[neilep (OP)]

Hi All,

This may have been brought up before, but I can't remember !! (groan) but I'll ask it anyway,

Why can't we remember being born ?..is it because that as new born infants, we just can not comprehend the outside world and therefore can not create memories because it's all nonsense ?....and when I say outside world, I don't mean outside in the garden , I mean outside ourselves ! beyond our skin..comprendez ?

In addition to your wonderful comments, please state how old you were in your earliest memory ...with me ?...I honestly think its 4 or 5....is this comparable to your earliest memory ?

Thanks....(Hey !!..don't forget to comment!!)




Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[ukmicky]

i was 3 im now 40  so not bad going .
i remember getting a smack from my dad for turning over and sitting on the small
waste paper bin in my living room

[Corbeille]

I remember my third Birthday. I got a big plastic CPR type train with a cattle bumber on the front of it.

Life was perfect then!




 "Gentlemen you can't fight in here, this is the war room!"

[gary_lankford]

I have two memories from age two.  I know I was two because they are both from the farm and we left the farm when I was still two.  

The first, I have a basket of eggs (I see myself, so I am narratizing) and I am running to my father (as if he just got home from work) when I fall.  I suspect I thought I'd be in trouble.  My parents have no memory of this incident, but the timing is right, eggs are usually gathered in the late afternoon or early evening and I did gather eggs.

The second, I am lying in bed, there is a huge full moon shining through the window, and a big bird is flying against the window screen.  I was deathly afraid of the neighbors guineas.  If you know guineas, you know that they will attack a small child.  My mother never could accept that the bird in the window was a guinea.  It probably wasn't, but to my mind the only bird that would be trying to get me was a guinea.  "The guineas they try to get me."  I suspect that the light of the early night full moon seemed to illuminate a path for the birds flight, ended by the window screen in its path.  My father says my bedroom window faced east.

I am fifty now, and keep both chickens for eggs and guineas just for the fun of it (they eat a lot of bugs and warn of unwanted visitors, including hawks and fox).

[l_kryptonite]

I remember the layout of the bus we lived in while my parents built our home.  I was just turned two.

[neilep (OP)]

Gosh...everyone seems to be able to recall memories farther back than myself !!..Perhaps I was born as a two year old !!!...thanks Peeps, it's interesteing to know and hear of your earliest memories.

Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[l_kryptonite]

No, m'dear, that was denial. Two years of, "Let me back inside!"

[mtnwoman]

I remember being about 3 years old and running like crazy when I saw an airplane at dusk.  I was afraid of anything that flew.

I learned in psychology that most people do not have really vivid memories until about third grade.  I have some (like above), but they are not really vivid.

I don't recall why.  I'm more intersted in why I keep forgetting and why I don't remember so many things, but remember what I was wearing 30 years ago in some instances.

[Allison]

Hmmm...I have a vivid memory from before third grade--it's also one of my earliest.  My absolute earliest memory is of my mother changing my diaper--I won't go into that one any further.[]  

My earliest vivid memory is of playing in our front yard, and suddenly realizing how very far away I was from the door.  I was afraid to walk back to the door because of all these brown things (dead leaves, I think), so I stood there and screamed until my sister came out and carried me back in.  I do remember the outfit I was wearing, and I have seen pictures of myself in that outfit--I was about 12-18 months old.

[MissB]

I remember a time when I was in a crib. I had to have been between 2 and 3. I used to leave the door open with the hall light on, when I went to bed. One night the breeze blew the door closed. I rocked my crib over to the door to open it.

[lizauko]

i remember when i first went to kindy...was terrified!i even remember what colours my teacher had on!

[Ultima]

I remember stuff from when I was crawling around (I was late to walk though). One memory in particular I can remember seeing our old cat and thinking of the concept of friend, I soon unlearnt that concept when it scratched me when I cornered it []. I remember a lot of foreign holidays too, and since we stopped going on holiday abroad as soon as I started school those are going a fair way back, some around 2/3... lol as someone mentioned before it was a memory of collecting eggs, with a random Greek woman.... my parents hadn't noticed I’d wandered to the back of the taverna... They were worried but laughed when they saw I had an egg in my hand when I came back. I also remember eating lots of crème caramel since it’s the only thing I would eat on holiday. The earliest memory I have is of my parents faces looking down on me in the living room (they were young) and vaguely the sound of the TV so that must be a long time ago, since my parents are like 55 now [] I notice when trying to remember that far back though there isn't such a strong sense of chronology.. wonder why that is?

Heh one last one is I can remember saying my first word, it was "cheers" and I said it when all the family were at my grans sitting around the table [] lol I hope that doesn't reflect the rest of my life.


wOw the world spins?

[neilep (OP)]

Thank you all for your memories, it's really amazing to read them...thank your all for sharing.

Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[NewBill]

I have memories that because of the place they occur put me between 1 and 2 years of age.  

We lived near a train station in a small town.  I must have got out of the yard one day and saw what at the time was something of a wonderment.  There were men on a little service car that must have been driven by a single cylinder motor because it went putt putt putt as it went by.  Because of the smell of the yards and the sound I thought the men on the car were farting.  I don't know how I got there and don't recall getting captured again, but by the time I was 2 we had moved from that town.

[neilep (OP)]

quote:Originally posted by NewBill

I have memories that because of the place they occur put me between 1 and 2 years of age.  

We lived near a train station in a small town.  I must have got out of the yard one day and saw what at the time was something of a wonderment.  There were men on a little service car that must have been driven by a single cylinder motor because it went putt putt putt as it went by.  Because of the smell of the yards and the sound I thought the men on the car were farting.  I don't know how I got there and don't recall getting captured again, but by the time I was 2 we had moved from that town.

Thanks Newbill,

Now that's a fantastic bit of recall. Nice. It's amazing how you can remember your thought process's ie: mistaking the putt putt for farts !..and it always amazes me how smells are such a strong aid to memory.  Thanks.

Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[NewBill]

quote:Originally posted by Ultima

 I notice when trying to remember that far back though there isn't such a strong sense of chronology.. wonder why that is?
...

It seems that for me certainly, the chronology is retroactively supplied by others who say where we lived and when.  Some scenes took my interest and objects such as cars I was able to identify later within a couple of years.  I don't think we think very much about chronology when we are very young, certainly not in any linear way.  I suspect to a point in our young lives we live in the here and now.  My own kids developed a sense of how many sleeps when looking forward to some event.  This how many sleeps measurement was dominant passed the beginning of school.

Certainly this would explain the impatience of kids for the prospects of having treats later or arriving back from a trip in hours or god forbid, days.  Are we there yet?

[neilep (OP)]

Thought I'd rejuvenate this thread so that relative newbies may like to add their earliest memories here.

Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[MooseHole]

My earliest memory is of yesterday when I banged my head against a truck. I was pretty pissed at the truck so I must have tried to hurt it with my head. I guess that wasn't very nice of me, but I was pretty young at the time. I can even remember the color of the truck: blood red. It was all trying to run away from me after that, so I just went to sleep for a while.

[Dawes]

People have been imprisoned in the United States for child molestation based on false memories.  A family that ran a preschool was convicted on child testimony that was absolutely bizzare.  I think at least four people were convicted, a woman, her son and daughter and the woman's aged and frail mother.  I heard one of the victims speak about the molestation when he was about 18 years old.  He said the woman's adult son took him and the other children on a bus trip.  When they got out of the bus the adult son killed a giraffe.  The young man was on television and it was easy to see that he believed this happened when he was four.

Repressed memories have been so troublesome to the US judiciary that now when testified to in court they are dismissed as evidence.  When Freud hypnotized his female clients, in time they all recalled being molested by their fathers.  This happened to a fellow psychiatrist, possibly Jung, who realized his suggestions were creating false memories so he gave up the practise.

Experts that I have heard commenting on repressed memory and memory in general tend to think that lack of brain development in children under four prevents them from recalling events later in life.  After a child is four years of age on pound of gray matter is added to the brain, neurons migrate and organize.  Left-right hemisphere connections are made memories are laid down in a more stable and reliable fashion.

I think we all have false childhood memories and those who don't question them probably enjoy astrology readings, urban legends and ouija revelations.  I'm not being critical.  I don't think ouija boards are harmful.

I think false memories can be constructed from vivid childhood dreams which the conscious mind edits and reformulates..edits to throw out the unreasonable bits.. reformulates to fit the house, the farm, the school, the c-o-n-t-e-x-t.  False memories often come from family stories that are told more often during one's life than we actually realize and pass on to succeeding generations.

Dawes

[Dawes]

Here is one website for the child molestation case in the United States that I mentioned.  Google "McMartin child abuse California" for more.

newbielink:http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_mcmar.htm [nonactive]

Dawes