Hi folks.

I am interested in graphing some stats although the group here is less than sssf.

Trying to get an estimate of the average age for first recallable memories. By that I mean the average age of the group we have here for first memory.

For me and according to my mother my first memory was for around 18 months old ie I remember what I was doing and she remembers what age I was then.

Can any of you recall your earliest memory?

3 years 5 months old

Sitting in the back of the family’s green Austin going to one hospital to get mum and another to pick up my newborn sister. This one might be tainted by adult conversations, but I do remember sitting in the car and Dad talking to me about the baby.

Later that day I have very clear memories of sitting in the kitchen at home and someone put the baby in my arms. I remember thinking – I should drop her and all the bad stuff will go away, but I also thought “someone will notice”, so I didn’t drop her.

My mother’s pregnancy with my sister had been a drama and obviously this had been picked up by me, but my thoughts at the time are very much mine :/

monkey skipper said:

Hi folks.

I am interested in graphing some stats although the group here is less than sssf.

Trying to get an estimate of the average age for first recallable memories. By that I mean the average age of the group we have here for first memory.

For me and according to my mother my first memory was for around 18 months old ie I remember what I was doing and she remembers what age I was then.

Can any of you recall your earliest memory?

No, I can’t recall my earliest memory.

Lying on my back on a black marbletop table having my nappy changed. My mother tells me the table was broken by my older sister and our then-neighbour’s eldest son (and they stopped using it) before my first birthday.

btm said:

monkey skipper said:

Hi folks.

I am interested in graphing some stats although the group here is less than sssf.

Trying to get an estimate of the average age for first recallable memories. By that I mean the average age of the group we have here for first memory.

For me and according to my mother my first memory was for around 18 months old ie I remember what I was doing and she remembers what age I was then.

Can any of you recall your earliest memory?

No, I can’t recall my earliest memory.

Lying on my back on a black marbletop table having my nappy changed. My mother tells me the table was broken by my older sister and our then-neighbour’s eldest son (and they stopped using it) before my first birthday.

I would say the first year of life at least it seems logically.

kii said:

3 years 5 months old

Sitting in the back of the family’s green Austin going to one hospital to get mum and another to pick up my newborn sister. This one might be tainted by adult conversations, but I do remember sitting in the car and Dad talking to me about the baby.

Later that day I have very clear memories of sitting in the kitchen at home and someone put the baby in my arms. I remember thinking – I should drop her and all the bad stuff will go away, but I also thought “someone will notice”, so I didn’t drop her.

My mother’s pregnancy with my sister had been a drama and obviously this had been picked up by me, but my thoughts at the time are very much mine :/

That is interesting Kii because your memory had stress connections.

I was helping to find our family pet that was missing and I suppose I was stressed at the thought she would not be found.

monkey skipper said:

btm said:

monkey skipper said:

Hi folks.

I am interested in graphing some stats although the group here is less than sssf.

Trying to get an estimate of the average age for first recallable memories. By that I mean the average age of the group we have here for first memory.

For me and according to my mother my first memory was for around 18 months old ie I remember what I was doing and she remembers what age I was then.

Can any of you recall your earliest memory?

No, I can’t recall my earliest memory.

Lying on my back on a black marbletop table having my nappy changed. My mother tells me the table was broken by my older sister and our then-neighbour’s eldest son (and they stopped using it) before my first birthday.

I would say the first year of life at least it seems logically.

I had to Google the date but the memory was of the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney harbour, mid 1942.

monkey skipper said:

kii said:

3 years 5 months old

Sitting in the back of the family’s green Austin going to one hospital to get mum and another to pick up my newborn sister. This one might be tainted by adult conversations, but I do remember sitting in the car and Dad talking to me about the baby.

Later that day I have very clear memories of sitting in the kitchen at home and someone put the baby in my arms. I remember thinking – I should drop her and all the bad stuff will go away, but I also thought “someone will notice”, so I didn’t drop her.

My mother’s pregnancy with my sister had been a drama and obviously this had been picked up by me, but my thoughts at the time are very much mine :/

That is interesting Kii because your memory had stress connections.

I was helping to find our family pet that was missing and I suppose I was stressed at the thought she would not be found.

Yep. It’s interesting for me because my brother was born before my sister. I was weened off the breast at 9 months because of that pregnancy. He arrived when I was 18mths old. I have no memories of that sibling arrival.

My first memory is a vague one of being at my grandmother’s home. She lives in Sydney where I was born and though I don’t know exactly when we moved to Darwin but do know that my next sibling was born 2 years after myself in Darwin. I think I was walking at the point of the memory but still with L plates. There is also a memory of being shown an empty city bus around this point. Next memory is being in the caravan I fell out of in Darwin after I climbed over the barricade that had been put across the door.

My first memory was being forced to take some medication. I had tried to hide behind the door in my room beside my cot but it didn’t work. It was very distressing.

Tamb said:

monkey skipper said:

btm said:

No, I can’t recall my earliest memory.

Lying on my back on a black marbletop table having my nappy changed. My mother tells me the table was broken by my older sister and our then-neighbour’s eldest son (and they stopped using it) before my first birthday.

I would say the first year of life at least it seems logically.

I had to Google the date but the memory was of the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney harbour, mid 1942.

Oops, meant to say that would have made me out 18 months old.

Tamb said:

monkey skipper said:

btm said:

No, I can’t recall my earliest memory.

Lying on my back on a black marbletop table having my nappy changed. My mother tells me the table was broken by my older sister and our then-neighbour’s eldest son (and they stopped using it) before my first birthday.

I would say the first year of life at least it seems logically.

I had to Google the date but the memory was of the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney harbour, mid 1942.

People forget this event ( I think)

Tamb said:

Tamb said:

monkey skipper said:

I would say the first year of life at least it seems logically.

I had to Google the date but the memory was of the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney harbour, mid 1942.

Oops, meant to say that would have made me out 18 months old.

Was the memory scary or confronting. I remember Cyclone Tracey and the feeling of every quiet and solemnises as the images of Darwin were being shown on our BW Pye TV.

monkey skipper said:

Tamb said:

monkey skipper said:

I would say the first year of life at least it seems logically.

I had to Google the date but the memory was of the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney harbour, mid 1942.

People forget this event ( I think)

I often mention it to WWII buffs here. I find them trawling through the History section of the newsstand looking for WWII magazines. I just casually say: So…..do you know about the invasion of Sydney Harbour in WWII by Japanese subs?

monkey skipper said:

Tamb said:

Tamb said:

I had to Google the date but the memory was of the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney harbour, mid 1942.

Oops, meant to say that would have made me out 18 months old.

Was the memory scary or confronting. I remember Cyclone Tracey and the feeling of every quiet and solemnises as the images of Darwin were being shown on our BW Pye TV.

I don’t remember it being scary, more like interesting. Probably the family were alarmed but I don’t remember if they were or not.

kii said:

monkey skipper said:

Tamb said:

I had to Google the date but the memory was of the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney harbour, mid 1942.

People forget this event ( I think)

I often mention it to WWII buffs here. I find them trawling through the History section of the newsstand looking for WWII magazines. I just casually say: So…..do you know about the invasion of Sydney Harbour in WWII by Japanese subs?

Don’t know if it’s still there but there was one on exhibit at the Canberra war museum.

I have no idea what my earliest memory is. I don’t seem to keep them in order. They sometimes just pop up. But trying to recall things doesn’t work.

Earliest age under 1 years and then ranging to 3 years & 5 months.

I don’t have any exact dates for my first memories, but I think they are from the last year before starting school, so age 4+.

Absolutely no idea.

The Rev Dodgson said:

I don’t have any exact dates for my first memories, but I think they are from the last year before starting school, so age 4+.

You just changed the figure’s range from ( -1 to 3 years & 5 mths ) to ( -1 to 4 +) typical engineer.

Spiny Norman said:

Absolutely no idea.

Maybe you were or transported via light beam to your location without memories!

monkey skipper said:

Spiny Norman said:

Absolutely no idea.

Maybe you were or transported via light beam to your location without memories!

Or his system is set to auto-clean error reports and caching……

Buffy and Bill are in the group of not discernible memories’ group then.

monkey skipper said:

Buffy and Bill are in the group of not discernible memories’ group then.

Very much so for me – My memory can be a very strange place.

Spiny Norman said:

monkey skipper said:

Buffy and Bill are in the group of not discernible memories’ group then.

Very much so for me – My memory can be a very strange place.

Each person has a niche to fill. :)

I have a memory of looking at my mother while lying in my cot, just home from hospital that one but the first real memory is trying to lift up log in the front yard and mum telling me I’d hurt myself and Spot the dog was there too.
I’d say about 2 years old at most.

I wouldn’t be able to put a figure to it. I have various preschool memories but can’t quote an exact age.

Racking my brain to think of what is the earliest I can remember, first I can think of was october ’89 at age 8, no real clear memories from before that

stumpy_seahorse said:

Racking my brain to think of what is the earliest I can remember, first I can think of was october ’89 at age 8, no real clear memories from before that

That’s an advanced age for an earliest memory.

stumpy_seahorse said:

Racking my brain to think of what is the earliest I can remember, first I can think of was october ’89 at age 8, no real clear memories from before that

k

Bubblecar said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

Racking my brain to think of what is the earliest I can remember, first I can think of was october ’89 at age 8, no real clear memories from before that

That’s an advanced age for an earliest memory.

Aye.

My first memory was of around the time I had a cut on my big toe that would get irritated when I walked on grass. There are photos from this occasion and they might have aided me in remembering this time.

Phil_C said:

Aye.

My first memory was of around the time I had a cut on my big toe that would get irritated when I walked on grass. There are photos from this occasion and they might have aided me in remembering this time.

I was between 2 and 3 years old at the time.

stumpy_seahorse said:

Racking my brain to think of what is the earliest I can remember, first I can think of was october ’89 at age 8, no real clear memories from before that

The range changes from (-1 to 4+) to (-1 to 8)

Phil_C said:

Bubblecar said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

Racking my brain to think of what is the earliest I can remember, first I can think of was october ’89 at age 8, no real clear memories from before that

That’s an advanced age for an earliest memory.

Aye.

My first memory was of around the time I had a cut on my big toe that would get irritated when I walked on grass. There are photos from this occasion and they might have aided me in remembering this time.

there’s a few photos of me at an earlier age, but I have no clear memory of those occasions

I was a highwayman…

AwesomeO said:

I was a highwayman…

and I’ll never smoke weed with Willie again…

mine’d be callin’ out to wally dog walkin’ out the paddock when a toddler, he turned around and headed home. I was walkin’ out to see dad maybe 1.5 kilometres away, he was rippin’ up a paddock. I also remember being delerious onetime (similar age maybe, flu or something) walking from the shed back to the old stone house.

I got around a bit, onetime dad was working on top of a grain silo (~5 metres high) and toddler transition in a nappy comes across the top the silo, yeah climped that ladder all way to the top for a hello they tell me. Near give daddy a heart attack.

must’ve liked freakin’ him out, ‘nother time he took off from the house in his ute goin’ out the very back of the farm’n got out of the ute to open a gate and there’s little me sittin’ on the tailgate. This event maybe I vaguely recall, because I remember doin’ that trip once and the sensation was hangin’ on for my life. Quite a distance down the road and he wasn’t given to driving slow. I might’ve anticipated he was only drivin’ to the shed. Anyway it felt fucken dangerous’n I had an idea he had not a clue of me sittin’ on the tailgate.

i’m fairly sure I do remember something of that trip on the tailgate of the ute, doing the entire trip backwards looking at the road passing by underneath and trees going by, hanging onto the diagonal hinge thing that supports the tailgate.

transition said:

i’m fairly sure I do remember something of that trip on the tailgate of the ute, doing the entire trip backwards looking at the road passing by underneath and trees going by, hanging onto the diagonal hinge thing that supports the tailgate.

Sounds like several years of living dangerously.

monkey skipper said:

Can any of you recall your earliest memory?

My my mother is long gone but I still have the video in my head of being taught how to use the potty.

I think childhood memories are greatly influenced by recollections of the parents that are told to young children, who upon hearing an instance when they were younger, will over time, incorporate that into their memory as a factual recall, although in reality they had no true memory of it happening.

PermeateFree said:

I think childhood memories are greatly influenced by recollections of the parents that are told to young children, who upon hearing an instance when they were younger, will over time, incorporate that into their memory as a factual recall, although in reality they had no true memory of it happening.

That’s pretty much been proven to be tha case in most instances though I definitely have carried that vision in my head my whole life and there’s no way my mother would ever have mentioned it to me.

PermeateFree said:

I think childhood memories are greatly influenced by recollections of the parents that are told to young children, who upon hearing an instance when they were younger, will over time, incorporate that into their memory as a factual recall, although in reality they had no true memory of it happening.

Sometimes it’s the other way around. For example, one of my Xmas presents when I was five was a Marx battery-powered Dalek. My parents decided to give it to me on Xmas Eve, and as I came down the stairs that morning they surprised me with it, letting it charge down the hallway towards me while Dad hid behind a door and called out “I AM A DALEK!” in a metallic voice.

But decades later, my parents remembered this as the Dalek itself speaking. I had to tell them that the Marx Daleks couldn’t talk and it was Dad doing the voice.

roughbarked said:

PermeateFree said:

I think childhood memories are greatly influenced by recollections of the parents that are told to young children, who upon hearing an instance when they were younger, will over time, incorporate that into their memory as a factual recall, although in reality they had no true memory of it happening.

That’s pretty much been proven to be tha case in most instances though I definitely have carried that vision in my head my whole life and there’s no way my mother would ever have mentioned it to me.

Freud had a bit to say about that..

lookup “childhood amnesia”

Sometimes these records are unreliable because people conflate what they’ve been told with what they remember.

I am fairly sure that I really remember being severely burned in the bath when I was about three. I know the event happened and I have a memory of burnt, red, peeling skin.

dv said:

Sometimes these records are unreliable because people conflate what they’ve been told with what they remember.

I am fairly sure that I really remember being severely burned in the bath when I was about three. I know the event happened and I have a memory of burnt, red, peeling skin.

I was, too, at about the same age. The burn (second-degree, on my lower left leg) was bad enough that I had to see the doctor, and have some medication-soaked fabric applied under a bandage every day. I still remember being burnt, and the wound being dressed and bandaged, too, for several days afterwards.

monkey skipper said:

Hi folks.

I am interested in graphing some stats although the group here is less than sssf.

Trying to get an estimate of the average age for first recallable memories. By that I mean the average age of the group we have here for first memory.

For me and according to my mother my first memory was for around 18 months old ie I remember what I was doing and she remembers what age I was then.

Can any of you recall your earliest memory?

I have four answers to that.

1. False memory recovered under influence of hypnosis. Birth. I went through a “rebirthing exercise” and recalled my birth, but that would have been a false memory, created at the time of hypnosis to fill a memory void.

2. Memory of a memory of a memory. My earliest memory of a memory of a memory is running through the corridor of a house that I visited when very young. I was about two years old at the time.

3. Current earliest memory. Very difficult to distinguish between a true memory and a memory of a memory (or of a photograph, documentary evidence). The earliest thing I can remember that I’ve never remembered before is – allow me a minute or so of thought. 26 Apr 2016.

4. “I’ve seen/heard that before” type memory. For example recalling a tune that I haven’t heard for a long time. I can know that I’ve heard a tune or seen an image before even if I haven’t seen or heard it since high school and probably much longer. This is the sort of memory that allows me to remember tunes, words, letters, pictures and mathematical methods long after I’ve forgotten the context in which I encountered them.

We lived in Malaya from the time I was 2.5 till 5 .
I have a few mental images from there and vague memories , but I’ve often wondered if they are photographs I’ve seen and I’m making them memories.

Funnily enough I have never forgotten a half dozen words in Malay I learnt over there . Mum and Dad also use to claim I learnt Chinese from our Arm-ah quicker than English from Mum. Never remembered a word of Chinese though.

Brett

Thomo said:

We lived in Malaya from the time I was 2.5 till 5 .
I have a few mental images from there and vague memories , but I’ve often wondered if they are photographs I’ve seen and I’m making them memories.

Funnily enough I have never forgotten a half dozen words in Malay I learnt over there . Mum and Dad also use to claim I learnt Chinese from our Arm-ah quicker than English from Mum. Never remembered a word of Chinese though.

Brett

I remember my first day at school vividly, it was the most traumatic day of my life.
It was prep-school actually and I was four years old in 1952, Queensland had just beaten WA by an innings and 102 runs.

Peak Warming Man said:

Thomo said:

We lived in Malaya from the time I was 2.5 till 5 .
I have a few mental images from there and vague memories , but I’ve often wondered if they are photographs I’ve seen and I’m making them memories.

Funnily enough I have never forgotten a half dozen words in Malay I learnt over there . Mum and Dad also use to claim I learnt Chinese from our Arm-ah quicker than English from Mum. Never remembered a word of Chinese though.

Brett

I remember my first day at school vividly, it was the most traumatic day of my life.
It was prep-school actually and I was four years old in 1952, Queensland had just beaten WA by an innings and 102 runs.

Jaysus, it must have nearly killed you having to wait another 42 years for them to win the shield.

> I remember my first day at school vividly

That would be a memory of a memory. Not a true memory.

For example, for my first day at primary school I remember that my parents asked me to remember my religion, which was presbyterian. I went to school that day worried that I couldn’t spell presbyterian, and was surprised and delighted that they not only didn’t ask me to spell presbyterian, they didn’t even ask me what my religion was. :-) A memory of a memory, not a true memory. I remember literally nothing from primary school days.

> 4. “I’ve seen/heard that before” type memory. For example recalling a tune that I haven’t heard for a long time. I can know that I’ve heard a tune or seen an image before even if I haven’t seen or heard it since high school and probably much longer. This is the sort of memory that allows me to remember tunes, words, letters, pictures and mathematical methods long after I’ve forgotten the context in which I encountered them.

For example, on 29 Apr 2016 the tour bus driver put on a collection of Australian folk tunes. For one of them “Ryebuck Shearer” I was immediately hit by the immense length of time since I had previously heard it. I knew all the tune and half the words perfectly but I had previously heard it so long ago that I couldn’t remember when, it’s hasn’t been on any radio station I’ve listened to in memory, I didn’t encounter it at the Tamworth Country Music Festival 15 years ago, or when I went looking for the folksong “Queensland Ladies” in the 1980s, I never learnt it in high school, and my parents never had a recording. So when did I learn it?

I can remember my sister being born; I was 3. I was in the waiting room watching Cliff Richard’s Wired for Sound while my dad wandered in out and of the room. I was supposed to stay with a neighbour but they’d gone away for Christmas. When my sister was born, my mum opened her bedside drawer and gave me a chocolate. I was more interested in the chocolate than I was with my new baby sister.

>3. Current earliest memory. Very difficult to distinguish between a true memory and a memory of a memory (or of a photograph, documentary evidence). The earliest thing I can remember that I’ve never remembered before is – allow me a minute or so of thought. 26 Apr 2016.

probably mostly memory is reconstruction, like the feelings help this, they generate context etc.