Earliest Memory?

MayberryMayberry Regular
edited May 2011 in Life
I want to do an informal study here. Just describe the earliest memory you can recall clearly and give an estimate as to what age you were at the time of the memory. Put the age in your post and the poll.

My earliest one was at the beach. We were having a barbeque, and my dad had set up a tent. It started raining so several of us piled into the tent while everybody else had to stay in the rain.

I was around 3 at the time.

Comments

  • edited May 2011
    I was 3 at the time. I remember standing inside a closet, looking out of the door and actually saying "I'm three", funnily enough :D
  • BoxBox Regular
    edited May 2011
    3 years old. I was sitting on my Barney towel spread on the floor, playing with my mom and my dad was wearing a chef hat making some steak.
  • DfgDfg Admin
    edited May 2011
    That's a hard question. I have so many memories and I am sure most of them are altered by my brain in some way.

    I can't recall anything at the moment, I do remember playing with a white police car with sirens on it. I may be around 3-4 or maybe less.
  • SemSem Regular
    edited May 2011
    The earliest memory was when I was a child riding in the kids seat of a bicycle with my family. I never really factored age into the equation but maybe around 3?

    Slightly off topic; while I remember that as a memory I actually don't recall being conscious till around a year or so later where I was merely looking out my home's front porch and then had a weird sense of realization.

    It felt that everything prior was a memory and everything afterward I vividly recall as well as having actions and choices or free will if one might describe it that way. Perhaps that was the end of a major growth spurt for my brain?

    Course I could be full shit and the prior memory mentioned was just something made up :)
  • PacoPaco me administrator
    edited May 2011
    I have two memories from around age three-ish but I don't remember which one came first.

    One is when i was laying in bed with my window open and my cousin, who was also my neighbor at the time, shot his sprinkler right into my window.

    Another one was when my parents gave me my bike for my birthday party.
  • edited May 2011
    3, for certain, in a supermarket being pushed around in a buggy.

    I do have another memory from earlier in my life at ~12-18 months old, but I can not tell whether it was a dream or reality; I selected 3 in the poll.
  • SHANE14SHANE14 Regular
    edited May 2011
    I remember when I was 2, getting a rainbow icecream in a cone from a stand at the Sydney harbour bridge. Honestly I think this might be due to me seeing a photo of this a few years after but I'm really not sure.
  • PacoPaco me administrator
    edited May 2011
    It seems that 3 in the magic number here. Someone should do some research on it and make a science article about it. It might bring in some new members who are interesting in things like that.
  • MayberryMayberry Regular
    edited May 2011
    Paco wrote: »
    It seems that 3 in the magic number here. Someone should do some research on it and make a science article about it. It might bring in some new members who are interesting in things like that.

    This is pretty much my intention. It started as a discussion amongst some buddies, and this was some preliminary data gathering to form a hypothesis. I'm hoping to get a prof to sponsor me to run a study so that I can examine this further.
  • AlbinoEthiopianAlbinoEthiopian Regular
    edited May 2011
    Most of what people call their earliest "memories" in fact they never really remembered. You heard your parents talking about it later in life, and or saw pictures etc; so that puts what you think as a memory inside of your mind. Your mind is a crazy thing and can produce vivid images of things that might have never happened... The influence of others can ultimately control your memories and how you remember them.
  • MayberryMayberry Regular
    edited May 2011
    Most of what people call their earliest "memories" in fact they never really remembered. You heard your parents talking about it later in life, and or saw pictures etc; so that puts what you think as a memory inside of your mind. Your mind is a crazy thing and can produce vivid images of things that might have never happened... The influence of others can ultimately control your memories and how you remember them.

    This is very true. It's one trick lawyers use to manipulate witnesses.

    There are a lot of confounds that need to be taken into account if I do design an actual study. Will certainly be interesting to get some concrete results.

    I know that my memory is almost certainly real as I told it to my parents and they said they had forgotten about it until I told them.
  • BigHarryDickBigHarryDick Cock Bite
    edited May 2011
    24, im too fucked up to have a memeory
  • SlartibartfastSlartibartfast Global Moderator -__-
    edited May 2011
    I was about 3. My uncle who was working the Ukraine at the embassy over there, decided to come back to Australia.

    I had never met him or even seen him before. When we met him at the airport i was amazed at how much he looked like my father, but with one difference - he had one of this thick trimmed beards that were fashionable up until the early 90's.

    It freaked me out, especially when he lifted me up and put me on his shoulders.


    Actually, and even earlier memory may have been when i was two. My mum had an appointment with a lawyer in the city, near the harbour, and we decided to make a family trip out of the day. I remember seeing a homeless man for the first time in my life. I was struck by how filthy and zoned out he was.
    He had a wodden bowel that he used to collect the change people would give him. He had exactly 5 cents in it. I remember it vividly because I had that same kind of plate, it was probably the first time i had felt pity for someone. I'd say, in hindsight, it was a pivotol moment in my life.
  • edited May 2011
    This is a great thread, and it is interesting to note that most memories start at 3 years old, probably a good reason for that, but I'll leave it to one of our college attending members to fill in the reason.

    I drowned when I was 4, and that is my earliest memory. Just a lot of thrashing around, and then some colors, I really remember the colors for some reason, a lot like when you put your palms against your closed eyes and press. Then getting an x ray at the hospital, I don't remember being resuscitated, but I was not breathing for at least 10 minutes according to those who were there.

    I wonder how much my earliest memories have skewed from what really happened, especially given my age and bad habits. It seems like a few are written in stone, but if they have changed over the years, how would I ever know?

    C/O
    "Dear Mom; thanks for the mammaries"
  • MayberryMayberry Regular
    edited May 2011
    Right now, I'm thinking this age of 3 is an important point for the development of memory. Might be physiological brain maturity, psychological maturity, or both. We know that the toddler years are critical for development, so this quite possibly ties in as well. I'd love to run a study on this, but the resources necessary aren't available for someone at my academic level. The study I hope to get sponsored for will be a much simpler version.
  • TheGreenDoctorTheGreenDoctor Regular
    edited May 2011
    I don't know how old I was, but I couldn't walk or talk yet, and didn't understand anything but my name (but I didn't understand that it was my name). I remember crawling on the floor and looking up at a tall bookshelf, and thinking of how tall it was.
  • BigHarryDickBigHarryDick Cock Bite
    edited May 2011
    I remember coming out of my moms vag.

    It pissed me off that it was all cold and shit and the nurses

    kept fucking with me doing weird shit to me.

    Then they cut some skin off my dick :(
  • PsychoDelicPsychoDelic Regular
    edited May 2011
    Yesterday I went to the park.
  • ducklipsducklips Regular
    edited May 2011
    this is going to sound weird but i was breast fed till i was three and i remember it.
  • MayberryMayberry Regular
    edited May 2011
    ducklips wrote: »
    this is going to sound weird but i was breast fed till i was three and i remember it.

    hawt
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