fear of solipsism (cartesian nightmare)

I put a record on -- don't recall what, though it had a fifties pop aesthetic (which I usually despise, by the way). Yellow label almost the color of a manilla envelope, small logo of a pair of black shoes with wings (kind of like a cutout of the Goodyear logo -- no interior details, all black).

The song caused some deep emotion to wiggle its way up my abdomen toward my throat. I began to sob even though I couldn't explain why. It felt wonderful to sob. Despite the discomfort of a running, stuffy nose, it felt like a breath of clean air off the ocean.

Then the sobs took on a quick, irregular rhythm -- more rapid, jerky, bumpy, as if they were stumbling over one another. I thought they must sound very strange, so I tried to hear them as an external observer would have heard them. From the outside, my sobs sounded just like laughter.

I panicked. What if I appeared to be laughing every time I cried? What if every emotion came across as its opposite? Wouldn't this imply an infinite and unbridgeable abyss between myself and the rest of the world, wouldn't it seal me up inside of my own subjectivity for eternity? Surely God knew about this. Maybe God had even designed me that way. Wasn't this the surest sign that I had, in fact, died and now resided in hell?