What is your first conscious memory?

So point of the thread is straight forward.

What is the first thing you ever remember, as far as you can think back.

And also if you wish to speculate, when do you believe the human mind is fully born, and you become self-aware. What do you believe is the cause of this?


Here's my first memory, that I can recall.

I must have been two. Because I was very young, however I was still walking, running. What have you.

This almost seems like a dream to me. I ran into an open garage and looked at this nice red car. I remember thinking. "Hey this doesn't look like my dad's car, where did it come from?" This indicates to me that.. at this point, I was aware of what a car was, and what my dad owned. This also means prior conciousness, that I just don't remember. I looked over and saw this white cat, big and furry type that you see on the fancy feast commercials. I think the cat started walking towards me, and I screamed. Something like that. My dad was close by and he came by and got me. Then that is the last I remember. I remember noting at the time, that he had been working on a car near by, as he had oil on his hands and had a ratchet in his hand.

I know this happened for real, as my father later in life told me he remembered that. Apparently this cat also had a history of attacking me when I was younger. I believe I was at my uncle's/aunts car and it was their house. But I'm not entirely sure on this.



[edit on 3-9-2009 by Miraj]

Just for a count. Conscious is how you spell it

My first memory, which is probably really pathetic lol.

I had an imaginary friend, m and m. It was MM, but MandM. Way before Eminem was around, I was a wee one at the time.

And i remember eating a leaf off a tree, wondering if I was a herbivore....

Turns out no. lol.

That's probably as far back as I can go... which is pretty early admittingly.

reply to post by Miraj


Wow. I am glad you made this thread. I use to have a birthmark under my chin when i was young. It was a dark color about the size of a quarter. On day I asked my mother if she remembered trying to wipe it off cause she thought it was dirt. She just looked at me in silence as i continued. I told her i could remember my dads red Ford truck. We were getting ready to go somewhere. She was carrying me and laid me in the truck seat. She took her handkerchief dabbed it on her tongue and proceeded to try and clean the birthmark off. I remember crying and thinking," WHAT ARE YOU DOING! I DON'T LIKE THIS! STOP!". As she looked at me with disbelief she told me i was only 8 or 9 months old.

I can remember it clearly.

My first memories because I'm not sure which one is actualy first.
Sitting in a kitchen, the tint was yellow.
Looking at the hood of a blue car.
Noticing the difference in my feet and how I walked compared to the man to my left. (I think he was holding my hand.) We were walking on sidewalk. I assume this man was my father.

I'm not sure but I do beleive I was incapable of moving during the first two memories. Possibly strapped in. I am not completely sure that I recognised the hood of the car as a car hood.

Cool thread...

What I remember being my first memory is sitting on the carpet at my nan's house infront of an old electric/bar fire and watching the Muppets and being really excited when Kermit does that manic introduction of his.

I still love the muppets...

I saw an English film called "This is England" which was set in the 80s, so I was between 3 and 13 at that period and the attention to detail was mindblowing, a saw it with a friend of the same age and the nostalgia was crazy. It's well worth checking out - like a UK version of AMerican History X but grittier?

I was about 3 and my sister(twin) and I got into the kitchen pantry. We were playing in peanut butter and jelly! I have never forgotten that because it was so much fun and when my mom and dad heard my sister drop the jelly jar they woke up. They came in the kitchen and my sister and I were covered in it! They laughed and put us in the tub still laughing. We told them we were making a snack..lol My mom has pictures of the after math that she shows us. Its weird how I remember that and then I also remember about the same age sitting with my dad and trying steak and artichoke for the first time. Both memories are clear as day.

The big bang is the ealiest memory I have. But as I recall it was not the first conscious thought I had so there must have been consciousness before the big bang imo.

I recall a very bright light and a light slap on my bum.

Actually, I don't have a specific first memory but more of a collection of them starting when I was three. Most of them involve my toys, bike/trike and the family boat.

can't believe i didn't think of this thresd.i can remember being born.
no joke, carried the memory w/ me not even knowing what it was
all the way up to 20 yrs old. then one day at work i finaly started to
wonder about this memory i had. just accepted it up to that point.
so i went by my mom n pops place after i got off work. i got in the
house and said, hey dad where's mom. he said "backyard".
i go walking up to my mom and said, mom i need to know why i
remember some doctor looking guy w/ dark rim glasses? at first she was like what the hell "i don't know ", "why do you remember someone
like that"? i went on, well i remember this tile floor about the same
color as fireplace brick w/ a sort of tan piece every so often, and this
dark greasy haired man w/ a doctors coat on. my mom goes," oh hell
you just described the day you were born". she actualy said all of that before it
sunk in. then she stood up from picking weeds out of her planter and said.
what the hell is this some kind of a joke? she took one of her gloves off and through it at me. she had never told me about any of this, so in the
house she goes, w/ me taggin right behind." Pete " that's my dads name
" our oldest boy here just described the day he was born". "you know
anything about that"? my dad after pulling on his last cowboy boot, stood up and said "well you always said he had a good memory". my dad never lied to my mom about anythig. that's when her jaw fell open in amazement. she drilled me for at least an hour after that, but that was all
i could remember.the delivery room and the doc.
snf



[edit on 3-9-2009 by randyvs]

reply to post by Miraj


My first conscious memory is of lying on my back and being surrounded by blurred silhouettes of people much like an overexposed photograph or film. The atmosphere was very happy and I was at the centre of that happiness.

"when she looks away, I'm going snag them animal crackers"

Also, I remember being carried (before I could properly walk, so very young) looking through the holes in an afgan type blanket, going next door bobbing along and I remember they had a small dog.

I have two early ones. I don't know which is first, but they are probably within months of each other. Both occurred when I was approximately 2-3 years old, since in both I can recall seeing my brother as a baby.

In one, I am sitting on the floor of the living room, colouring some Sesame Street pictures with my mom, while my dad is sitting in a chair, maybe reading or something, while my brother is in one of those baby carrier things nearby. I can still remember holding a two-inch brown pencil crayon after doing Snuffleupagus and thinking Geez, that's a lot of brown I just used :p

The other one isn't so fun. It was just after dinner. My parents and brother (in high chair) are sitting at the table finishing up, and I must have already been done, because I was wandering around the kitchen. I walked over near the stove and looked up at the burners. I distinctly remember thinking along these lines: ":Okay, the burner is black. When it is red, that means it is hot and I should not touch it. When it is black, it is not turned on. BUT, it was used recently for cooking, so I wonder if it is still hot?" Guess what I did to test my theory? :p My parents saw what I was doing at the last second, and charged forward to stop me, but they were too late and I burned my hand Then I remember them doing stuff like putting it under cold water in the sink and crying because it hurt.

I have one more, but I am not certain if it is a dream or a real memory, but it could be real; if so, it would have happened earlier than these, perhaps when I was a year or a year and a half old. I am in a room, playing with one of my favourite toys, and my mom and her sister are talking nearby. This may have been while we were in California for a month, since my dad did some work at Berkeley university at about that time (the whole family went, though it was just me and my parents then) and my aunt lives in San Diego. Alternately, it might have just been my aunt visiting us, since the toy I was playing with is a little large to bring on a trip like that, though it could have been done. It's too vague for me to be sure it's real, though.

ok! here goes!!! this is not a joke...
i remember to this day, seeing outer space around me, near a nebulae, blue hugh to it, red, kinda like the rosetta nebulae. I was floating in sapce. lots of white stars around. I closed my eyes, opened them, and saw my mother smiling, looking at me with joy...

reply to post by ziggy1706


You know it's pretty amazing.. and I don't know if this is just the power of suggestion leading to false memories... But I'm slowly starting to recall images of floating, and space. But, I don't think I could quite get to that without a very deep meditation to recall those images in full, if they were ever there.

I found another memory that comes to mind. and.. Im still not entirely sure if this ever happened. I'll confirm it later today, when I get a chance to talk to my dad.

However the memory that comes to mind is at the airport, me and my mother were seeing my father off on a business trip (Which is likely, he's in the microbiology field and probably attended conferences when he worked more with virology)

Somehow it seems like a dream to me. But I remember seing inside the airplane after walking up a ramp. I don't know at this point if this actually happened. And then we had to go because the plane was getting ready to leave.

Anyone older on this forum, know if they used to allow non-ticket holders go on the plane before take off?

reply to post by Miraj


I was about one year old. I was sitting in my high chair and whistled. My grandmother came in to the house to see who had whistled. Seeing me there, she figured it was one of my parents, and went to ask them.

The only thing any could agree on was it was not one of them. I remember be very pleased.

When I told my parents about this memory as an adult, they said , "You must have heard us tell the story, because you were too young."

So then I described the dining room to them, including the color of the walls and the kind of window above the table. They concluded I must have remembered it, as we lived in that house only a few months, and they had never taken any pictures of the house at all.

I like this topic.
(In fact, a couple of friends and I are setting up a website dedicated to memories.)

The first impression I remember is the smell and (wet) touch of ribbed rubber on my cheek, belonging to a toy I had in my crib (and presumably it was wet because I had been slobbering with my toothless mouth all over it ). I suppose I would have been around a year old at the time.

As for my first conscious memory... it's difficult to pinpoint.
I have a string of memories, all of which can be reliably dated to the summer holidays when I was three years old, but the exact chronology would be difficult to establish.
One of those memories is of myself sitting on a stone at the side of a park lane, amid pine trees, with my father standing beside me. We were waiting for my mother to come back (from a store, I think), and I remember the full moon peering ominously among the pine trees - I was slightly upset because some idiot (I think a woman next door) had told me that the full moon "eats" people - and my mum was nowhere to be seen!
I also vividly remember the feeling of relief when mummy came back - and, curiously, my feeling of triumphant spite towards that woman after my mother came back.

At the age of four the stream of my memory became more or less consistent, so I remember a lot from that time on.

I have 2 of em. First is more of a feeling. I was born with bronchitis. I can to this day still feel the aloneness of the hospital. I was born 6 and half pounds and 21 inches tall. Kinda scrawny I guess. Anyway there are times when that special feeling invades my dreams. It is not pleasant. When i was a kid i used to wake up from it screaming in terror.

My actual first visual memory was of the moon shot. I was barely a year old standing in diapers while everyone was glued to the tv--- instead of me....waaaaaaa.... no seriously. Was kinda weird.


PG

reply to post by Miraj


Mine is lying on my back looking up and across the room at a smallish square window where there was a tree branch moving slightly outside it. I remember how the sunlight filtered through the window making a beam of light that landed right next to me. I could see all of the dust motes flying around inside the beam of light. And a checkerboard floor that I crawled around on. When I asked my mom, she couldn't recall a checkerboard floor anywhere we lived when I was small. In guessing, I'd say I was under 2.

reply to post by pharaohmoan


funny stories :]...

Being carried up to the window in the hospital to look at my brother who had just been born and was in the nursery.

I was about 17 months old.