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OK... time for a new one.

When a realization is so powerful that you cannot express it in words... you cry.

Sometimes, I suppose, you can cry, to sort out your thoughts. I prefer to sort out my thoughts in silence, then for some inexplicable reason, a realization comes upon me (usually when watching/reading something banal) and you laugh or cry.

Tears are normally associated with grief; this is because it is the most likely time for us to feel detachment from our own preconceptions. When you are detached from your own paradigms, you grow. This is why I like to travel. It gives you that opportunity to remove some paradigms. Travelling is a time of laughter, tears and growth.

Laughter, I think, is something that you have accepted; but when you realize that someone else has accepted it, you laugh. Laughter is the appropriate response to crying.


What are your thoughts on why we laugh or cry?

Obviously, I posted this in the main forum and not in the litterbox, so I don't want to hear about your bf/gf/bff/relative &c. I want to hear about why we are crying or laughing... not the symptoms; symptoms are for idiots (like most doctors) to heal.

I never used to cry at all especially when watching a tear jerker movie but over the years my emotions get the better of me and i will cry

I will also cry when I see someone have a really joyous thing like winning a medal or something

I never cry at sad news though I go into a defense and start to laugh, cant help myself i just giggle at it

I dont know why I wish I would maybe someone can explain it

I usually cry at sad situations, I cant help it.....BUT I want to express, is that whatever the reason, that emotion has to come out in form or another.
which is different for everyone......when I am completely angry/mad at a person/situation and I can't fuss, yell, cuss, or scream............then

it never fails..............tears begin to fall!!!!

lol - makes me more angry that it came out as tears when I really wanted to punch someone!!!

slavekitiria that happens to me too, when i'm backed in a corner and I want to lash out but cant and i'm extremely angry I cry too

I know what you mean makes you even more livid because they think your crying because your a softy lol

People have laughed til they cry.

People tend to cry in sorrow and pain.

People can even get so angry that they cry.

Sad memories can make a person cry.

Many things can make a person cry but I'm not sure if crying is always emotional.

Good point,

My eyes teared up when I got my septum pierced.
I have cried twice in real pain though.

Do you suppose crying in anger is hiding a more complex feeling?

I don't laugh or cry as much as i used to. I sort things out then cry. There are times when things are very overwhelming and i cry before i think.

Laughing is a very different matter though. I have many different laughs depending on the situation. I laugh at anything most of the time though.

Being a more positive person over time i'll be laughing more.

Crying relieves tension (as does laughter), and both are a form of communication.

There are no right or wrong answers for a question like this. Crying and laughter are a form of tension release just like Bloodmother said above. Both crying and laughter I do see as a way of expressing ourselves without doing something that could hurt ourselves or someone else. I also tears and laughter as a form of communication. As children we speak to our parents through our laughter and tears until we are able to talk and understand the words that we have been taught.

Personally though over the years I have gotten to where I will cry after watching various movies or something happens that is joyful. The tears though were not tears of sadness or anger but tears of joy. Now I try to sort things out before I cry or laugh in situations. Not sure why I do this but it seems to help with the situation at hand.

You bring up an interesting point, Spirtwalker, with movies. Music falls into this category, too. That we respond emotionally is not surprising, but that we may seek out these mediums - over and over again - is.

There are apparently different kinds of tears: lubrication, cleansing and emotional. The chemical makeup of the emotional tears is different.

For people who constantly seek the sad in life and reinforce it with books, music and movies of that nature is it possible that they are addicted to those chemicals?

Ah - music and art. If they are sad, I will tear up...which is why, if I'm in a down mood, I listen to upbeat music or watch a comedy. I don't need to get more depressed by the beautiful, yet sad stuff. But - laughing really hard makes one cry too, so...?

Overall, my emotions are balanced. If I do feel really sad or angry, I tend to keep it in, until I get home to release.
I rarely go apeshit though - just not part of my make-up, I guess. (It can be scary if I do though - even for me. Thank God those occasions are extremely rare).

I know i laugh sometimes when I am really nervous and Angry, it is common with many, and I also think maybe it is something more yet, have yet to figure it out.

I also cry when I get mad and am trying not to kill the person I am mad at. I think that it is just our frontal lobe that causes some of us to do it. It does control our emotions as well as other things.I mean if we had no Frontal lobe, we would have no control and could not help ourselves from doing things, such as Laughter and crying. yet that is just a medical scenerio, I mean there could be many different reasons why we do it personal trauma that we are supressing and do not want to remember so we laugh or cry for no reason really.

Bloodmother, I would have to say that it would seem that they are attracted to that chemical type if that is what we can call it. I say it that way because there is more then likely a certain word or terminology used for this but I am not a psych so could not say for sure.

I honestly think that there are various types of movies, music, books and etc. that can affect the frame of mind that we are in and thus affects the laughter and the tears that we have as humans.

Is this thread regarding a psychological association, or a common sense answer? I could do both, but I will leave that up to ~Dabbler~... HA!

I cry when I am terified, miserable or just from laughing too much.. I don't think I've laughed when backed into a corner. More like go blank and then let things sort themselves out. Music makes me tear up a lil, but I would hardly consider that crying.. It's just getting all nostalgic, I think.. I laugh when people fall. And that can get out of hand... almost all the time. The science part of it I'm not sure at all. I just know your emotions have got to be triggered, by memory or something deeper to get tears and laughter.

And when I was born, I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, which is of like nature; and the first voice which I uttered was crying, as all others do.

~Solomon Ibn Gabirol~

Bloodmother,

"what the bleep do we know?"

Have you seen this?

Grandmother barn owl whose eyes shining like golden orbs, please tell us of the world.

I remembered laughter, and that made it okay to laugh. It's not that I cried. I did, but not at first. I was too shocked. It wasn't that it was unexpected. It was, I did believe it. It wasn't that the comments they posted made me ponder. They weren't, not really.

It wasn't the first time I'd known this. It won't be the last that I was too shocked to cry. It was alright to cry, and I did. But then it was alright to laugh.

Except that it was still alright to cry. No one closed any of my options. They didn't only gave me more, but I am the only one who gave myself more. I didn't want to laugh, but then the barn owl came, and I remembered that she laughed a hoot, too. She made me laugh.

So I laughed. At first it was restrained, and then I really believed that I was laughing. It is the truth, but it's a bitter truth, and honestly. I wrote those words bitterly in my journal, and then typed it them upon this thread called ''Tears & Laughter''. The words were 'hooted', i.e. spoken awhile I could imagined a few young owlets listening to their world weary grandmother on a stormy night, telling them tales about her adventures as she hooted to me.

''Laughter not only helps us to transcend bitterness and to learn something, even in the middle of a disaster. There is the more simple truth, if you didn't laugh you'd cry. ''

It was easier for me to laugh in the past. (emo much? Well that’s how it is) well I still can laugh nowadays just not as much as I used to.


I cried more often in the past, nowadays not that much, when it’s something about me, but then I cry when reading/hearing sad news and movies.

When nowadays I cry, it is when I can’t handle it anymore, and it is added with anger, despair and thoughts of suicide. It is when all happens at once and I feel helpless so I cry not to release stress but because I feel vulnerable.

i cried when my duaghter was born out of joy,,i cried when our son was miscarried out of lose my duaghter has made me luaght growing up but my tears were never stop remembering my lose so both can be for joy

If we look at it we tend to not classified that both can/should go together. Yet so many times we laugh when we get scared or cry when we are happy. Personally I have no idea why this would happen.

I know I have done this on occasions. I very rarely cry at a sad movie (maybe once or twice) and sometimes I even laugh at them.

I cried when my little dog died.And I cry at sad movies.

I think laughing or crying is a way to release emotions, and the energy associated with emotion. Laughing and crying is the physical reaction to emotions and energy.

I generally laugh myself to tears; I suppose that covers them both. This question made me realize that I haven't cried in a long time-that may not be good. I shall go and watch Old Yeller immediately.

crying and laughter do tend to go hand in hand. I have laughed myself to tears many times.

Crying or Laughing is the best of Human emotions. When we forget to be compassionate enough to loose both of those emotions, then we have lost ourselves as well as our humanity.

I cry because I'm lonely. I laugh because my friend Alex sneaks out of an air vent and blows me up with a fruit basket. O.O

Anyone should be able to answer this easily. We laugh and cry for the same reason - emotional release.

emotion is the cause but what is the means, we always describe laughter with happiness, and crying with sadness yet we all know that that isnt the case.