothing else. Also a landscape that laughs.” We encounter the same holy laughter in an account of kensho, or Enlightenment by a contemporary Japanese [Zen] practitioner: “At midnight I abruptly awakened. At first my mind was foggy, then suddenly that quotation flashed into my consciousness: “I came to realize clearly that Mind is no other than mountains, rivers, and the great wide earth, the sun and the moon and the stars.’ …Instantaneously, like surging waves, a tremendous delight welled up in me, a veritable hurricane of delight, as I laughed loudly and wildly: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! The empty sky split in two, then opened it’s enormous mouth and began to laugh uproariously: Ha, ha, ha!’” Rebbe Nochman and this contemporary Japanese Buddhist both encounter a landscape that laughs. There is no fundamental cultural separation: ecstasy is ecstasy, fire is fire. (p. 121-122)

I have had two experiences with Divine Laughter, both around death. The first was with Lex Hixon himself. I was blessed to spend some time with him during college. Many years later I was told that he had died of cancer a number of years earlier. I was very sad and immediately said a prayer for him. Suddenly I heard him laughing and laughing with his distinctive voice as if he were in the room. There was such joy in his voice. My second experience was during the death of friends husband. I received a call from my friend that her husband had been taken to the hospital. She lived an hour away and I jumped in the car and drove to meet her. The whole way I was busy worrying and praying for her. When I was just about there, I suddenly realized I should be praying for him as well. It was as if the thought had been inserted into my head. Instantly I heard him laughing and laughing as if he were in the room. His laughter filled he car, there was such freedom and abandon in it. He suffered from severe depression so it was quite shocking to hear. When I arrived at the hospital I found that he had died at the exact time I had heard his laughter. I always felt that his laughter was a message for my friend, but now I see it was a message for me too. There is joy to be had here in this physical form.

posted April 12, 2009 07:14 PM         

Contagion is caused by something called "emotional contagion"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_contagion

posted April 12, 2009 08:08 PM         

When I was watching these people and laughing as hard as they were i thought to myself that maybe i was having a serious case of empathy. I seemed to slip into their shoes and understood exactly what they were feeling. It happens to me alot and not only with laughter.

I don't get laughing when another is crying. Normally only when I'm with another person who has a similar sense of humor and is capable of letting themselves go.