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What's Your Earliest Memory?
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?"
I think that's you coming down off X or LSD or something.
Spread the RC luvin'
what was posted yesterday!
SING!!
Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe of URL Dupe Dupe Dupe of URL
...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.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I drowned when I was 18 months old and while I dont have a step-by-step memory of it, I remember what it looked like and felt like quite clearly.
So how does zombieism work for you?
boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
Well, I recently cleaned up and threw most of my old hardware away, so the earliest I have is the stuff in my old 486.
My earliest memory was from when I was one year old. My father was carrying me down the stairs, and tripped. He managed to cradle and protect me, although he sustained a broken tailbone in the fall. I distinctly remember the arrival of the paramedics, the color of the room (brown), even the fact that the stretcher had 3 straps.
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.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
256k
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Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
I had a false memory like that too. When I was about one or two years old I took a plane trip. Until I was fifteen or sixteen that was the only time I was on a plane.
When I was still young (single-digits) my parents told me about the trip. Then I was convinced that I could remember the plane trip. But then, after a few years, I saw a picture or TV shot of the inside of a plane and realized my memories were nothing like the reality, and I had constructed them after hearing that I was on a plane at that age.
My parents tell me that after a while on the plane I started saying "I want to get off this bus!"
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I remember when people, instead of bothering the rest of us with their moaning, just used their preferences to turn off the sections they didn't want to read about.
Dream analysis is sci-fi. Didn't you get that memo?
My earliest memory is breakfast this morning when I ate... Oh, damn it!
Son, I accidentally dropped you on your head when you were seven. That's why you can't remember anything prior. Sorry about that. If it's any consolation, you didn't have a very interesting childhood.
Love, Dad.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
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)
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Is she available for tutoring [of
Sometimes it's too easy.
"And like that
I know this sounds totally crazy, but I have vivid memories of being born
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!
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The government has your memories!
4 megs of RAM on my first computer a 486DX/33, fall of 1990. Still have some of the documentation so I know it's not a false memory. Hope this helps.
My earliest memory is writing a FOR NEXT loop in BBC BASIC to move my name across the screen, using a CLEAR after each itteration. I'd have been about four or five at the time.
This later became Windows.