Contagious Laughter

Originally posted by infobrazil

Another very important theory on laughter is that It's about social status and sexual attraction.

Uh oh. I just spent the last hour all alone laughing out loud all by myself.

Should I worry? ...or only if I start using a mirror?

Originally posted by soficrow

Should I worry?

Not at all ... I humor myself at least once a day.

And others often humor me.

Originally posted by soficrow

Should I worry? ...or only if I start using a mirror?

Only if you are laughing at yourself.

Originally posted by schrodingers dog


And others often humor me.

Man...if I had a nickel for every time I have been humored by others.

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
... I humor myself at least once a day.

And others often humor me.

And thank you for a real good time.



ed to fix





[edit on 8-2-2010 by soficrow]

Originally posted by soficrow

And thank you for a real good time.

I must second that...great thread S&F!



[edit on 2/8/2010 by UberL33t]

reply to post by schrodingers dog




when I first heard this story it made me laugh

then it made me cry a little

then it made me laugh again

good to know

:-)

Fun facts:

If you laugh 100 times it’s the same thing with cycling 15 minutes on your bike. Energetic laughter boosts the heart rate deepens the breathing rate, and bring into play muscles in the face, stomach, and diaphragm.

Apart from enhance our moods, laughter can cut down stress, cooperate fighting infection, and reduce pain.

Laughter generate helpful changes in brain chemistry by delivering endorphins, and it leads more oxygen into the body with the deeper inhalations.

Laughter is instinctive and contagious. Our laughter is under minimal conscious control, and it challenges the hypothesis that we are in full control of our behaviour.

Italian author Pietro Aretino who in 1556 was laughing so hard at a bawdy story being told to him by his sister that he fell backwards in his chair and died of suffocation from “laughing too much.”

Laughter amplify the natural killer cells that attack viruses and some types of cancer and tumour cells. www.strange-facts.info...

...for those who think a dong cant be funny...

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
Fun facts:

I
Laughter generate helpful changes in brain chemistry by delivering endorphins, and it leads more oxygen into the body with the deeper inhalations.

Call me superficial, but...

it's the endorphin rush I like best.

Yeah she called him out...

Nothing like the ancients to nail it...

I have a thousand brilliant lies

For the question:

How are you?

I have a thousand brilliant lies

For the question:

What is God?

If you think that the Truth can be known

From words,

If you think that the Sun and the Ocean

Can pass through that tiny opening

Called the mouth,

O someone should start laughing!

Someone should start wildly laughing –

Now!

willhumes.net...

reply to post by masqua


Indeed ... also:

"Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis." - Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts" SNL

www.quotegarden.com...

Edit to add Nietzsche's characteristically funny take:

"Inmitten einer düstern und über die Maassen verantwortliche Sache seine Heiterkeit aufrecht erhalten ist nichts Kleines von Kunststück: und doch, was wäre nöthiger als Heiterkeit? Kein Ding geräth, an dem nicht der Übermuth seinen Theil hat."
www.narcis.info...;jsessionid=ri2ljcyw7qp

... hysterical on several levels.

[edit on 9 Feb 2010 by schrodingers dog]

Well masqua! You ARE full of surprises...

On that theme...

In the Sufi system, as in any field of learning, when a person has insufficient information or does not know what questions or actions will yield productive answers or reactions, the situation must be corrected as soon as possible. One quite useful joke incarnates the circumstances that occur when this has been done.

A recruit was asked by a training instructor, "Give me an example of how to fool the enemy."
The recruit answered, "When you are out of ammunition, don't let the enemy know -- keep on firing!"

***

The scientist says to the logician, "I have determined statistically that all geniuses are totally vain, even if they oversimplify and don't talk much."
The logician answers, "Nonsense. Geniuses vain and terse? What about me?"

...The absurdity of many assumptions of society often obscures the fact that these assumptions exist only to please those who make them, and are not meant to take anyone or any idea a stage further.

***

One woman says to another, "Poor Maisie really has suffered for what she believes in."
"And what DOES she believe in?" asks the other.
"She believes that you can wear a size six shoe on a size nine foot."

...(sexist, but illustrates the idea that) beliefs and ideas rooted in the mind often function only for certain purposes -- and do not help the person who suffers from them.


...For the purposes of Sufism, several elements in the human mind must be aligned before the interference that prevents higher understanding can be stilled. People are always supposing that they can realize their full potential if they can only discover the way, the key, the method, and apply it. But applying the method may involve taking care of all the things within them that are not helping them, such as the habit of applying fashionable though ineffective techniques to a problem. A key works only in a lock.


***

Prayers, rituals, and religious exercises may not be the best paths to spiritual development. Sufis have found that jokes can assist the traveler.

Sufism is a rich mystical tradition that arose in the Middle East, a tradition that promotes an experience of life through dealing with life and human relations. Historically, as much research has shown, the Sufis have profoundly influenced Jewish, Christian, and Hindu literature and attitudes. In so doing, the Sufis have played a unique part, for no other body of thinkers has had an analogous effect on this group of major belief systems.

Instead of presenting a body of thought in which one must believe certain things and reject others, Sufis try to provoke the experience in a person. Why provoke or develop experience instead of teaching dogmatic principles or processes? The Sufis assert that knowledge comes before ritual. Rituals may become outworn, may not function as intended when practiced by communities for which they were not designed. If rituals and practices are, as Sufis believe them to be, specially developed psychological methods, only those who have the knowledge that lies behind them can confirm whether historically notable ones are still functional. Hence priority is given to knowledge and understanding over feeling or belief.

The Wisdom of Sufic Humor
by Idries Shah
[From "Human Nature" April 1978. ]

The more we learn, the sooner we come to the conclusion we know absolutely nothing for certain.

The only recourse for the wise, then, is a good laugh after delivering a speech.

A 700 year old Rumi-nation:

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

Even if you don't know what you want,
buy _something,_ to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

www.armory.com...

I like Rumi.

I like this one...

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope and that enables you to laugh at life's realities." -- Dr. Seuss

Ain't it the truth?

Not only as it applies to laughter, but to the interest in some of the more absurd nonsense we tend to encounter in life, and including the interest in some of the more "out there" topics and themes that attract interest here at ATS?

Some of the best laughs I've had here reading through absurd topics came from members posting intelligent humorous comments.

Perhaps the more brilliant among us are the ones looking at everything through 'the wrong end of a telescope' ?

SD, in my opinion you are one of those few posters here at ATS.

This is actually a very good example of people sensing each other's laughter even when they don't understand what is being said. I saw this show live and it was incredible how much deep from the soul laughter was shared by the audience, and 95% of them didn't speak or understand a word of French ...

Here is a great example of what you're talking about

Two great cricket commentators re-capping the days play, when one makes an accidental innuendo, which sets the entire commentary box into hysterics. Starts with a giggle and ends up with gales of laughter. Popular legend has it, that people listening to this in their car on the motorways and A-roads of Britain had to pull over because they were laughing so hard and couldn't concentrate on driving, which shows us that you don't even have to be in the same room in order for laughter to be contagious



For those of you who aren't British, "getting a leg over" is a slang term for sex.

Originally posted by Walkswithfish
reply to post by UberL33t

 

It is similar to carnivorous pack animal instincts, and is how packs, flocks, herds survive together by feeding off of emotional signs, movements, calls, howls, growls, barks etc.

We are, after all, quite simply, highly evolved social pack animals.

Fishy, I know "pack" as you are referring is as in "wolf pack". My overly tired brain went initially to "pack animals" as in burros. What does that say about my "ass"? All I can say is tomorrow at work, just as soon as we get to the bottom of the canyon, I'm asking for a raise.

"Only laughter can blow [a colossal humbug] to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand." - Mark Twain

Here's something to laugh at
onnachance.com...