How far back can you remember?

What's your earliest memory and how old were you when you had it?

I think I have memories of moving from a certain home into another, which happened when I was about 2 years old, but actually I'm not sure...I could simply have been told about it later and reconstructed the event in my mind. The earliest memories of which I am certain are probably from about age 3 or 4.

Curious how far back you can remember, and with what degree of specificity...some people claim, true or not, to even remember their births.

I have two memories from the age of two. From then, it jumps until the age of four.

Age of two:
1) Sitting on my porch, on the hand-rail under the supervision of my mother and falling off the porch backwards landing on my face, miraculously. But it was still very traumatic.
2) Being in the front room of my house and watching my uncle spin a basketball on his fore-finger. (to this day, I am a basketball player... go figure)

Age of four:
Riding a bicycle for the first time. I learned by being pushed down a hill in the back yard.
Balance or fall!

About two years old. I have vague memories of the house we lived in and one clearer memory of climbing down from a high bed that I had fell asleep on.

I've tried to remember farther back but so far nothing really comes to mind.

23 months old. I was standing---yes, standing----in the front seat of a 1960 Ford pickup next to my grandpa who was visibly shaken over the news over the old A.M radio that JFK had been killed in Dallas. I remember the scene clearly.

reply to post by Clark Savage Jr.



2nd line



Warnings for one-line or short responses

[edit on 28/1/10 by masqua]

I was just past one year old. A giant tiger was purring and rubbing me. I reached out to pet the tiger and started at the tail. My great aunt said, "No, no, dear. Always pet the way the fur grows," as she took my hand and placed it on the tiger's head and moved my hand to the tail.

Ok. The tiger was merely a house cat, but when you're one and just learned to walk, a cat is HUGE! LOL!

I remember my first memory.

I was 3 or 4, I woke up in my room, and I smelled breakfast.

I remembered thinking to myself that this was my first memory. (Weird)

I was filled with a sense of.... wonder.

I thought that it was strange that I already knew words, and things, and objects, despite the fact that this was my first memory.

-Edrick

I was a little over 2 years old.

It was my big brothers first day of school.

I was standing in the kitchen, wearing those pajamas with feet. I was next to the cabinet that had the kitchen sink but that was much higher than my head.

I was sad that I couldn't go where my big brother was going.

reply to post by Edrick


Sounds like a lucid dream.
Cool.

Apparently, I remember very specific family events that occurred before I was born.

I know, psychologists would say that I have manufactured these memories based on my overhearing family conversations when I was a very small child. But no, that's not the case.

My memory is incredibly intact, going back all the way to the hospital maternity ward. I recall my describing the maternity ward to my mother once, many decades ago, recounting exquisite details, and she was flabbergasted. I described the green tile walls, the number of other babies in the ward, the attending nurses, the feeding rituals, etc. She agreed that there was no way anyone could know such details without being there.

Those are very clear memories.

Another very clear memory I have is of seeing my father on crutches, with his left leg in a plaster cast all the way to his hip, carrying his own suitcase, as he entered our house. I saw my older brother and sisters run to him, shouting and squealing, I saw my mother take the suitcase from his hand, scolding him as she did so. I saw my father hobble to his bedroom, toss the crutches to the foot of the bed, and recline on the bed, calling to my mother for his pain pills.

I described this incident to my mother, as well, when I was still a small child, and I remember the expression on her face. She was horrified.

See, the event I had described happened in early 1959, 7 months before I was born.

My father had been involved in an industrial accident that nearly ripped his foot off, tore all of the muscles in his calf away from their tendons, and he had spent a month in the hospital undergoing repeated reconstructive surgeries. When he finally returned home, there was a great deal of rejoicing — believe it or not, he was back at work full time in the steel mill within a year of the accident.

Anyway, my mom — a devout Christian — was horrified to hear her little boy describing an incident that happened months before he was born, and describing it in such vivid detail.

The only explanation is that I, a 2-month-old fetus, had somehow seen and heard something through my mother's own senses. That doesn't explain how I saw her, as well, at a distance, scolding my dad and assisting him to his room.

It was as though I was disembodied from her, as though I was a separate entity there, watching them.

My mother was often creeped out by things I said as a little kid. Once, when I was 5-years-old, we were all out on a rural roadside picking blackberries, and I piped up and frankly asked her, "Momma, remember when I was grown up and you and Pam & Deb (my older sisters) were little kids, and I took you to pick flowers?"

She laughed and said, no, she didn't remember that.

Then I started giving her details, trying to help her remember. She became very nervous and told me to quit talking and go sit down in the car.



— Doc Velocity




[edit on 1/28/2010 by Doc Velocity]

reply to post by Doc Velocity


Wow, at times you actually seem to be pretty open-minded.
That's cool.

That is an amazing story!
Universal consciousness is something that I believe should be studied more indepth.
Unfortunately, it is not something most Christians will even consider, unless they are glorifying their own self-worth.

Ergo, it is a lost pursuit in today's culture.
Fascinating story!

I was about 16 - 18 months old and walking around a glass coffee table (using it to balance) I fell and hit my head on the table and cried, my mother was there and comforted me.

My mother couldn’t believe that i remembered that "you where just a baby, how can you remember that?" she said!

I even described the wallpaper (horrible 1970's orange and yellow flower wallpaper) and the fact that it was a warm summers day... hehe

After that i have a lot of memories of my childhood... I was very fortunate to be blessed with a happy one

Originally posted by JayinAR
Universal consciousness is something that I believe should be studied more indepth.
Unfortunately, it is not something most Christians will even consider, unless they are glorifying their own self-worth.

"Most Christians" aren't true Christians, they just wear the jersey on Sunday morning while living a completely different philosophy the rest of the time.

I went from growing up in a strict, down-South Christian family to being a God-hating, science-loving atheist for many years, and it was only through numerous and otherwise inexplicable life experiences that I arrived at an acceptance of Universal consciousness.

Only after I woke up to Universal consciousness did I even consider going back to explore Christianity — whereupon I realized that the two are inextricably connected. The religion is just a primitive attempt to describe something so vast and mind-blowing that most people simply don't get it... So they settle on the religion without pursuing its deeper meaning.

Sorry for briefly derailing the thread. Won't happen again.

— doc Velocity

reply to post by Doc Velocity


Agreed.
You know, your story reminds me a lot of my own.
If only we could get the rest of the Xters on board who enjoy the idea of bombing Muslims because they disagree. Ya, know?

Anyhow, I doubt if this is off-topic. The idea here, and if I'm mistaken OP let me know please, is to explore these memories and see how they fit in with our current condition.

I guess I was still a few months old, very young, not exactly sure. But I remember waking up in my crib leaning up and looking out the window at the full moon that lit the whole room, and wondered "What am I doing here?"

reply to post by brad1717



Second line.

Jk..

Are you serious? At the age of just a few months you asked yourself the meaning of life?

(that is not a shot response, damnit)

I was a baby, with a pacifier in my mouth. probably less than one year, and my dad was standing over me, i raised my eye brows and then he did as well, which made me laugh.

Its one of my most clearest memories, ever sience i was 4 i think about it.

I think that would have to be my youngest. to tell you the truth, i don't really remember much after that. i barely remember anything now. time is weird.

[edit on 28-1-2010 by gandhi]

You know, there's the old cliché, "Everybody remembers where they were when JFK was assassinated"... And it's true, everybody who was alive and aware at the time of JFK's death remembers... But that applies to any traumatic event, I think.

In my case, I was 3-years-old, and I had no idea who JFK was, his demise held little or no meaning for me. However, I remember the moment they announced the assassination on TV, because my mother — who had been vacuuming the carpet — switched off the vacuum and sat down, sobbing.

I was playing in the living room, jumping up and down on the sofa, looking at myself in a large mirror hanging above the sofa. Seeing my own face appear and disappear between jumps was enormously amusing. When I heard my mother sobbing, I thought I had done something wrong, and I stopped jumping. I sat down quietly and said nothing as she cried... Then the phone rang, and she answered it, still crying. Word of the assassination was spreading like wildfire.

I remember that day as just one more memory, not because JFK meant anything to me; although, by the time I was 6-years-old, I had become something of a JFK conspiracy expert. I knew all the details, I could recite the names of everybody involved in the case, and I subsequently became an expert on the Abraham Lincoln assassination, as well...which was pretty horrifying to my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Gregg.

Normal kids don't know things like this. Not at 6 years of age.

So, looking back, I'm certain that was the beginning of my fascination with conspiracy theory... No doubt it's the reason I'm an ATS member today.

— Doc Velocity

I think I remember feelings when in my mothers womb. My mother smoked and drank when she was pregnant with me.

The feelings I remember have a graphic content. I believe when she smoked I saw/felt a jagged rocky inhospitable landscape.

When she drank, a smooth, easy, glassy, almost liquid feeling/looking place.

I remember little of my early childhood except fear of violence that was everpresent.

My earliest memory was when i was 3 years old and i feel off some steps. it left a scare right below my nose going vertical. it is still very visible to this day and when i wear my manly mustache it looks like I'm sporting a o so fashionable Hitler mustache....

as you can tell it is still very traumatizing to this day.