(CNN) -
This week is a kind of “hellish week”, figuratively and literally.
Our demons are coming out.
The campaign ads that dot the streets of our neighborhoods are littered with tombstones and mock murder scenes and skeletons that feel a little more personal this year, having had death hanging like a cloud this year.
We've all gone months through a presidential election campaign and a global pandemic, and this Saturday feels like an emotionally climactic night, a morbid moment that marks a year of death and suspense.
Halloween, a daylight saving time change and a full moon line up for a singular night.
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While trick-or-treating and Halloween parties are shrinking this year due to physical distancing and concerns about spreading the coronavirus, academics say that recognizing, if not fully celebrating, a night dedicated to the insane is a safety valve. Useful.
It's a way to purge the emotions of the year before we declare our political intentions on November 3.
Allowing a bit of intentional chaos in our spirits could be a good thing.
As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, "One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star."
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Halloween night is also a full moon
The narrative tension is tense, and having all of this converge on the night of the full moon only makes this more creepy.
It's a tense moment for many reasons.
Even for those who don't believe in the supernatural, we act like we do.
The metaphysical energy of this moment is enormous, "said Regina Hansen, a master professor of rhetoric at Boston University and co-author of" Supernatural, Humanity, and the Soul: On the Highway to Hell and Back. "
Halloween is an opportunity to essentially be a stranger in a strange land.
For one night you can inhabit a new you.
That could mean the realization of a child's dream of being an astronaut.
You can inhabit a character who is braver, stronger or more criminal than you.
Everything is intensified, everything is elevated.
There is a sense of freedom that is almost magical, ”he said.
Children control the night.
They walk to the houses of strangers and ask, no, they demand sweets ».
Or it could be a way of expressing a message of political satire by coming out as an undead version of a political figure you'd like to banish.
That could mean donning a bloody suit and tie and parting your hair like a zombie politician (it's been done).
Taboo thoughts are allowed, even if only for one night.
The full moon this Halloween is also a blue moon.
While the moon will not actually appear blue, a blue moon refers to the second of two full moons that occur in the same month, which occurs once every 2.5 to three years, or "once in a moon blue".
The full moon appears on Halloween roughly every 19 years, so of course add another rare feat to 2020.
Note that when the full moon rises on Saturday, it will no longer happen on Halloween in many time zones until 2039, 2058, 2077, and 2096.
Although full moons have long been linked to our fascination with madness and werewolves (the word "lunatic" derives from "lunar"), there is no strong scientific evidence that more crime occurs when the pale orb hangs in the air. maximum over our heads.
The data indicates, however, that daylight saving time can unleash a bit of chaos.
We have our lives calibrated and managed to the letter, and then we change our clocks to alter the order.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine released a position statement in August arguing for the abolition of daylight saving time, blaming the biannual shift for problems that damage cardiovascular and mental health, as well as leading to medication errors and traffic accidents. .
Eight states have officially passed legislation that would end our ritual of turning back the clocks, and another 32 have pending bills.
There are ways to get ahead and avoid making mistakes due to a change in your circadian rhythm.
"You know it's coming," AASM president Dr. Kannan Ramar, a sleep medicine specialist at the Mayo Clinic, said in a previous interview with CNN.
"A few days to a week before that, it will help to slowly shift your schedule to that time frame."
A physically estranged Halloween
Although Halloween is a night to shed your inhibitions, it is still vital to find ways to do it safely during the pandemic.
“Really try not to meet indoors with people outside of your home.
Instead, focus on getting people outside, ”said Dr. Leana S. Wen, CNN medical analyst, emergency physician and visiting professor at the Milken Institute at the George Washington University School of Public Health.
"There are many creative ways to celebrate Halloween outdoors and it is much, much safer."
New cases of coronavirus are increasing at a rate of almost 70,000 new cases in the United States every day.
The seven-day average of new cases is at its highest level since the pandemic began, according to data from Johns Hopkins.
Whether you have big plans for this weekend or not, it's worth taking a moment to acknowledge this moment, reflecting on our deep universal urge to face our fear of death, and then live through it.
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A lonely celebration of the macabre during a pandemic could mean snuggling up to a Stephen King novel or a favorite horror movie, explained Hansen, the Boston University literary scholar.
Or it could be one of your Halloween favorites, Ray Bradbury's novel "The Halloween Tree," which tells of trick-or-treating children learning about the origins of the holiday.
The story centers on children "just letting the sheer joy of being alive and out tonight move their lungs and mold their throats into a scream ... and a scream ... and a scream!"
Right before a presidential election, it could be a hoax to draw a line between Halloween, a full moon, and a time change all happening simultaneously.
But then again, maybe there is something there.
"The fact that we seek serendipity says a lot about us as human beings," says Hansen.
"It could mean that our suffering has a purpose, or at least a structure."
Halloween blue moon
