Thursday 10 May 2012

Thanks a lot, mister moon


For many years now, I've had trouble sleeping whenever there's a full moon. I won't get into the harrowing details of the sleepless nights, mainly because I don't want to relive them, but believe me, I'm talking serious trouble. Brooklyn Girl and our longtime friends never tell me when a full moon is coming. I don't want to know. On my computer I could summon in seconds the date of the next full moon, and of full moons for years to come, but I don't. My unwavering policy is willful ignorance. It doesn't prevent "the trouble," but it spares me a lot of anticipatory angst.

A couple of days ago (they tell me) we had a full moon of historic proportions, and I had a sleepless night to match. This time I couldn't avoid seeing articles about it on the internet. I read none of them. Whenever MSNBC reported on it, I switched channels. Sure enough, when The Big One hit, I experienced the most hideous sleepless night of my life. All it lacked was Béla Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. Fortunately, unlike the hapless victim in a 1943 Monogram Picture, I had Brooklyn Girl, the best life's companion one could have, for help and solace throughout the ordeal.

Years ago I mentioned my full-moon syndrome to our family doctor, an intelligent, caring, open-minded fellow. He scoffed. It wasn't a nasty scoff; more of a facial tic, but it was definitely there. He then politely dismissed my hypothesis. Yesterday, in a pitiable, post-ordeal state, I was in his office again. This time, no scoff; just compassion, and the right pill.

The internet is full of anecdotal evidence of full moon-related anxiety of one kind or another, but the all-knowing great god Wikipedia says:

The theory that there is correlation between specific stages of the Earth's lunar cycle and deviant behavior in human beings that cannot simply be explained by variation in light levels. There is no good reason to expect this to be the case, and in spite of numerous studies, no significant lunar effect on human behaviour has been established. Scholars debunking the effect sometimes refer to it as the Transylvanian hypothesis or the Transylvanian effect to emphasise its fanciful nature.


Who are these "scholars"? I know who they are: a bunch of sound snoozers, that's who. Transylvanian effect? Well, just call me Wolfman Boy. One of our best friends already does.



1 comment:

  1. A day or so ago, I noticed positively irrational local traffic patterns: in a trip broken up by errands, six or seven cars pretended mine was invisible and cut me off, zipping across my path most terrifyingly. I commented on this the next day at work and one of my friends ascribed it to the full moon's influence. I'm only glad that I am not commenting from the waiting room of the collision / body repair place.

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