Poll of the Day > What's your first memory?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Usually when people ask this, I tell one of two stories:

Watching The Lion King for the first time in theaters, particularly when Mufasa dies.

And the night of my mother and step-father's wedding. While most the adults were getting drunk, doing cocaine, and partying me and two of my cousins were being babysat in one of the hotel rooms by one of my mom's friends. And we were ordering pizza! I wanted pepperoni and as the son of the people being married it seemed logical I should decide, but for whatever reason Hawaiian was suggested and that was what we got and this is the origin of my hate for pineapple on pizza.

I was four during both of these memories. My internal chronology says The Lion King happened first, but a calendar tells me the pizza night was first. Neither of these are my actual first memory. My actual first memory is two years earlier and I'm guessing the trauma of this memory accounts for the two year gap in memory forming.

My first memory is me, two years old, sitting on a couch and crying hysterically as my mother is brandishing a knife at me screaming "If you do it again I'm going to cut it off!" Part of her efforts in potty training after I had wet the bed. For years whenever I confronted my mother about this she would deny it happened. I started to feel crazy but it was such a strong and vivid memory. Until finally one day when I confronted her again she broke down crying and admitted that she had done it at the suggestion of my aunt (her brother's wife). Being gaslit by your parents sucks, but I was glad to finally have confirmation of my memory.

I was 2 and was waiting with my mom outside some place. I was sitting on one of those concrete slabs that is at the front of parking spaces sometimes. I remember that it was painted yellow. I was being a little butthole and talking back and my mom said something to me, I dont remember what, about remembering things and how people only have so much control over it.

I remember that it just made me mad so I focused on trying as hard as I could to remember that moment.

So I guess my earliest memory is me being an indignant little shit for no real reason.

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I don't really have any specific memories, I feel like one day things just sort of "faded in" for me. It's kind of a mindfuck to think about but I was too young to process how that really made me feel at the time. I wanna say the closest thing is like waking up from a deep but non-dreaming sleep, like you feel kinda weird but not like you are just entering life for the first time. The only specific thing I have about that memory is the old carpet we used to have, cause that got replaced pretty early in my childhood.

I was just googling about what age children can remember things and if I was reading right it said that some people can start to lose memories up until they hit around age 10? Wtf, I can remember tons of stuff from before that age

2 at a Chinese/Western Buffet. Anyone remember those booster seats you could flip to be a little taller or shorter? They had the rubber stoppers to keep them from sliding around. Well, one had come out and I saw a little hole. I stuck my finger in the little hole and it got stuck, and it hurt when I tried to pull it out.



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Being bored at some stupid early hour in the morning, unable to go back to sleep. So I climbed out of my crib and went to my folks' room to wake my mom up. I didn't know how to tell her I was bored and couldn't go to sleep, but I remember nudging her awake with one hand, and my mom, squinting and almost frowning, asked me what I was doing out of bed, and that it was 2:30, which had meant nothing to me at the time, but I still recall her saying it.

Then she got out of bed to put me back in my crib, and that's where my memory fades of that moment.

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My childhood dog opening Christmas presents.

My very first memory is barely a memory tbh. It's a memory of laying in the crib as an infant while my grandfather was laying on the bed next to the crib, he put his hand through the bars and I grabbed his finger. That's what the memory actually is, according to my family, but in my head all I see is really bright light coming through a window and a really dark shape that resembles a finger.

As for fully-formed memories it would be getting in trouble for stealing a deck of cards from kindergarten. I remember having to sit and write a sentence about sharing over and over and feeling very embarrassed.

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2 or just before, I think. My mom would sometimes go by a convenience store which had a drive-up window (a mom & pop, not a chain) to buy things. I'm pretty sure we were on our way home from my grandma's (she kept me while my mom was at work) because it was dark, and I remember being in my car seat and my mom laying a can of something in there with me.


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-Playing in the sandbox behind the house with our pet tortoise.

-Seeing my dad and being terrified of him. He was just changing a lightbulb, but just seeing him made me run and hide.

-Getting yelled at by our neighbor who was babysitting because my brother and their daughter were playing in the kiddie pool and I tried to get in. Guess I was too young.

I think that's the order of my earliest ones.

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Sitting on one of those walker things with wheels that trains kids to walk. The entire extended family was facing me and I had a view of all of them.

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I swear I remember getting my diaper changed on a picnic table by an older cousin. I remember being in my crib. I have no idea of the ages though. Probably 2ish?

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Crawling backwards down the stairs to the basement (this was before I could walk, or use stairs normally) and igniting things by sticking them in the furnace burner. Luckily the basement floor was bare concrete. There's also vague bits of things like Capcela construction toys and Space Invaders. We moved from that house when I was 2, so I couldn't have been older than that.

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mom yelling at me bc i was trying to help with groceries by re-loading stuff that we had paid for back into the grocery cart. i just put it right next to everything else and so she scanned a bunch of stuff twice

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I remember I had steak for dinner earlier this week. Not sure which day tho

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I remember for sure having chicken pox and according to my parents that was on my 1st birthday. I really feel like I was older but they insist I was only 1 but I remember it so clearly. So that would be my earliest

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i was about 3 and i was rocking really hard in this little wooden rocking chair we had, and then my mom told me to stop before i hurt myself

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Kanatteru posted...

i was about 3 and i was rocking really hard in this little wooden rocking chair we had, and then my mom told me to stop before i hurt myself

did you?!

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Probably at this one apartment I use to leave at. Either the first day at school, my birthday, or the time geese chased me and my God-sister...

ReturnOfFa posted...

Well, one had come out and I saw a little hole. I stuck my finger in the little hole and it got stuck, and it hurt when I tried to pull it out.

I stuck my finger in the hole that starch cans use to have, and it got stuck. So my grandma called the fire department to come cut it off...
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Mead posted...

did you?!

honestly i don't remember that far, but i also have a separate memory of accidentally pinching my finger in that same chair

i think my mom threw it out after that

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One of my earliest memories is sitting on my dad's lap while he drives to the store and it's snowing like a blizzard and there's Christmas lights everywhere.

I think I have a memory when I was an actual baby, but it's just lying on my back staring up at the ceiling and the walls are very tall. It's an odd memory that creeps up every once in a while throughout my life.

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Remember my first birthday vaguely. The only thing I remember is eating the cake.

Next vague memory is me at 3 in my grandparents basement at some party.

My memories don't become more refined until I'm 4 though.

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Walking to the movie theater at 4 to watch ET.

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growing up thinking i was white when i was actually half white and half mexican lol boy i learned that one the hard way. got spat on by another kid in our junior golf league

Holding my brother when he was born, I was 2 at the time

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Suppose what comes to my head first is around the age of five or so driving in the car with my brother and dad to pick up my little sister from my mums shithole of a home. I'm not joking. Her home at the time was covered in used nappies, sick, rubbish and many other gross things. My dad at the time was trying to get custody of my sister and thankfully did.

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I think it was when I was 3 or 4, I almost remember sort of seeing like a film reel of vague memories moving really fast until I woke up in bed I think maybe on the first day of school. They say you can't have memories before 3 or 4 years old but I distinctly remeber being bathed in the sink(it was big enough) when I was an infant.

JigsawTDC posted...

Usually when people ask this, I tell one of two stories

INTERESTING PSYCHOLOGY FACT:

Human memory tends to fade over time, but as we describe our memories to other people, we kind of reinforce them. But we're not actually strengthening the initial memory as much as we're creating a new memory of our description of the original memory.

In other words, at this point, for most of us, our first memories probably aren't really our first memories, as much as they are our memories of remembering those memories.
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Its like paint. You paint a house but then you eventually repaint the walls years later and the old paint fades and evaporates until the new paint is the only thing keeping the roof up.

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Either one of two things, can't remember which came first:

1) Having breakfast with my parents, and pouring a whole bottle of syrup on my father's pants.
2) Christmas 1986, I got my first wrist watch (which I hated and almost never wore) and a Cabbage Patch kid I named "buddy" who looked almost exactly like me. I carried that doll around everywhere with me for like the next 3 years.

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Speaking seriously, I have several tiny snippets of memories from when I was young, but I'm not sure I could really place them on a timeline. If I had to guess I would say my first memory is an image of myself watching dora the explorer as builders put in an addition to our house

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1) Hanging out in a wooden shed in the back of my parents house that had lodes of black widows everywhere.
2) Hiding from caregivers/parents at various points in time and scaring them half to death trying to find me.
3) Randomly, a terrible experience at a park where I got kicked by a person swinging and sent flying into a red ant hive.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

INTERESTING PSYCHOLOGY FACT:

Human memory tends to fade over time, but as we describe our memories to other people, we kind of reinforce them. But we're not actually strengthening the initial memory as much as we're creating a new memory of our description of the original memory.

In other words, at this point, for most of us, our first memories probably aren't really our first memories, as much as they are our memories of remembering those memories.

I get what your trying to say, but idk if I could agree with that characterization.

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I always tell people I remember waking up on my 4th birthday. But I dont know if it's a real memory or just something I conjured up in my head. My earliest solid memory I think that I know happened is when I was sitting in my room at some age around 5 or 6 probably and was thinking about space and how big it is and then screamed and freaked out

Greenfox111 posted...

dora the explorer

Well this makes me feel old

I remember there was a beeping then a ringing. I was in the hospital and 76 years old.

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JOExHIGASHI posted...

I remember there was a beeping then a ringing. I was in the hospital and 76 years old.

I think "76 years old" may be a typo LOL.

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DiScOrD tHe LuNaTiC posted...

I think "76 years old" may be a typo LOL.

I typed it correctly.

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Benjamin Button?
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Climbing out of a coffin.

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JOExHIGASHI posted...

I typed it correctly.

good job!

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Running around in my backyard naked refusing to be potty trained. I was like, 3 maybe?

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