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One time several years ago, my parents were talking about my childhood. I brought up a memory I had when I was around maybe 2 or so.. it was in the Zoo and my mom was carrying me. A tiger suddenly roared at me and I started crying. My mom was quite surprised I had memories of that exact moment, but I still have photographs of that trip in my photo album.
I seemed to have lost the ability to recall a great portion of my early childhood memories after finishing college. How do I know that? Well, I have an odd habit of playing back my old childhood memories like a "movie" whenever I have trouble sleeping.. when I was in college, I could still vividly my school in 1st or 2nd grade down to the details of the path I took to enter the building and reach my classroom.
My memories of years 13 and older seem to be *almost* as vivid as memories of 3-4 years ago (I'm in my early 30s.)
I'm wondering if any older folks here can still remember the first few years of their childhood...
I am in my 60s and I remember some things from the house we lived in until I was 5. I remember my brother coming home from the hospital, when I was 4. I remember getting up in the morning and fixing myself cereal, which my parents thought was magnificent, and I remember some other things that happened there, like my Dad killing a snake and me getting stung by bees while sitting on the dog house.
Sometimes, it is hard, I think, to know if you really remember something, or if you have a picture in your mind after having been told about it.
I have one memory from when I was still in a baby crib and had to be carried around. I remember I could mostly understand what people were saying, but I could not talk. I did have things I wanted to say, but my only way of communicating was by crying!
Once I was lying up on the couch in the living room, then some people rang the doorbell and came inside to visit. Then my mom picked me up and took me into the back bedroom - placed me in my crib. I started crying because I wanted to sit out in the living room and listen to what the people were saying. I was curious about the people. Wanted to see what was going on. I was TICKED my mom stuck me in the back room! Waaaaaaaa!
My next memory was when I was 3 years old and I took apart a toy train engine with a screwdriver - my parents could not put it back together (were not mechanical types). And they were amazed I could do that at such an early age.
Sometimes, it is hard, I think, to know if you really remember something, or if you have a picture in your mind after having been told about it.
I agree. False memories are weird, and sometimes I've wondered before if I'm thinking I remember something, but it was really a dream. That has happened before.
I have very few memories before I was five years old but I remember brief things from my third birthday party and I remember running around my parents' car in the driveway and falling and screwing up my elbow when I was 4. I had a nasty scar for several years but it was totally gone by the time I was 10 or so.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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At 61 I still have the same distant memory that I did at 40, and that's my 4th birthday. I remember playing on the next door neighbor's swing set and having it topple over when my older brother went too high. A few things after that but the most vivid memories were at about age 5 when I started kindergarten.
Nope-the earlier in life it was, the less notion/recollection I have of it.
Even when I was a kid, I didn't have conscious memories of life before, say, 3 or 4 years old-I know that much.
It's not that I forgot my infantile state, necessarily, it's that those memories were never laid down in the first place
because my brain hadn't sufficiently developed & organized in such a way as to allow it (a narrative, continuous sense of self).
I agree, though, that the older I grow, the less I can recall of my youngest years-the "range" of forgetting is a moving target.
As I age, the horizon/threshold where things get fuzzy expands to encompass more and more of my history.
One time several years ago, my parents were talking about my childhood. I brought up a memory I had when I was around maybe 2 or so.. it was in the Zoo and my mom was carrying me. A tiger suddenly roared at me and I started crying. My mom was quite surprised I had memories of that exact moment, but I still have photographs of that trip in my photo album.
I seemed to have lost the ability to recall a great portion of my early childhood memories after finishing college. How do I know that? Well, I have an odd habit of playing back my old childhood memories like a "movie" whenever I have trouble sleeping.. when I was in college, I could still vividly my school in 1st or 2nd grade down to the details of the path I took to enter the building and reach my classroom.
My memories of years 13 and older seem to be *almost* as vivid as memories of 3-4 years ago (I'm in my early 30s.)
I'm wondering if any older folks here can still remember the first few years of their childhood...
I have hardly any memories of early childhood and those are fuzzy. I do remember seeing the JFK assassination on TV when I was 4. I remember the TV and that all of the adults around me were very upset.
Most of my memories are not of day to day things. I find it odd that I lived with my mother yet I have more memories of my father who visited every few weeks when I was growing up. My memories of my mom just kind of blend into one big memory. Memories of my father are distinct.
I have none at all. Not even suspected false ones of that period of my life. It's why I can't relate to people who can remember that far back, and I feel skeptical.
I heard that the memories we keep are because something substantial happened. We cant remember everything because our brains cant hold all that.. so i've been told. so we remember what is most important or had some meaning.
I remember being in my crib and moving to a big girl bed. I remember a lot of things when i was little, but i have big gaps in other times, I wish i could remember more.
Sometimes things will trigger a memory. When i was very little i must have gone next door to play in the basement. Because when i went there to visit when i was an adult, a strong memory triggerd, and i got the sensation like "I'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE." so that was pretty freaky. its strange when your mind does that. Apparently everything is stored in the brain, however, your brain only recalls things that are important enough.
if you want to know more, i think you may have to go to a quiet place and start thinking and imagining. memories might come. or like me, suddenly finding myself in a place that i had forgotten about, but hey my mind did recall it.
I have a clear memory of riding on a train with my Dad when my mom was in the hospital, having just given birth to my sister. I was 2 1/2 when she was born, so I know exactly how old I was. It could not have been a false memory (I know those can form easily from stories we are told about early childhood, or old pictures in albums) because my parents never mentioned when I was growing up that he had taken me on a train ride at that time. Some time after high school, I asked about where we had gone on that train ride and when was it. They were shocked that I remembered.
I remember having to go to the ER when I was 3 for dehydration. I remember the IV in my arm, and playing with Color-Forms in the hospital bed.
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