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Earliest Memories

I remember mum trying to get me to take the bottle instead of breastfeeding. The strongest sensation was a non-verbal version of YUK THIS TASTES BAD! because I didn't like the rubber teat on the bottle. I asked mum about it later and she said I fought the bottle but as my teeth were coming through she couldn't have me breastfeeding anymore because I used to chew and make her bleed! Later I used to enjoy chewing on the bottle teat as I got used to it. I was born in '72 - maybe seventies bottles tasted particularly bad. Apparently, I still grind my teeth when I sleep and I've had dozens of fillings. :)

I also remember lying in my cot. I was getting a bit big and could poke my feet through the bars. I remember panicking and getting my feet stuck.

I also remember my pram. It was the old-fashioned sort with four wheels and a hood. I liked the poppers which were used to secure the waterproof coating down and played with them. It smelled nice too. I still like that nylon-plastic smell.

I have a lot of memories from baby to 5 years and onward. I don't know if they are real or not. I know I had a strong antipathy to my mum's music taste in the mid 70s when I was a toddler. My first favourite band was Blondie because Debbie Harry appeared on the Muppets. I liked Elvis Costello too despite not understanding the verses. My music taste was ruined when I started developing teen hormones! I have watched Top of the Pops almost every week since I was about 3. I might not always like the music but I watch it for those moments of greatness such as when Kurt Cobain sang the entire of Teen Spirit in a silly voice.
 
Just today, I triggered a very very old memory. I immediately thought of this thread and had to post it!
I was playing with my baby son. I have long hair and was letting it dangle down around his face and body, and suddenly remembered doing the same thing with my mother - and how her hair made it seem like a little room, and how pretty the light looked through the hair.

My mother cut all her hair off when I was 5 months old. I`ve been told the story a hundred times - I grabbed a handful and yanked it out when she was in the middle of doing something, and she ended up dropping me. She never grew it out again. It`s short to this day.

I never knew she played with me like that, but I can`t help feeling that the "forgotten" memory somehow compelled me to do the same with my son.
 
My earliest memory is lying in my cot, the window on my right open with a slight breeze blowing through the window and wafting the net curtain, sunlight streaming through the window.
I didn't remember this until I was in my 20's, I wondered if it was just imagination so I checked the room details out with my mother who confirmed them as being the room I was in as a baby in Australia. We moved back to England not long before my 1st birthday so this memory must come from before then.
 
I remember laying looking up and screaming/crying while someone female-probably a nurse-sang to me. Don't know if this was at approx 1 year of age, when i had a hernia repaired at the military hospital in Oahu or if it was at about 2 1/2 years when i had my chin sewn up after a car accident. I also remember standing next to my dad while he was surf fishing and him telling me not to move when the wave came in. I remember how cold the water felt when it hit my legs, then I remember looking up through several inches of water. I had, of course, moved, and the wave knocked me down. That must have been around 2 1/2 also. I remember tons of things before I was 5 yrs old. I also remember when JFK was assassinated--I was in the 1st grade so was about 6. Wade Wruck had gone home for lunch, and he told us when he came back, and no one believed him until our teacher told us it was true.
 
Scraping my chest as I pulled myself up to look at my 2 day old neice (I am 2 years 5 months older than her) in the bassinette at the hospital and being completely non-plussed by seeing her.

Also watching Thunderbirds but being so small my legs didn't even reach the edge of the cushion on the sofa. Not sure which one is first though.
 
I was born on a farm and have a very early memory of getting stuck in a fence and a cow coming up and licking my face in a maternal way (well, maternal for cows that is) until someone found me. I always thought this was a false memory because we were a sheep farm. However I once mentioned it to my dad and he could remember the incident - which would have taken place when I was about eighteen months old.

I also have a vivid memory of their being a parrot in our house which is entirely not true unless it was a phantom parrot which only I could see!
 
Scraping my chest as I pulled myself up to look at my 2 day old neice (I am 2 years 5 months older than her) in the bassinette at the hospital and being completely non-plussed by seeing her.
Click to expand...

:lol: I didn't realize which thread I was reading and was thinking "how can she be typing on here if she's only 2 years old?" Thought I was reading it wrong.
 
I came across this just by browsing "problem pages". It wasn't so much the original post as a couple further down that made me post this. I also have some rather strange memories from even recent years [posted in various threads]. Maybe this can be merged with the "Glitch in the matrix" thread.

http://ask.metafilter.com/74435/Are-my- ... they-arent


When you have this moment of being absolutely sure but it doesn't add up, you will feel almost dizzy from the juxtaposition, telling people that it was just their memory was wrong, when it was indistinguishable from a real life event is for most far scarier than a supernatural explanation, hence the dread.
 
Well-remembered early childhood dreams, including but not limited to nightmares, can blend into memories of actual physical experience. In fact even adults occasionally have a difficult time deciding whether they carried out an act or merely dreamed that they did.

On the other hand, Paranormal events seem to happen to adults so there's no reason they don't happen to children too.

And they're probably more upsetting/frightening/magical to the child than to the adult because the child has no frame of reference by which to judge them. Which is likely to make them even more memorable.
 
Yeah - one of the few things I can remember from early childhood is that I used to be able to levitate around my bedroom. Obviously I couldn't - so it must have been a recurring dream I used to have.

I can also remember a really vivid dream from when I was about 7 of a flying saucer descending from the sky and taking me on a trip. I didn't have TV or comics when I was growing up, so I've no idea where that dream came from. I must have overheard something or seen a picture in a newspaper, I suppose. I can't remember what I dreamt last night, though!
 
I'll entertain (or bore) you with two memories

My earliest childhood memory was at the age of fourteeen months. No, that's not a typo. Oh wait. It is - I meant 14 months. Anyway, what I recall was mum brushing my hair whilst I stood, holding onto the leg of the kitchen table. I could see under the table and was listening to the conversation around me, about an ambulance picking me up, then it arriving in our driveway as I viewed it out the open back door. I had 'mastoid ear', which is an inflamed mastoid bone and apparently very painful. This, in my opinion contributed to why I remembered these events so clearly. I'm 44 yrs old and the scar is significant, to say the least, having left me with one ear lower than the other. You imagine trying to line up a tiny baby ear with one on the other side of it's head. It'd be a case of, "close enough", I imagine. I have terrible trouble with sunglasses.
For those that are still awake, the second significant memory (their are other even less interesting anecdotes), was me observing myself, outside my body after taking an overdose of aspirin. Basically, mum took a lot of aspirin and I was fascinated by this. So, one day I decided I'd try some. I climbed up on the kitchen bench, up to the window sill and grabbed the box of disprin. It said something about taking *23 tablets. I counted them, and there was exactly 23, so I took them all. Next thing I recall is watching my mum with what I thought was my younger sister being given salt water to make her puke. Years later I realised it way me after a discussion of the events of that day. I clearly recalled taking the disprin and yet had no idea why my sister was wrapped up in a blanket and.., well.., just what I said.
Okay, so a few years later I read a disprin brand box of aspirin and it says, *"Take 2 - 3 tablets in, dissolved in water". In my four year old mind I read it as '23'.
 
In My Pram I Remember (BBC Radio 4)

computers_teigh.jpg


900 of the memories [we] collected in the Memory Survey were very early "preverbal" memories - some from as early as 6-11 months old. This result has shocked scientists and academics who believe that adults do not remember memories of childhood before they can talk. Research agrees that the mean age for true autobiographical memories is 3.5 years - but it appears that the nations' memories and scientific study disagree.
Click to expand...

Listen Here

Link
 
I have two very early memories: Getting a sportscar on my first birthday and rinding mi Collie like a horse, watching the moon while eating a banana and telling him something like "gee Herman, look, the Moon looks just like my banana".
:D
 
I have a fairly clear memory of lying on a window seat on a sunny day (the window faced due West) while my Dad acted all goofy around me with mirrors and lights.

I couldn't have been more than a year old, and may have been as young as six months. (So this had to have been from late Winter to Summer, 1942.)

Years afterwards, although still a child, I discovered the "cute baby" photograph which was apparently taken that day.
 
Re: I'll entertain (or bore) you with two memories

KayeOttic said:
My earliest childhood memory was at the age of fourteeen months..
Click to expand...

That reminds me of the ongoing argument my Dad has with his younger sister about whether it was him or his brother who had flat feet and had to wear special shoes as children. My dad says it's him but his sister insists it was only his brother. They can't both be right, and neither appears to be lying, so I wonder if the same thing has happened to my dad, but in reverse. I don't think he and his brother have ever looked that alike, though.

On another note, has any heard a "fact" that baaaaaa! type sounds are very stimulating for babies and cause increased brainwave activity? I was told this once but never really knew whether it was a UL or a misunderstanding from some science documentary.
 
Frobush said:
In My Pram I Remember (BBC Radio 4)
900 of the memories [we] collected in the Memory Survey were very early "preverbal" memories - some from as early as 6-11 months old. This result has shocked scientists and academics who believe that adults do not remember memories of childhood before they can talk. Research agrees that the mean age for true autobiographical memories is 3.5 years - but it appears that the nations' memories and scientific study disagree.
Click to expand...

Listen Here

Link
Click to expand...
Thanks for that - most interesting!
 
A woman I've known since July or August, 1970, used to call her Father (now long deceased) by his first name.

This originally grated on me and early in our relationship I asked her why she did it.

Well, Sir, it turned out that as her proud parents stood by her cradle awaiting her first word and wondering whether that word would be "Mama" or "Dada" the baby looked up at her Father and said loudly and distinctly: "HEN-RY!!"

It stuck.
 
I have a couple of strong fortean memories from childhood, at least one of which I also have the vague memory of making up for attention (seeing a ghost). Even if I did, I can recall it with perfect clarity, which is interesting.
 
The earliest memory I have is of my mother preparing to breast feed me and complaining that I had bitten her the previous day. I have no idea how old I was but I was in a crib. The next was when I was 15 months when my Father returned after the war which I think I wrote about in another post somewhere.
 
My earliest memory was when I was still an infant. It may sound unbelievable being so young. But I was in my baby bed and I remember these really white hands being put through the bars of my crib and they were really frightening. I think what it probably was though was my mom or someone reaching through the crib to pick me up or change my diaper or something. What's funny about memory before you have language is that when you think back, you think back in terms of feelings rather than words. I didn't necessarily think anything in the way we think of things as grown ups, but more as emotions or colors.
 
A number of very early memories come back. The clearest is being in hospital for an adenoid operation at the age of two. My mother became agitated, saying we were going to buy some shoes. When I was handed over to a matron I knew I'd been tricked and stuggled to get away, it was a sense of betrayal that she could never be completely relied upon to tell me the truth again. With my own children I've always tried to be honest because early encounters make such an impression.

Another recollection was lying on a settee at home feeling slightly unwell, just an infant cold or something, and staring at a small mark on the ceiling in the opposite corner. I don't know why the mark became intriguing but after a while I became able to leave my day-bed and drift right up to the spot and see that it was a crack in the plaster. When I came back I wanted to look again but had the sense what I was doing was very 'naughty'.

A few dramatic dreams began about this time involving a wonderful garden, idyllic and marvellous, full of kind, wise people. I was aware they were dreams but were more lucid and 3-dimensional than reality and I tried desperately to get back to them. Later I on learned that I had been very ill when I was born and choked on the fluid which might explain an awful fear of being trapped and drowning that has always been with me.
My youngest son had the same problem when he was born two years ago and was put in an incubator for a few days. I wouldn't be surprised to learn he has some recollection of it as he gets older.
 
I`m a bit jealous of all these exotic "memories". My childhood memories are fairly mundane, and in most cases can be confirmed.
My very earliest memories involve being in a rear facing seat in the car, and looking out the back window at a train going over a bridge behind us. It may not have happened, but it`s definitely not something that can be disproved - and I find it unlikely that I picked the image up elsewhere as it isn`t something talked about frequently. It`s connected somehow to a memory of my mother`s hair blowing out the window when she went through a drive through. The two memories can`t possibly be connected, as there would be no way to see her from a rear-facing seat.

Another early memory is one which I recalled fairly recently. I was playing with my baby son, and sort of draping my hair over his face, making him laugh. Then, for a split second, I had a distinct (but still fuzzy) recollection of being on the receiving end of the game. I later confirmed that yes, my mother had played the same sort of hair-curtain game with me as a baby... But only until she cut her hair short which would have been around 6 months.

The only impossible but true in my mind event is easily explained. My grandparents had a parking pad installed in the back yard when I was 3 or 4. I can distinctly remember watching the men working on it melt huge stones to make the concrete. Now I know that it must be a compilation of several memories of the construction. First they put down large stones as a base, and poured concrete over them. As I must have seen the stone stage and the smoothing of the concrete stage, but not the pouring... My mind had to explain it, and came up with the melting.

Otherwise everything has been confirmed as true, or very close to reality. I do remember a lot of dreams, but there is always a feeling of "this didn`t really happen" around them, no matter how vivid they are.

The only real mystery is why I so distinctly remember a certain childhood accident in the third person - observed from the corner of the room, near the ceiling. The event has been confirmed to have happened how I remember it, but it isn`t at all possible that I was watching myself.
 
Three Half-Memories from Childhood

To the point: three strange memories I have from childhood.

1. Watched a bumble-bee giving live birth. (This was probably my misunderstanding of some other insect chewing on a dead bumble-bee.)

2. Crawling around among our strawberry plants, I very suddenly came upon one strawberry which was so much larger than normal that I darted away to mommy, crying. (Probably just a regular strawberry.)

3. Strange one. Me and a couple of friends (one of whom I’m not sure who he was) saw two or three strange ”owls” perched on a low spruce-tree branch, just by the side of the road. They were not exactly owls, but the same size and general shape, somewhat stuffed-animal looking. I ”remember” they were more like monolithic furry little things rather than with clearly defined bodies, heads and limbs. Colorful, like one red, one blue etc. Didn’t have the impression they were alive at all.
....We walked away from them, but returned. Feeling of mild curiosity, no terror. A friend poked one with a stick. It didn’t fall down, didn’t move.
....This one is definitely a dream (I’ve seen that spruce many times, and it has nothing like that branch), but I remember it as real, and when I red Whitley Strieber it freaked me out what he wrote about owls as false images planted in the mind to mask real memories of ”visitor encounters”.
 
Couple strange memories of my own

#1 - When I was maybe 5 -7 years old, we had a neighbor who grew flowers that were taller than the fence. When no one was watching, I liked to break off the buds and play with them. I was caught once and was scolded. It stopped the shenanigans for a while, but on a boring day, I decided to give it a go. Upon turning around one of the flowers, I discovered a gigantic bee! In my estimation, it was at least 3 inches long. I ran away terrified and never again picked those flowers or even touched them. As an adult, I'm left to wonder if bees ever get that large or if maybe I saw a small hummingbird.

#2 - I had insomnia as a child and a love for old time horror movies. The result - hours upon hours of watching the shadows in the dark. I would often "see" things but would talk myself into being rational about it. Of course, being a child, reason doesn't ALWAYS win out, so I would pull the covers over my head when the fright became too much to bear. One time - at my grandparents house, I was convinced that "something was coming up the stairs". And I have to admit that "something" pushed down my little blanket tent. I layed awake with the covers over my head until dawn. Another time, I decided that it was ridiculous to believe that "something" was waiting for me so I peaked out from under my blanket and saw the legs of a man wearing a robe that looked like a friar's robe. Thinking it was my dad wearing something I hadn't seen before, I asked him if he came to visit me during the night. He said he didn't and I never did see that robe in his wardrobe.

Now I have somnia to the extreme and am very lucky to even get to "see" my favorite shows.
 
Re: Three Half-Memories from Childhood

bosskR said:
1. Watched a bumble-bee giving live birth. (This was probably my misunderstanding of some other insect chewing on a dead bumble-bee.)
Click to expand...

Or perhaps it was this:

Dronefertilizesbumblebee2.jpg


The drone is a lot smaller than the female!
 
Re: Couple strange memories of my own

jouweleen said:
Upon turning around one of the flowers, I discovered a gigantic bee! In my estimation, it was at least 3 inches long. I ran away terrified and never again picked those flowers or even touched them. As an adult,
Click to expand...
Could it have been a giant hornet? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet
Good idea to run! These hornets are supposed to have the most painful sting known.
 
Hi Mark,
I suppose it could have been, but since I live in Michigan....I sort of doubt it. My recollection is sort of a fuzzy bumble bee but really, really large. And it was mostly dark colored as opposed to a regular bee. Thanks for the info though. I agree that running was probably best...
 
Re: Three Half-Memories from Childhood

markbellis said:
Or perhaps it was this:
Dronefertilizesbumblebee2.jpg
Click to expand...
Yes, I’m sure it was!! Wow!
 
Re: Three Half-Memories from Childhood

bosskR said:
Yes, I’m sure it was!! Wow!
Click to expand...
Great, was it in the fall? That's when they mate. The little fellow down below is the drone - the queen will go hibernate over the winter then build a nest and lay the fertilized eggs in the spring. They often live in tunnels underground.
 
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