Have you ever noticed that sometimes we feel gloomy or depressed for no apparent reason. When we try to find out, we don’t see any reason for such mental state. I have also felt myself depressed many a times for no actual reason. I tried to figure out and found one interesting pattern. I  noticed that I am often depressed or gloomy to some degree at Full Moon and my mood gets upset and emotions get swayed during this phase of Moon. This obviously caught my curiosity and I read about the same and did a bit of research and found out that the moon infact can affect our mood to a certain degree depending upon person to person and it plays different roles in people’s life. 

             We all know that Moon causes tides in the oceans. Likewise, since our bodies are made up of so much water, it would not be wrong to believe that Moon also pulls us and sway our emotions in the same manner as it do with the oceans. Now when I comprehend this, I believe that Full Moon phase has always been a high tide of emotions for me. 

            I was astonished to know that there have been studies which suggest nearly 81 percent of mental health professionals believe that full moon can make people ill and it influences their psychiatric health. There is another study which says that full moon also disrupts sleep and can make a person aggressive.  Interestingly, the word lunacy is also derived from the Latin word lunaticus, meaning “moonstruck”. The Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder also believed that madness and epilepsy were caused by the Moon.

         Even astrologically speaking, the Moon is an important player and it is considered as the planet of emotions, moods, and memories. So it is quite obvious if one feels emotional tides caused by the pull of moon. Moon also symbolises romance in art, poetry and literature and it holds special place in romanticism. It is believed that it also ignites the flame of memories and can make people yearn for their loved ones. It has always caught the fascination of the intellectuals who see Moon in total different perspective in art, poetry and literature. At this, I am reminded of one couplet of Bashir Badr Sahib:

वो ग़ज़ल वालों का उस्लूब समझते होंगे,                      चाँद कहते हैं किसे ख़ूब समझते होंगे!

(They must be knowing the writing style of poets;  it must be well understood whom they address as Moon)