Anyone who lives near the ocean is well aware of the moon’s powerful impact on nature. Tidal flooding where I live on the Delaware Bay, for example, is always heaviest at full moon. The full moon is an undeniably powerful force of nature. In contrast, the moon’s effect on humans has always been uncertain despite a decent amount of research on the topic.
I spent some time tonight reading a handful of abstracts and reviews on the research centered around the full moon’s effect on human behavior. One typical review is http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-babble/201209/lunacy-the-full-moon-acy-is-it-real. The point is that the published and accepted research says that there is no data to support the belief that the full moon has a significant effect on human behavior. However, it also seems clear from the same research that there are certain sub-groups of the population (possibly brain-injured individuals) where the data might actually support the belief that the moon phase influences behavior. The problem is that apparently this research on brain-injured people has not actually been done.
My theory is that a brain-injured person is more susceptible to behavioral changes influenced by a full moon than other people. If you ask my wife, she’ll swear that this is the case.
We may never have scientific proof of this position.
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