Question
When I was a teenager I went on a long hike and in the process hurt my foot slightly. As I lay down to sleep I could not stop laughing. I tried to surpress it but I could not. I was not on any drugs at all. The laughter was rather loud at times and lasted over an hour. Rather like a case of the hiccups but only with laughter. Never had it since. It scared my parents but I was fine in the morning. Any clues what this may be ?  

Answer
Hello Ed

Sure, here is what happen. When we get hurt, or stressed, or both, the brain tells us where we were injured, and/or "this body is under a lot of stress." Sometimes the injury and/or stress is so overwhelming, the brain mis-understands the signals, and responds in a different way.

An example is, you bruise your hand, but the brain says the pain is in your sides. The signals get crossed.

In you case, when the body finally shut-down for the evening, the brain was flooded with a lot of signals telling it about the injury, the stress of the long hike, etc. In a state of confusion, instead of telling you "hurt, pain and sore muscles, the brain got confused and responded by making you laugh. As the pain got less and less, because you were in bed, the laughter also went away.

My own experience with this was when I walked up stairs to the top of a lighthouse. There was a doorway where you could walk out onto a metal walkway on the outside of the lighthouse. From the ground, no problem. Not too high up. When I got to the doorway - at the top, all my strength could not pull me thru the door. It was like my feet and hands were frozen to the doorway. My brain was overwhelmed with the thought of going thru the door so it responded by locking-up, literally, all my muscles in my body. I was a stiff as a statue.

The good news is that you and I had no permanent damage afterwards. Just a very unusual moment in our lives that we tell other about, but they look at us like we are crazy. I hope they never experience it. It can be upsetting, especially when you have no idea what is wrong!

Thanks for the question. If you have any more questions, please write to me again. Have a good day.