The moon and dreams are old companions, entwined in myth, mystery, and magic. Some people love the full moon, finding inspiration in its light, while others struggle with restlessness and strange dreams. Here are three surprising facts about full moon dreaming that might change how you see the moonlit night.
Moon: reckless heart in heaven,
why do you row towards the west
in that cup filled with blue wine
whose hull is defeated and sad?
Moon: it is no use flying away,
so you go up in a flame of scattered opals:
maybe you are my heart, who is like a gypsy,
who loafs in the sky, shedding poems like tears!
Cesar Vallejo
The moon and dreams are old romantic companions. In “A Branch from the Lightning Tree” (Click to buy the book and support Mindfunda) Martin Shaw tells the story of how the Moon-man wants to capture a deer-woman and take her with him in the sky. Shaw explains: “In European myth we normally associate the Sun with the masculine -rationality, activity, thrust and vigor- with the Moon connected to intuition, stillness, receptivity and mystery.
1. The Moon as an Initiation Deity
In mythology, the moon symbolizes cycles of death, rebirth, and transformation. Like Inanna, the Sumerian goddess who descended into the underworld and emerged anew, the moon disappears into darkness each month only to return reborn.
The full moon represents the culmination of these cycles. Its radiant light reminds us that after every dark night, there is renewal and growth. Life, too, is filled with initiations—into love, parenthood, and old age—rites of passage we often don’t recognize until we look back. The full moon witnesses all these transitions, promising us light even when life feels stripped to its essence.
“Every initiation is painful. It is like a death. The full moon promises the light of a new phase of life.”
I think we love the moon so much because there are times in our lives when the world is a hostile place. In that night of dark loneliness, looking at the full moon fills your soul with joy.
You know you are going to blossom again during the full moon. Remember when Inanna (click to read) had to strip down to her bare essence before she was rescued? The full moon is a promise.
Tree of Life (Initiation)
If you look back at your life, you can clearly see how you have been initiated, often without realising it. Initiation rituals have disappeared in our current society. But there is an initiation into manhood, womanhood, into love, parenthood, an initiation into old age.
And the moon witnesses them all.
Full Moon Dreaming Fact #2: our body clock
The light of the full moon interferes with your body clock. In the Hypothalamus, is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). The SCN regulates your body clock. It does so by the neurotransmitter melatonin and the nonvisual ocular photoreceptor melanopsin found in the neurons of vertebrate inner retina.
In ordinary language: light regulates your inner body clock!
In the pineal gland serotonin is converted into melatonin when the light diminishes.
In ordinary language: talking a walk in the dark can enhance your melatonin level. That promotes sleep.
A research done in 2013 by Dr Silvia Frey, of the University of Basel in Switzerland showed that “persons selected to be tested on average slept for 20 minutes less when compared with the rest of the month, and their sleep was poorer. The researchers also found that, at the moon’s zenith, volunteers had a lower level of melatonin, the hormone which regulates sleep cycles.
Scientists believe it may work in conjunction with the light-regulated circadian clock, which regulates body functions. Evidence of the phenomenon has been found in marine midges and iguanas in the Galapagos islands. It has long been thought that the full moon has an effect on humans, from influencing fertility to our mental state. In fact, the term lunatic derives from luna, the Latin word for moon.
Full Moon dreaming fact #3: weird Dreams
Psychologist Richard Wiseman has found out in a research of 1000 persons that people have weird dreams during full moon.
I know from personal experience. I have had many good conversations with dragons during fool moon dreaming. I connect with my animal energy when I found antlers growing out of my stomach. Our ancestors used the light from the moon to hunt. The moon steels its light from the sun… Steeling and killing. The dark side of the romantic lover…
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Hello Susanne, and thank you for the post. I absolutely love this translation of Cesar Vallejos poem
'Sacred Defoliation' that you have at the beginning. I have searched all over the internet for this specific translation, which I absolutely love! But cannot find. Other translations of it seem dry compared to this one. Could you please let me know who this translator is? Or perhaps I have the name of the poem wrong..? Thank you very much.
Hi Liane, I found this poem in Martin Shaw’s book, A brannch of the Lightning Tree.
This is lovely Susanne thank you … the moon, now waning, is still visble, peeking in and out from the night clouds ..