Yeah, that parallel was mentioned between us mods-there's almost always some sort of meltdown right around the full moon, or just as it is waxing or waning. This latest moon didn't disappoint!
Stealing lunch money, pulling pigtails, and 'yo mama' jokes galore. ---------- Todd L. Greene
And if you look at those ER, police, psychiatric referrals etc... AS HAS BEEN DONE in several studies, you won't find a positive correlation either. In fact one study showed ER referrals going down.
It's all superstition: unsubstantiated nonsense that's said so often that people accept it as fact - like duck's quacks not echoing and the five second rule for food on the floor.
The offending post this time was posted AFTER the full moon.
People do not start acting crazier because it's the run up to a full moon. They don't start acting crazy because it's a full moon. They don't act crazy because it's just after a full moon (that adds up to about half our lives)
Is there such a thing as repetetive coincidence, then?
Almost like clockwork, within a day or so of the last several full moons, we've had some sort of meltdown, nasty controversy or violation of the creed on the forum, resulting in a ban or at least a locked thread. I'm not superstitious nor do I have a problem digesting simple physics, but it's one helluva coincidence.
"Others say the belief has remained strong due to “confirmation bias,” the idea that people favor information that supports their preconceived notions. In other words, if you expect people to act strange during a full Moon, every strange behavior you encounter during a full Moon reinforces that belief. "
There's no question that a full moon affects me. But I'm equally sure that it doesn't affect everybody the same way. It certainly affected the late great Chris Michalek: he always started incendiary fights on this forumin the 3 or 4 days just before the full moon. And a number of you guys used to go along with him.
It's the brittle, damaged, brilliant badass players who are most affected by it.
@MrVerylongusername: Trust me, you don't want to be like me. Thank your stars--ah, your genes--that you're not.
My forthcoming album features a number of cuts that were recorded on the evening of Thursday, July 14. The full moon was around 8 the following morning. I had incredible crazy energy. That's entirely typical for me in the 24 hours just before the full moon. I played two back-to-back solo version of "C. C. Rider" and felt fresh as a daisy when I got up from my chair. The groove was a little unsteady, the way a riptide is unsteady. What would you expect from a lunatic?
Last Edited by on Sep 17, 2011 10:33 AM
"It's the brittle, damaged, brilliant badass players who are most affected by it".
I like that.
Mainly because if we negate the idea that the full moon affects us personally, we are to some extent subconciously negating the idea that we ourselves are: "brilliant badass players."
Well constructed. You would be a great closer. ----------------------------------------------
@Tmf714,
Great points. I could see the increase in light causing sleep deprivation a couple hundred years ago. But not just when the moon is full. There is a steady increase/decrease of moon brightness due to other conditions. Conditions such as humidity, rising height or even wind. But were these conditions regularly measure or taken into account back then? Also, the moon is only Really full for a matter of minutes.
So we should give it a new name. ;) maybe "Bright Moon Deprivation". lol. But as you previously stated, the increase in artificial lighting has made this deprivation almost non-existent.
I've never advocated for WHY the full moon has the specific set of effects that it has on me. I haven't the faintest idea what the causal connection is. Increased gravitational pull on bodies of water--including blood? I have no idea.
Not only does "science" not have all the answers, but even if they had a fairly compelling rebuttal to my claim, it would truly make no difference to me.
My mother is a nutrition scientist of considerable repute. Through her, I've learned to be skeptical about the claims made by science. For many years, nutrition scientists managed to convince a lot of people that the nutritional value of foods could be reduced to a set of factors called vitamins. These vitamins could be considered in isolation from each other and were pretty much the whole ballgame: give people enough of them (along with an adequate mix of proteins, fats, and carbs) and you could ensure good health.
We now know--which is to say, a chastened and somewhat more enlightened nutrition science now knows--that there are all sorts of other things found in food, including bioflavanoids, enzymes, things found in dark chocolate, blueberries, red wine, that contribute materially to good health. Scientific truth is being rewritten. Food turns out to be much more complex than protein, fat, carbs, and 15-odd easily isolable nutrients.
I believe the same thing is true about the full-moon effect. It's taken me a long time to become sensible of it, and my scientific training (I spent freshman year at college as an electrical engineer) has actually exerted pressure AGAINST subscribing to such a preposterous idea. Still, the effect is real and noticeable--at least in my own life--and I've gained positive benefits by becoming aware of it.
Here's the etiology and symptomatology of the full-moon effect (FME), at least for me:
1) Discernable FME begins to show up at some point early in the seven days before the FM.
2) It shows up as some, most, or all, of the following effects a) I wake earlier in the morning and have trouble going back to sleep b) I have unusually vivid dreams, especially in the 3-4 days directly preceding the FM c) I feel noticeably more energetic, soulful; I stride with more power and purpose on my way to class d) This energy can compensate, to some extent, for the loss of sleep e) If I'm lucky enough to have some high-energy-output event--a lecture, a recording session--scheduled in the 2-3 days before the FM, I can count on being unusually energized f) I'm quicker to anger, to flash with fury: more inclined to manifest what somebody else might call a "'roid rage." If my young son pisses me off, he REALLY pisses me off g) My wife and son, I notice, also manifest some of the mood-effects I've just described. My son wakes earlier and is "bright" on awaking. My wife is quicker to anger h) This forum, as I've helped my admins notice, has a 90% chance of breaking out in rancorous, spiky battles during the FME period i) Intriguingly, the FME rapidly diminishes after the FM has passed. Within two days after the FM, any increased energy or mood swings have evaporated. The FME, in other words, has a one-week incoming cycle but a much shorter outgoing cycle
Make of all this what you will. I forget about the FME every month--i.e., I don't watch the sky--until I suddenly notice one of the aforementioned effects waxing large. Then I say, "Wait a minute! Is the full moon coming on?" 90% of the time, it is. I walk out into the yard just to be sure, but mostly I google "full moon calendar" and check the date of the next one. Usually it's about 4-5 days away when I first notice effects in a way that makes me want to check that sort of calendar. Sometimes I'll remain unconscious of where we are in the cycle until I get REALLY pissed off about something--not my normal affect: really pissed off--and then I'll check and we'll be two days away.
Last Edited by on Sep 17, 2011 1:49 PM
If you ever played top-40 gigs during the 70, 80's in bars on a regular basis, you would experience the full moon effect - vibes in the bars always get weird. ---------- The Iceman
There is some evidence that suggests that some men have a noticeable monthly hormone cycle based on testosterone and seratonin levels . The effects - particularly on temper - sound very similar to the symptoms you describe. And if you did have the condition, there is every possibility that (purely by chance) your cycle was in sync with the moon's cycle.
Occam's razor.
Last Edited by on Sep 17, 2011 5:58 PM
If a Full Moon has such an effect on us here on Earth, I can't imagine what effect a Full Earth must have on anybody on the Moon. I wonder if Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had to fight off the effects of Earth Madness! If you sent a dog to the Moon, I wonder if it would howl at the Earth?...
@verylong: That monthly-cycle thing is very interesting. Suppose it wasn't by chance, but suppose instead that the cycle synchronized itself with the lunar cycle? Our bodies, after all, synchronize themselves with the diurnal cycle created by the sun's appearance and disappearance. Seems like a very promising explanation for what I've got--especially since I didn't, ah, talk about the other symptom that seems to be part of the FME. :) Increased testosterone level would explain that.
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the "extra light" hypothesis just because we now have electric lights. Most people don't sleep with the lights on, and the change in the overall darkness of your sleeping quarters due to the full moon shining through the window can be quite extreme.
I know that the extra light from the full moon defintely keeps me awake at night, even though I've got shutters AND curtains on my bedroom window. I'm a terrible sleeper to begin with, and quite sensitive to ANY light in my bedroom (I have to cover the little red LED's on my alarm clock, phone charger, fan, etc. with electrical tape), and I always find myself even more sleep-deprived than usual during a full moon. Sleep-deprivation certainly affects my mood, and thus I find myself to be much more irritable than normal during a full moon as well. ---------- == I S A A C ==
