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What's Your Earliest Memory?
Posted by
michael
on Sat Dec 28, 2002 08:23 PM
from the oddball-saturday-night-questions dept.
from the oddball-saturday-night-questions dept.
spazoid12 writes "I've been curious lately about memory. For example, why is it that my earliest memory is from about 7 years of age? (I'm mid-30's now) Most people I know remember much further back. How far back can a person remember? Is there a theoretical limit? What are the requirements for acquiring memories? I've read that oxygen is one; as in actual breathed-in stuff. This is supposed to explain why you can't remember anything from within the womb. That seems silly to me. My own theory (with nothing to back it up) is that language is required. We spoke mostly Brasilian Portuguese and some Russian in the home up until I was about 5 or 6. We moved to Brasil for a year when I was 8 and I barely remember anything from that trip. I really don't know either language today-- could this explain why I have no memories of those years? What if I re-learned those languages now, 30 years later? Would memories flood back?"
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What's Your Earliest Memory?
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Re:Physc (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Physc (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Physc (Score:4, Interesting)
Every year I make elaborate Halloween costumes for my children. When my daughter was 7, I was fitting her costume, a cat beanie baby suit. I was reminiscing to her about previous costumes. Our conversation went like this:
Me: You were a cat before, you know....
Her: I know, I was!
Me: When you were three, I think, you had a black --
Her: *cutting me off* I was a cat before and I liked being a cat. And then I was the baby inside, and I could hear daddy singing to me. Then I was born, and I couldn't figure out, why is everyone talking to me and calling me by a different name? Then I realized it was because you didn't know I was a cat, I was a girl to you, and now I'm a girl, but I was a cat before.
Me: *weirded out* Errr, I meant, when you were three, you had a black cat suit for Halloween...
Yes, my daughter randomly spewed forth some kind of past life / womb memory. While I can believe that she had at some point been told that her father used to sing to her before she was born, none of us *ever* said anything about a past life, or the idea of past lives, or cats. She also has quite vivid memories of things that happened when she was a toddler, including things that happened to her when she was alone.
My other child, on the other hand, steadfastly maintains he has no memory of anything before fifth grade.
Fabricated Memories (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I can remember my birth (Score:5, Funny)
Bah, that's nothing! I remember going to a company picnic with my father and coming home with my mother! I got you beat by 9 months!
-
Let's Take a Look at Everything2 (Score:4, Funny)
Yep, kinda fits the profile.
hypnosis (Score:4, Interesting)
observed many sessions, and the results
are astounding. If you are able to be
hypnotized (I've tried, but never been able
to do it) -- it may help you remember early
memories. Have someone that you trust
put you under, or a professional.
HYPNOSIS IS A CROCK (Score:5, Insightful)
For a quick read-up, check this link [fmsfonline.org] from the False Memory Syndrome Foundation's website.
A quick read of almost any post-mortem on the whole "multiple personality disorder" craze of several years ago should also raise your skepticism. My roommate's own mother had her shrink succeed in giving her a case of dissociative identity disorder that she did not have before she started seeing this 'doctor' through a combination of hypnosis and directed questioning.
And don't think the professional hypnotists are going to give you an entirely truthful explanation of the benefits and risks of what they do - the fact of the matter is, if they admitted the truth, they would not only be jobless, but would be opening themselves to all sorts of malpractise suits. Asking a hypnotist if hypnotism works is a bit like asking a door-to-door vaccum cleaner salesman if his product really works.
Re:18 months (Score:5, Funny)
So how does zombieism work for you?
Memories... (Score:3, Interesting)
Under hypnosis, people seem to be able to remember far more details from the past... which would imply that what our brain stores is far more intricate than what we can pull to mind in common conversation. Some people believe we could train ourselves to remember more... just as we can train ourselves to remember dreams if we write them down anything we remember as soon as we awake. Proust's "Remembrances of Things Past" is a lovely study on memory, what is remembered, and why. I've never gotten past the first thousand pages, though...
Re:I remember my birth. (Score:4, Funny)
Me too. (Score:5, Interesting)
Very few people can remember their birth and it is rare indeed, but true nonetheless, and is very special for those who can remember.
Before my birth I was conscious, aware of myself and knew I had sisters, and one was particularly closer to my mother and me during my mother's pregnancy. And indeed she spent a great deal of time staying very close with my mother during the last couple months of the pregnancy. I remember waking up one morning expecting to hear my sister's and mother's voices, but in a way I really wasn't aware that my mother was my mother... I thought that she was just another sister "out there" too. Something was not right that morning. I knew I was being taken to see "Doctor Knight". It's very strange that I knew his name although of course I'd never seen him before, but I think I must have known who he was from my mother's office visits during the pregnancy. He had been the family doctor for many years and delivered two of my sisters before me. Anyway, I don't recall much of the labor, but I remember hearing Dr. Knight's voice and the voices of all these strange nurses. I had no idea what they were saying of course, but Dr. Knight had a very distinctive deep voice that I still remember to this day, even though he is long gone many years now. I remember that before all the commotion, that I was comfortable and feeling just fine, and I did not like this disturbing thing that was happening and wished it would go away. I wanted to go back to sleep and just be with my "sisters" and be comfortable again. Everything was suddenly becoming very harsh. All of a sudden everything was blindingly bright and cold. There was a very bright overhead light on the ceiling of the delivery room (like in a typical hospital of the 1960's) and the brilliance of this lamp was painful. All these strange big people were there moving around and talking frantically and I did not like them. Doctor Knight was the first person to hold me but I did not know or understand who he was now. I don't even think I was capable of understanding the concept that I was a baby and was being held by a giant adult. I just remember screaming and crying so intensely that I could not catch my breath and I could not stop crying either. I wanted to be back with the comfort that I thought was my "sister" (but was actually my mother). I do not remember much detail about what happened after that, except being exhausted and falling asleep again. That's it.
I am in my 40's now. My mother died of heart disease a few years ago. As I write this post, my tears are flowing quite freely right now.
To those of you out there who remember your own births.... keep that memory alive in you as long as you live. It's very important whether you like it or not. I know that I will remember it as long as I live, and that it will very likely be what I'm thinking about when it comes my time to die.
Peace.
Re:Me too. (Score:5, Insightful)
(Not that I'm saying it's this bad, but) this isn't too far off from people who are SURE they can remember being abducted by aliens... deja vu also seems VERY real to people. Also, things like early family photos, etc. that you have seen many times over the years can make you feel like you actually *remember* when it was taken.
I'm sure it seems real, but your claim that you knew someone's name from before you were born (let's not get into the development of a concept of self vs other, let alone sister vs. mother in the PREnatal brain...) pretty much discredits this completely. Unless you were in there a good year and a half there is no way your brain is going to be developed enough to understand and recognize a name (heh, even if you were an adult have you ever TRIED to hear someone speaking from inside the uterus? I can't even hear people when I'm underwater in a swimming pool...)
Basically, if you were to say "I remember my birth! It was dark and warm, then light and loud and cold" then I'd only be SKEPTICAL... anything else, and you're just kidding yourself. Not that there is anything wrong with that, really, it just doesn't add much to a scientific discussion.
Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Humans cannot physically remember events that happen before the age of two. Any "memories" that appear to come from prior to that age are either a) purposely or inadvertantly implanted by a third party ("remember when..."), or b) the result of typical happenings for a very young child. For example, many children fall out of bed at least once, so you may remember doing so too whether or not it actually happened.
I can (Score:5, Interesting)
counterexample for your theory (Score:3, Interesting)
Earliest Memory (Score:5, Funny)
I remembered starting to really like coffee at the age of six and started drinking it regularly. Talk about early addiction.
Memory needs prompts (Score:3, Insightful)
If you try to just restore memories you are more than likely making them up (not that you realise you are making them up).
I would say it's unlikely that anybody remembers anything from around age 3 - they may think they do but it's more likely the memories have been implanted (nothing conspiritorious, just a purely natural thing for memories to be "implanted" unintentionally). Reason is simply that a childs brain takes a good long while to develop - long term storage isn't high on the agenda.
Some Slashdot editors can't remember (Score:4, Funny)
SING!!
Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe of URL Dupe Dupe Dupe of URL
Earliest memory? (Score:5, Funny)
Falling Down The Stairs (Score:5, Funny)
Incidentally, my second memory is of my father's return from the hospital, whereupon he immediately went to our kitchen and got some pretzels. I have no other memories of that house (we moved out less than a month later, though).
Anyway, I'm not a medical sort, but on the oxygen issue: I suffucated during my mother's labor due to complications in the birth, and was dead for a couple of minutes before I was ressuscitated. I have no idea whether that had any affect on my brain development, but I don't have cerebral paulsy (the most likely outcome of those circumstances), so who knows?
Incidentally, my sister acquired language at a much younger age than I did (she was forming complete, gramatically correct sentences at the age of 2), and yet her earliest memory is of preschool at age 4.
Interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Is she available for tutoring [of
Sometimes it's too easy.
Most people don't remember half of what they claim (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost everyone I know has what strike me as overly clear memories from when they were extremely young.. 2, 3 years of age. Often, I've found that when you talk to their parents or other older relatives, the story you get from them is almost word-for-word what the child 'remembers'. My guess is these are things that the child has heard many, many times in his/her life, and eventually forms a 'memory' around it. Sort of how some people hear a story about something happening and incorporate that into their stock of things they believe happened to them.
What we hear from others influences our own memories highly, it's amazing how many people can recall group events years later, even if some of them weren't actually present for something that occurred. Also, a child's sense of time is really out of whack - remember how long summer seemed to be? Things that happen when you're 5 or 6 can seem to have happened when you were much younger.
Memory is a very tricky, changing thing, even for recent events in fully cognizent adults. I don't find it surprising at all that childhood memories aren't terribly reliable nor consistent.
Why we do not remember our early years (Score:5, Interesting)
You see, a young kid goes through very rough traumatizing experiences (falling down, being psychologically hurt when mother says no or leave for a few hours, etc...) Off course, these are benin experiences for us, adults, but for a new, undevelopped brain, they are tragedies. If we would remember those experiences, we might have developped some psychological problems. Forgetting our younger years would help us keep our sanity until the brain is well formed.
As I said, its a hypothesis I heared somewhere. If anybody got a link to this, please share it with us.
Myelin. (Score:4, Interesting)
The human femal pelvis is a bowl with a small hole in it, unlike those of our forebears, which are tubes with large holes.
As a result, a large head would block our birth. But if we had small heads, we'd have small brains. But we don't. How does it work?
The human brain is not fully formed at birth. The insulation on the wiring is left out, saving most of the volume the brain will eventually attain. This insulation is called "myelin".
The brain's wires (axons) aren't fully myelinated until about 6 months after we are born. So a human baby can have no coherent cerebral activity at a younger age. It's mostly hardwired activity coordinated by the more primitive portions of the hindbrain.
Re:Myelin. (Score:5, Insightful)
Peripheral myelin hits its peak around a year of age - it basically allows walking because feedback from the legs gets in sync with the motor commands.
But various parts of the brain continue to change myelin status through the first 6-7 years at least.
However, the lack of myelin doesn't imply the lack of coherent cerebral activity (although it certainly doesn't help).
Re:Myelin. (Score:4, Interesting)
Its generally believed that the average for myelination process to complete is around age 25. An increased rate of myelination in various areas of the brain is strongly correlated with increased rates of learning skills associated with the myelinating region.
The first regions to complete myelination are related to spoken and auditory linguistics, followed by vision processing. Now, given that basic auditory processing and visual processing occur in the temporal lobes, and given that one of the other primary functions of the temporal lobes is interacting with the hippocampus and amygdala to create, process and retrieve memory, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that myelinations of these regions facilitates the first memory formations. Your motor cortex, followed shortly by the rest of the frontal cortex, typically won't finalize myelination until your late teens, which parallels with the end of puberty and the slowing rate of growth. By the time you're in your mid-20s, myelination is completed with your prefrontal cortex (sentience and conscience) coming dead last.
However, the lack of myelin doesn't imply the lack of coherent cerebral activity (although it certainly doesn't help).
Just ask a person with multiple sclerosis whether or not the gradual loss of myelination in their motor cortex implies a lack of coherent cerebral activity in the motor cortex.
Breakfast. (Score:3, Funny)
We didn't want you to find out this way...... (Score:5, Funny)
Love, Dad.
Childhood is vividly clear to me (Score:4, Interesting)
My brother and sister were born about a month before my third birthday, so this was during my late 2s.
Everything after that is pretty clear, up till about age 9 or 10. I have hundreds of vividly clear images from my early childhood. Then around middle-school life started to suck so I blocked out about three years.
And for everyone out there in their mid-teens: it gets better don't worry. wash your face and lose some weight though. yes, they all notice. and christ, don't let your parents pick out your clothing. yes, at your age stupid superficial things like this are key to happiness.
I remember my circumcision... (Score:5, Funny)
...but I was 22 at the time! Ha!
Oh, the requirements of dating an Orthodox Jew. The relationship didn't work out, but I have no regrets. I feel so free and unencumbered, it's great.
Re:I remember my circumcision... (Score:4, Insightful)
While you may remember down to age 2, its pretty hard to order things chronologically until much late r in life.
While some people may (or certainly say they can) remember down to childbirth, the fact that so many jewish men don't remember circumcision says to me that most people don't remember things at birth, even if painful or traumatic - remembering that circumcision has been going alot longer than anaesthesia.
In truth, the brain really isn't that functional at that age. Doesn't mean that it isn't working, just that its not functioning as a cohesive organ.
Also, as an aside voluntary recall of past events probably requires some verbal skills to associate with those events. Memories from ages before people can speak meaningfully (ie, age less than two) are going to be hard to spontaneously recall - "I'm thinking back to living in my first house" - because to initiate this sort of recollection is a verbal/logic driven action. If you have a memory going back before you could speak much won't have any words associated with it. You might recall them by association with non verbal events, however.
Michael
Re:I remember my circumcision... (Score:4, Funny)
Two Kids are in a hospital together
The one kid says to the other "What are you in for"
The other kid replies "Getting my Tonsils out"
The one kid says "Oh that's nothing I had that done when I was 5 and you only get a sore throat and they give you lots of ice cream"
The other kid replies "Wow that does not seem so bad, what are you in for"
The one kid replies "A Circucision"
The ohter kid then says "Oh, I had that when I was born... I could'nt walk for a year"
Re:Relevant Stories (Score:5, Funny)