Earliest childhood memory ?

[mr b.caapi]

Just wondering how far back people can recall memories.

me personally can remember right back to when i was around 3 or 4 , being bitten by our then pet dog "Dougal" a west highland terrier. He bit me on the lip when i was crawling under the dining table and ive still got a scar to this day. I suppose it would have been my first real "trauma" and it has stuck with me ever since. Strangely enough i absoloutley adore dogs. Go figure.

So yeh, what are earliest memories folks, just how far back does the memory go?

Edited July 28, 2012 by mr b.caapi

[chilli]

I think my earliest ones would be of a lamb we had that died from eating nightshade, and a blue clock birthday cake my mum made me, I think I was around 3 for both.

[∂an]

heh thats cool that you remember your mum making that cake for you chilli. we take so much in when we are young, and the smallest things give great pleasure. I remember cutting/stealing lettuce with a plastic saw from the neighbours garden when I was 3, and mum making me a salad sandwich with it. and I remember the night Hayley's comet passed through the nights sky... that was 9 February 1986 so I wasn't even 2 at the time!

Edited July 28, 2012 by kalika

[ballzac]

Mine would be when I was three I think. I can remember my 4th birthday very clearly, and many events thereafter, and my earliest memories are quite a while before that, possibly some before I was three.

One was when my Mum took me to a party she went to and someone accidentally bumped me with their ciggie. For some reason I also remember they had a goat in their yard.

One was when I dropped my toothbrush on the floor, lol. I don't know why that one stands out so much.

One was my Dad opening a bottle of champagne, and the cork bounced off the ceiling and scared the crap out of me.

A little later, but I still would have been three, I remember dropping my sister's water pistol out of our tree-house to see what would happen. It smashed when it hit the ground, and my Dad got angry and stomped on my water pistol.

I remember coming back from a weekend away, and someone had turned off the power and robbed the house. Of course, at that age, I had no concept of being robbed. All I knew was that the ice-cream was melted

[incognito]

Around 3- laying in a cot asking for a bottle repeatedly, and my mother going "oh alright!!" and coming over and giving my bottle to me annoyed like. Maybee first moment I was conscious of someone being pissed of at me.

Around the same age I was standing under this huge tree in our front yard, and I saw an interesting thing on the ground, and as I bend down to touch it my gran says "don't touch it will sting you" it was a very large caterpillar or grub in it's chrysalis and as she said that it flipped backward and forward. Spun me the hell out.

Those where my earliest memories.

[whitewind]

I reckon I was about 4, could never understand why I can't remember much when I was a small child, but having one of my own brings back certain memories, of the way things were, lying on a bed in the middle of the day when I was sick just watching the shadow of leaves on the ceiling sway and flutter. I was a bit older then, but I didn't remember them before recently. I'm getting loads of that, real empathy with my child which amazes me as I never expected it.

Anyway, back to subject in hand. I remember jumping up and down on the bed frantically with my siblings having a tremendous laugh, watching ourselves in the mirror as we jump and leapt, then hiding behind the bed when my mum came up to tell us off (though now I realise it was just gentle chiding).

My memory is generally quite shit.

[Halcyon Daze]

I can remember picking up a redback spider when I was 2. I even remember being unsure about weather it was good for me to pick it up or not, as it had a bit of a bad vibe about it.

My brother told me it was a spider but I didn't actually know what a spider was, prolly because no one had taught me yet.

So I took it to my mum and said 'look mum beetle'! she whacked it out of my hand so hard and fast scolded me. I guess that's why I remember it now.

We moved from that house just before my 3rd birthday so I was like 2.5 or something.

I think I have a memory of being in a magical world in a cot, but that memory came back to me while I was 'on' something, so I don't know for sure if it's a real memory or constructed/ induced.

I know kids can go into a semi-magical state from boobie juice as their bodies react to something in the milk which causes them to produce endorphins. I've certainly put it to the missus a couple times in hope of a feed lol.

Edited July 28, 2012 by Halcyon Daze

[incognito]

Morphine according to the bockness.

[at0m]

I'm not sure if it's a memory or implanted memory from my parents telling the story a lot but I vaguely recall helping clear out the shed and whilst lifting a few planter boxes came upon a sleeping Puff Adder. Slowly walked away and told my parents. I'm leaning toward implanted because it's super vague but eh.

*Edit: Oh, right, age... uhh 3-5?

Edited July 28, 2012 by at0m

[Halcyon Daze]

Ah that's right, they actually produce morphine itself.

My chemestry professor wrote a breakthrough paper on kids with autism caused by cow's milk. They're essentially high as a kite. His own child had autism which is what made him investigate.

[chnt]

hugging my mum's leg as a toddler, then looking up in horror to see another lady...

it was at an adult function thing in the day and there were quite a few people there, i felt a bit flustered from this so i wanted my mum to comfort me, this is why it was so shocking when i saw it wasn't her. the lady was wearing similar blue jeans to my mum, but upon realising it was someone else i noticed her leg was nothing like my mums.

as far as age goes... who knows, somewhere between 2-4... i'm sure i'd have earlier memories if i thought about it some more, that one has stuck with me though.

Edited July 28, 2012 by chnt

[Halcyon Daze]

We moved from our house just before my 3rd birthday so I was like 2.5 or something.

I have quite a few memories from that house. Like my dad catching rainbow lorikeets in the back yard with a fishing net. He would bring them over to us for a look, before releasing them again and my 4yo brother got badly bitten on the foot by a dog down the street. I lost my toy car in the pond and my dad found it again, Oh and we had a mad ass swing set, the neighbours would jump the back fence for a swing with us. Those were the days, The 'Halcyon days of my youth', you might say. -discovering the world and high on boobie juice.

Edited July 28, 2012 by Halcyon Daze

[qualia]

i remember being in my grandmas house, the old house where her and my grandpa lived (my grandpa died before i was born). we stayed in the spare room and the wallpaper was very evil. i woke up in the middle of the night and it was alive with some sort of.....energy..... it was very intense/bad ***.

i remember one night, it was before i was five or so, i had hypnogogia and felt there were spiders crawling all over my body, i ran to my mums side of the the bed she dismissed it saying "theres no spiders there go back to sleep".

*** words can't really describe this, there was a feeling of something coming out of the wallpaper, and a feeling in my mouthlike a perturbation in the wall and my mouth happening at the same time, it was very frightening.

Edited July 28, 2012 by qualia

[whitewind]

i remember being in my grandmas house, the old house where her and my grandpa lived (my grandpa died before i was born). we stayed in the spare room and the wallpaper was very evil. i woke up in the middle of the night and it was alive with some sort of.....energy..... it was very intense/bad ***.

 

When I was really young I used to regularly dream there were tiny people living in the walls - not the cavities, but actually the bricks. They were solid, very heavy and they couldn't survive outside of the walls because the air was too light, but they were fascinated by me and used to come and try to talk to me as I slept. I was terrified of them and they only went away when I moved house. I suffered sleep problems for years until I had help from a homeopathist / therapist and taught myself how to go to sleep through relaxation therapy.

[DELETED ACCOUNT]

I remember being stuck inside the house with mum and dad with all the windows and blinds closed through the day, which i remember thinking was/felt strange. We were just listening to the radio and trying to keep cool because it was really hot, and i remember looking outside and the porch was all grey with gumleaves on it. It was Ash Wednesday, and our house and yard was covered in ash which was blown in from fires a fair way away, including these huge gum leaves (like a foot long) which were all charred. I think i remember this stuff because mum and dad were upset and i didn't understand what was happening. I was about 2-1/2.

[planthelper]

nice topic!

loosing my teddy bear in a park, was my earliest (and as so often traumatic) memory, i would have been ~4 years old.

but a few years ago, after doing some "body work", i remebered, what was repressed for many, many years, and that is, that i sometimes, watched my parents having sex. now that explains my porn addiction, hehehe.

[sethomopod]

For me, it was when I was around 3 yrs old.. My family and I were on holiday.. Cant remember where we were, but I toddled up to an old pinball machine.. The old ones that had a spring on the mechanism that releases the ball.. Well there was a piece of spring that had unraveled leaving a small bit sticking out sideways.. I reached up and pulled it back, when i let it go, the piece of spring tore through my index finger.. I dont actually remember that, (my parents told me the story) But my earliest memory is when my father took me to a tap to wash my wound.. I remember a vision of my hand under the tap, water on, and a lot of blood getting washed away..

Its funny.. I still have the scar and now my index fingertip is flat.. And I remember the event...

I think PH is onto it, where it seems that trauma is the best for cementing memories... as well as repressing them...Strange how that works...

I wonder if there is a chemical threshold between where your brain remembers a trauma or suppresses it....

[solomon]

some similar memories to the posts above

all in the age of 3 - 4 ish

the door to a hotel in japan, it had a demon looking mask on it

pigeons and statues in trafalgar square, different coloured squirrels running up a tree outside an old church, a hedgehog in the snow on xmas, a dragon statue in a playground, a swimming pool with a rock wall and ferns.

splitting my head and seeing it in a bathroom which had every wall mirrored, getting bit on the ass by a chihuahua..

[Evil Genius]

Earliest childhood memory: Little girls poop in hospital bed beside me looked like spinach = Couldnt eat it for at least 18 years and still dont like it.

[ballzac]

Couldnt eat it for at least 18 years and still dont like it.

 

What about spinach?

[Evil Genius]

It was all green and shit. Dont know what was wrong with that kid but looking back, it could as well have been the little outbreak monkey. Btw, Popeye is such a pig.

Second earliest childhood memory is my father slingshotting me from the swing and shooting me half across the playyard. Luck was on my side these days.

Edited July 29, 2012 by Evil Genius

[planthelper]

i might sidetrack for a bit.

i found out that, your best and most beautyfull early memories can produce, a nice effect, when visualizing them, whilst meditating.

[bogfrog]

Its a bit of a strange one, but when I was about 4 I was snopping around in the garden shed and to my horror came across a mousetrap which my dad had made by filling a tray with honey and there was a poor little dead mouse stuck in the honey.

Around the same age I can remember hearing a bird in the chimney when the fireplace was going and I put both my hands on the chimney and burnt my palms. I remember the skin on my hands peeling off layer after layer.

Nice topic, interesting that almost everyone's 1st memories are scary ones.

[FancyPants]

The earliest I think I can pinpoint a memory is sitting on my dad's lap while he took me for rides in the homemade go-kart he and a couple of my uncles built themselves. They used to use a forestry dirt track just south of Coffs Harbour where they'd ride their motorbikes too. I would've been around 2-3 and I remember LOVING it so much; probably why I've got a thing for fun things that go fast like quadbikes and regular motorbikes :D I also remember toddling up my gran and papa's back yard to the chook pen and just watch them. It seemed like a huge adventure (prob only around 150m), I was around the same age cos the go-kart still worked.

^^^ @ bogfrog I noticed that about the bad memories. I honestly can't think of any bad memories at that young an age; but I'm VERY good at suppressing shit and focusing in on the fun stuff anyway lol

I remember very clearly the first time I had general anaesthetic too, I was 4 and needed an inguinal hernia repair. I remember both the room I was in and the doctor counting bacwards from ten and thinking "wheeee...!". When I woke up I remembered finding it amusing that the doctor didn't get very far. I also remember having the poops the night before because I wasn't allowed the turkey dinner like the other kids in my ward room, cos I had to fast for the surgery.

Aaand yet I can't remember what I had for dinner last night... thanks Mary Jane!

Edited July 29, 2012 by FancyPants

[IndianDreaming]

I remember being held - I saw my mum's face and i was jostled over to be looking at another ladies face - she was smiling, thats it - its very clear, even now.. This was very young, 1 or less it feels like although i have no real idea. I'd say it was like a freak, momentary awareness because then there's a break for ages and i remember walking on the white tiles to go to the loo, I stopped, looked around, and I'd laid a nice little nugget on the white tiles - that would be at about age 2-3. at 3-4 I remember pinching our large dogs nose, and in the next instant, feeling 2 teeth on my chin and 2 teeth on my forehead and saw the most hidious sight of the inside of the dogs mouth. That old dog knew what it was doing - it *snapped* - then *held* for about 1 second, ever so gently, but exactly hard enough that I nearly died of fright... It knew - it was a lovely Labrador, wouldn't hurt a fly - but could teach a good lesson...