I recently came across an article in a magazine that talks about laughter as a form of meditation. It stated that every morning before opening your eyes, you should start off by doing a quick stretch- tensing and relaxing all your muscles. Then with eyes still closed, begin to laugh. For five minutes just laugh. At first it might be forced and artificial, but soon the sound of your attempt will cause genuine laughter. Lose yourself in laughter, it may take several days before it really happens, but soon it will become spontaneous and lift your mood for the rest of the day.

The article goes on to say that it can be an amazing, life-changing experience, and a form of deep meditation, very different from the usual silent sitting-type. It states that it's relaxing and energizing, and can be very emotionally healing.

This made a lot of sense to me and seemed like an extremely effective meditation technique, so I did a little more research and found an internet article that I would like to share with you all:

Osho on Laughter as a Meditation: Starting and Ending day with Laughter

Laughter brings strength. Now, even medical science says that
laughter is one of the most deep-going medicines nature has provided
man with. If you can laugh when you are ill you will get your health
back sooner. If you cannot laugh, even if you are healthy, sooner or
later you will lose your health and you will become ill.

Laughter brings some energy from your inner source to your surface.
Energy starts flowing, follows laughter like a shadow. Have you
watched it? When you really laugh, for those few moments you are in a
deep meditative state. Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and
think together. They are diametrically opposite: either you can laugh
or you can think. If you really laugh, thinking stops. If you are
still thinking, laughter will be just so-so, it will be just so-so,
lagging behind. It will be a crippled laughter.

When you really laugh, suddenly mind disappears. And the whole Zen
methodology is how to get into no-mind -- laughter is one of the
beautiful doors to get to it. As far as I know, dancing and laughter
are the best, natural, easily approachable doors. If you really dance,
thinking stops. You go on and on, you whirl and whirl, and you become
a whirlpool -- all boundaries, all divisions are lost. You don't even
know where your body ends and where the existence begins. You melt
into existence and the existence melts into you; there is an
overlapping of boundaries. And if you are really dancing -- not
managing it but allowing it to manage you, allowing it to possess you
-- if you are possessed by dance, thinking stops.

The same happens with laughter. If you are possessed by laughter,
thinking stops. And if you know a few moments of no-mind, those
glimpses will promise you many more rewards that are going to come.
You just have to become more and more of the sort, of the quality, of
no-mind. More and more, thinking has to be dropped.

Laughter can be a beautiful introduction to a non-thinking state. And
the beauty is.... There are methods -- for example, you can
concentrate on a flame or on a black dot, or you can concentrate on a
mantra, but the greater possibility is that by the time the mind is
disappearing you will start feeling sleepy, you will fall asleep.
Because before the mind disappears there open two alternatives: sleep
-- sushupti -- and samadhi: sleep and satori.

When thinking disappears, these are the two alternatives left: either
you move into satori -- a fully alert, no-thought state; or a fully
asleep, no-thought state -- sleep. And sleep is more natural, because
you have practised it long. If you live sixty years, twenty years you
have been asleep. It is the greatest activity that you have been
doing; one third of your life is spent in sleep. In no other exercise
do you spend so much time and so much energy.

So if you are doing TM-type meditations, repeating a mantra, by the
time the mantra helps you to become non-thinking, immediately sleep
will possess you. Hence, I call TM a sort of tranquillizer. And that
is the appeal in America for Maharishi and his method, because America
is the only country which is suffering from sleeplessness so
tremendously. Insomnia has become almost common.

If after forty you have not started suffering from insomnia, that
simply means that you are a failure, that you could not succeed -- in
business, in politics. In power you couldn't succeed; you are a
failure. All successful people suffer from insomnia, have to suffer.
They suffer from ulcers, have to suffer. So remember: insomnia, ulcers
and things like that are nothing but certificates of success -- that
you have succeeded.

TM has an appeal for the American mind, because repeating a mantra --
monotonous, the same again and again -- the mind loses interest in it,
starts falling asleep. That's the beauty of laughter: you cannot fall
asleep. Laughing, how can you fall asleep? It brings a state of
no-mind and no-thought, and does not allow you to fall asleep.

In a few Zen monasteries, every monk has to start his morning with
laughter, and has to end his night with laughter -- the first thing
and the last thing! You try it. It is very beautiful. It will look a
little crazy -- mm? -- because so many serious people are all around.
They will not understand. If you are happy, they always ask why. The
question is foolish! If you are sad, they never ask why. They take it
for granted -- if you are sad, it's okay. Everybody is sad. What is
new in it? Even if you want to tell them, they are not interested
because they know all about it, they themselves are sad. So what is
the point of telling a long story? -- cut it short!

But if you are laughing for no reason, then they become alert --
something has gone wrong. This man seems to be a little crazy because
only crazy people enjoy laughter; only in madhouses will you find
crazy people laughing. This is unfortunate, but this is so.
It will be difficult, if you are a husband or a wife it will be
difficult for you to suddenly laugh early in the morning. But try it
-- it pays tremendously. It is one of the most beautiful moods to get
up with, to get out of the bed with.

For no reason! because there is no reason. Simply, you are again
there, still alive -- it is a miracle! It seems ridiculous! Why are
you alive? And again the world is there. Your wife is still snoring,
and the same room, and the same house. In this constantly changing
world -- what Hindus call the 'maya' -- at least for one night nothing
has changed? Everything is there: you can hear the milkman and the
traffic has started, and the same noises -- it is worth laughing for!

One day you will not get into the morning. One day the milkman will
knock at the door, the wife will be snoring, but you will not be
there. One day, death will come. Before it knocks you down, have a
good laugh -- while there is time, have a good laugh.
And look at the whole ridiculousness: again the same day starts; you
have done the same things again and again for your whole life. Again
you will get into your slippers, rush to the bathroom -- for what?
Brushing your teeth, taking a shower -- for what? Where are you going?
Getting ready and nowhere to go! Dressing, rushing to the office --
for what? Just to do the same thing again tomorrow?

Look at the whole ridiculousness of it -- and have a good laugh. Don't
open your eyes. The moment you feel that sleep is gone, first start
laughing, then open the eyes -- and that will set a trend for the
whole day. If you can laugh early in the morning you will laugh the
whole day. You have created a chain effect; one thing leads to
another. Laughter leads to more laughter.

And almost always I have seen people doing just the wrong thing. From
the very early morning they get out of bed complaining, gloomy, sad,
depressed, miserable. Then one thing leads to another -- and for
nothing. And they get angry... it is very bad because it will change
your climate for the whole day, it will set a pattern for the whole
day.
Zen people are more sane. In their insanity they are saner than you.

They start with laughter... and then the whole day you will feel
laughter bubbling, welling up. There are so many ridiculous things
happening all over! God must be dying of His laughter -- down the
centuries, for eternity, seeing this ridiculousness of the world. The
people that He has created, and all the absurdities -- it is really a
comedy. He must be laughing.

If you become silent after your laughter, one day you will hear God
also laughing, you will hear the whole existence laughing -- trees and
stones and stars with you.
And the Zen monk goes to sleep in the night again with laughter. The
day is over, the drama is closed again -- with laughter he says
"Goodbye, and if I survive again, tomorrow morning I will greet you
again with laughter."

http://www.innerhappiness.com/laughter.html