General Chat

What are your earliest memories? My own earliest verifiable memory is climbing out of a car halfway up Table Mountain to look over the lights of Cape Town when I was two. It is a memory triggered by Pet Clarke's "Down Town", and my mother told me the details and background when I eventually "confessed" the link. I do have another, stranger (and totally unverifiable!) memory, but will only reveal it after a few others have shared theirs. Rob

Oh go on Robert....spill the beans. We are intrigued now!! My earliest memory is my sister being born. I was 22 months old and wanted my Mummy, but they wouldn't let me in. She was in the spare room giving birth and I was outside the door yelling my head off. Perhaps we are more likely to remember things that are traumatic!!

I can remember being at playgroup .... a boy was in the pedal car and was taking far too long a turn for my liking. So I sidled up to him, put my hands under one side and tipped him out! He started to cry, a teacher came over, and there was me with my arm round him saying 'aw Kevin, don't cry, what's the matter?' That is so embarassing now to think of what a nasty piece of work I was at 3 years old LOL. Mandy :)

The memory I think is earliest, is after my brother was born. I was 2 years and 9 months old. I can see him, very red and wrinkled, being bathed by a woman in dark blue uniform.

if i have any friends on here,ime about to lose them lol. as a kiddie,in south wales,it was my job to chase the chickens,so my grandad could catch one,and ring its neck lol. can i ever post,without mentioning food...doubt it! bryan.

Do not know how old I was but, was in a pushchair being pushed by my grandad in the park, my sister 8 years older than me, ran away with the pushchair and me, I can see grandad chasing us all the way to the exit gate shouting and waving his fists. Gosh that memory was locked away, I am 64 now. I know Grandad died when I was two. Another time when I was in the cot the family gave me sherry,I was laughing and swaying in the cot, the more the family laughed the more I did stupid things, must have been for the attention, not the sherry!!!!! Been doing stupid things ever since.

This is really disgusting - no doubt why it is my first memory! It was early in the morning - barely light and I was crawling on the floor of my mum and dad's bedroom when I came across a dirty nappy at the side of the bed. (Probably one I have been changed out of in the night and left there for later disposal.) And yes, you've guessed it, I did what every baby does with something they've just discovered - I put part of the contents in my mouth!!! I can remember how vile it tasted even now and my mum shooting out of bed to take it off of me and her being angry. I realise now that I had probably given her a rough night and to get a few minutes more sleep she had put me on the floor to amuse myself - not my fault she didn't like my choice of entertainment. lol And before anyone else says it - I've been talking crap ever since! Mags

Robert ,whats this nursery ryme we had thrown at us as kids [suger and spice and all things nice?] i think not,these young ladies ,if i can use the term lightly, sound horrible lol., Us lads did gentle things ,like push big sis out of the armchair ,and tell mum she slipped.Bless my sis ,she let me get away with it and saved me a tanning ,she has a lovely scar under her chin where she conected with the hearth ,so maybe you lasses aint so bad at that he he.Fred.

a couple of my earliest memories,i was 2 and emptied the coal all over the lounge and my sister and threw confetti as well, mum cried. i was about 3 i packed my suitcase and left home, i hid behind the sofa with it, as i was to scared to go out the door. lol sandra

Sorry to take so long to quieten your curiosity, but I suddenly realised what the time was when I posted this thread, and went to bed. Interesting to see that most of the memories are from around two years old, and most seem to involve some drama - mine appears to be the exception. However, I believe that I do have a memory from even earlier. Like I said in the original posting, it is strange - very, very, strange - and cannot be verified, so it would be interesting to find out what a trick-cyclist would make of it, or if any others have something similar to tell. It is a memory that surfaces as I am in that happy state between wakefulness and sleep - more so when I was younger, though the most recent occurence made me realise its probable provenance - and I most associate its recall with mornings spent in my parents bed. The wallpaper in that room was of a pattern around a central focus, and, as I stared at it, I would get a wonderful feeling of the pattern splitting and reforming in a sort of miniscule enormity. It was only many years later (and my last experience of this memory, though I cannot remember what triggered it) that the significance hit me - it was cell division. I believe that it is memory from before birth - most probably, given the fact that it was cell division, while still a zygote (or whatever that little cluster of cells just after conception is called, before cell differentiation kicks in). It is a memory that I cannot explain, and my beliefs cannot be verified, but it would be interesting to see if any others amongst you have had similar memories. If my suspicions are correct, then it could have serious implications in many of the ethical arguments being bandied about. It would also throw the medical profession into disarray by suggesting that there is such a thing as CELL memory; it also has to beg the question as to HOW the cells "saw" what was happening! It could also explain why large-spot patterns, and nucleus-centred patterns can cause such strange reactions in people (like fascinated revulsion; comfortable disquiet; an almost manic desire to ridicule; etc). I hope you are not too disappointed by such a crack-pot memory, and I hope that others may join in and help me throw some light onto what may be happening / could have happened. Rob

Robert, I find your last message very interesting, Have you ever been regressed by hypnosis(my spelling never good) I have always fancied it but, would be to scared.

Robert, interesting theory. I beleive we inherit 'memory genes', that go back a few generations. My son says he remembers a room and describes it, but it's not his room, it's mine from my childhood. Jo.

I don't think this is a crackpot memory - it would certainly go some way to explaining reincarnation and why children recall things that couldn't possibly have happened to them. My son was about two (certainly less than 2yrs 3mths because we didn't have our daughter then) when he spotted a War Memorial that had a statue of a soldier with a bayonetted rifle and announced that he had 'one of those' and then went on to tell us that his friend had hurt his leg and they had taken the 'knife' off and turned it upside down to 'help his friend walk'. To the best of my knowledge he had never been exposed to this image -so where did it come from? Your theory would certainly fit in this case. Mags

I remeber talking to a friend a few years back, describing a 'dream' I'd had - I was dreaming of being a small child and crawling through a wall-space from one room to another. It turned out that it wasn't a dream, I was remembering a nursery I attended up to the age of 18 months which was in a very old building (no longer in existence) and each room had panelling, which, at one end of each room opened up to create a through space between the rooms. I have no other memories of this building, or being at nursery there (although I do remember the nursery I attended after that), and the friend I was talking to worked there some years ago so knew that what I was describing was real. On another note, my daughter, when she was about 3 or 4, made a comment that flummoxed me completely. We were in the car, driving past a car park that was being built on a derelict site. She suddenly announced that she used to work there when she was big. I laughed, thinking she had her grammar confused, and asked if she meant she wanted to be a builder when she grew up. No, she said, I used to work there when I was big! I've never pushed the point, and she made similar comments at other times when we went past the same site...although she's never said anything similar since the car park was finished. Spooky?? lol

Some very interesting memories are coming in here! Mags, your son's tale, and Sarah, your anecdote about your daughter, reminds me of a colleague a few years ago, who told me of his nephew (young, at the time), who claimed that he could remember being with God before he was born. Another tale that begs for more details! It also begs the question: when does conciousness start? I understand that the legal "start" of conciousness is at birth; some of what is appearing suggests that it may start a long time before - possibly even before conception, and if that is the case then the concept of conciousness continuing after death does become a reality. Yes, Judith, I was hoping the Len would see the thread, and investigate. Perhaps he is engrossed in more of his studies. It would be good to have others contribute more memories (preferably personal, but more vicarious memories will be accepted!), to build up a reasonable database upon which ideas and explanations could be built, and from which someone of more scientific abilities can formulate acceptable theories. Rob

Robert After I retired from full-time , paid employment I retrained as a counsellor with an organisation devoted to mental health, sponsored by the South Bucks Health Authority. After 6 months initial training (continued for 10 years) I was let loose on a few clients , being Supervised by the Consultant Psychiatrist at Amersham Hospital. One client had a memory of an event when she was six months old, which I found it hard to credit although, naturally, I did not query it. Later I raised this with my supervisor and was told that it was rare but not unkown and that there were rarer cases on record of memories of the birth process and even pre-birth recall. An amusing anecdote the psychiatrist recounted was that the TV programme "Neighbours" was very popular in the maternity unit at Wycombe Hospital and it was noticed that new-born babies invariably responded to the signature tune which they had first heard whilst in the womb proving that memory does exist before birth. My first memory is of when I was 2. I had a client who remembered nothing from before the age of 14 and thought this to be quite normal. Len

Oooh, you are frustrating me, Len! I had hoped that your input would have added greater insight to my own ideas! Is there anyone out there doing out-of-the-mainstream research into memory? If so, what sort of data are they looking for? Will they be able to throw any light onto my own "cell-memory"? Is there anyone else out there who has a similarly bizarre memory? Information, please, Number Six. Information! Rob

Rob - just another little post script that has just hit me in light of this thread - My granddaughter is three and often refers to 'when I am a baby again'. I have tried to explain that she will grow older rather than younger thinking that she just doesn't understand growing up but now I'm not so sure. Magsx

Robert I suggest you submit yourself to a good hypno-therapist and are "regressed". I know a well-qualified man in Robertsbrige, Sussex if you are in that part of the world. Len

I was 2 or 3 when my grandad died. I was with my mother near some cliffs and I asked her why we were there. She replied we were scattering grandads ashes. 'why?' I asked. 'Beacuse he died and went to heaven' she said. 'No he did'nt, he's standing by that car' I told her. I think I got a clip round the ear for telling lies. But he was there leaning on a black car and smiling at me. Jo.