Dreaming about
laughing

Laughter is hard to fake and almost impossible to hold back once it starts, which is why it gives so much away. Dreaming about laughing usually points to relief, ease, or a need to take life a little less seriously than you have been. Being laughed at is the reverse, a dream about a fear of looking foolish, and it's the version most people search for.

Who laughed, and at what, is the first thing to work out when you wake up. Laughing with old friends is a different dream from laughing alone at nothing, and both differ from a room of people laughing at you while you stand there. The setting counts too, because laughter at a party and laughter at a funeral are two different dreams even when the sound is the same.

What dreaming about laughing means

Laughter does several jobs in waking life, since it releases tension and bonds people, but it can also be used to shut someone out. Dreams use all three, and most laughing dreams come down to one of these readings.

Relief after pressure

The commonest happy laughing dream comes just after something difficult. An exam over, a hard conversation done, a diagnosis that turned out fine, and the dream lets out the tension you've been holding. If you laughed until you cried, the release was probably overdue. But it's also common in the middle of a stressful stretch, as if the mind is giving you the break the day didn't.

A need for lightness

Sometimes the laughter in a dream is exactly what you're missing by day. When life has been all work and worry, a dream of laughing with friends can show you the lightness that's gone. And it's a fairly direct hint to call someone who makes you laugh. If you woke up from it a little sad, that's usually the reading.

Not being taken seriously

Being laughed at in a dream is mostly about exposure. It's the fear of looking ridiculous in front of people whose opinion matters to you. It tends to come before a test of some kind (a presentation, a first date, a new job), and it's a close cousin of naked dreams, where everyone suddenly turns to look.

Dreaming about being laughed at

Being laughed at is the version that stays with people for the rest of the day. Who was laughing is the clue to where the fear lives. Friends point to worries about fitting in, colleagues to how you're seen at work, family to old roles you've never quite shaken (the youngest, the clumsy one, the dreamer). And if you didn't know why they were laughing, the dream may be about a vague sense of not measuring up more than about anything you actually did.

Dreaming about laughing uncontrollably

A fit of laughter you can't stop is about release, but there's often a strange edge to it, especially if it went on too long. Laughter that won't stop can be tension leaking out of a situation you're keeping very tightly under control by day. What have you been holding in? And if you finally let go, would you laugh or cry?

Dreaming about laughing in your sleep

Some people wake up to the sound of their own laughter, or are told by a partner that they laughed in the night. It happens because the body's usual stillness during dreaming isn't always complete, so a strong emotion like laughter can slip through. It's harmless, and usually a sign of a good dream (and an odd sound to wake up to). If you act out dreams often in rougher ways (shouting, kicking, getting up), mention it to a doctor.

Dreaming about laughing at a funeral

Laughing at the wrong moment, at a funeral, in a serious meeting or during an argument, leaves people mortified on waking. Nervous laughter is a common reaction to stress, so the dream may be about feelings that don't fit the occasion, relief that something is over, or grief that comes out sideways. It doesn't mean you didn't care, and many people laugh at real funerals too, often at the memories.

Dreaming about laughing with someone who has died

Laughing with a parent, a grandparent or a friend who has died is one of the warmest grief dreams. The laugh is often exactly theirs, which can make the dream feel like a visit. These dreams tend to come when the sharpest part of grief has eased a little. And they're usually about the bond and the good memories more than the loss, and many people wake from them smiling and wishing they could go back to sleep for just a few more minutes.

Dreaming about an evil laugh

A cackle in the dark, a clown laughing for no reason, a stranger laughing behind you are among the creepier things a dream can do. That kind of laughter is mockery with a threat inside it. It often lines up with a feeling that someone is enjoying your trouble, or that you're being made a fool of without knowing how. If you know the voice, start with that relationship.

Dreaming about laughing according to Jung and Freud

Laughter isn't a symbol either man catalogued, so the two readings below apply their ideas to it and say so.

Jung: the trickster who won't take it seriously

Jung described the trickster as an archetype, the clown, the fool, the shape-shifter who turns everything upside down.^[1] A laughing figure who mocks, plays pranks or refuses to take anything seriously may be that figure (our application). Pair it with his view that dreams balance a lopsided waking attitude,^[2] and a mocking laugh becomes the answer to a stretch of being very serious. What it mocks is worth a look, since it's usually something you take very seriously.

Freud: laughter and the day before

Freud's rule was to start from the day before, because a dream's raw material comes partly from it.^[3] With laughter that's often easy to find: a joke that landed, a message that made you snort, a friend you haven't laughed with in months. His second idea, that a dream disguises a wish, points at the relief in a happy laughing dream, which may simply be the wish for more lightness than your week allows. A crowd laughing at you is harder. In his typical dream of finding yourself unclothed among strangers, the dreamer burns with shame while nobody else minds, and a dream where the crowd does laugh turns that around, so the question through his lens is what the shame is covering (our application).

The biblical and spiritual meaning of laughing in dreams

Two old texts have something to say about the laugh itself, and they don't agree.

Laughing in the Bible

In Genesis, Sarah, then very old, overhears that she'll have a son and laughs to herself at the idea, then denies it when asked.^[4] When the son is born, she names him Isaac, which means "he laughs", and says, "God hath made me to laugh".^[5] It's a story of laughter that starts as disbelief and ends as joy.

Laughing in the Hindu texts

The Agni Purana, whose 229th chapter sorts dreams into good and bad omens, puts laughing, along with dancing and singing, among the bad ones.^[6] That runs against the feeling most laughing dreams leave, and the lists in these texts often do (they count weeping, and even a dream of your own death, among the good omens). In the Ramayana, the demoness Trijata dreams of Ravana's fall and sees the ogres who are about to lose drinking, laughing and dancing.^[7] Both texts read the dream as an omen, which is the tradition's way of reading its own stories and not a verdict on yours.

Questions to ask about your laughing dream

Laughter is easy to forget once you wake, so write down who was laughing before anything else. Then ask yourself these questions about it.

• Were you laughing, or being laughed at?
• What was funny, if you remember?
• Did the laughter feel warm, nervous or cruel?
• Who else was there, and did they join in?
• What in your life feels too serious right now, or too exposed?

Oniri starts with questions much like these before reading a dream, because a laugh only means something once you know who it belonged to.