Ask Lemmy

64kB RAM in Commodore 64 😋

1992; I'm two years old, and having an absolute blast running through the sheets my mom had put up out on the clothesline.

About a decade ago my mom and I were talking about early memories. It turns out she happened to have a disposable camera on her at the time, and there's pictures of me, joyfully forming my earliest memory as a toddler.

I'm not sure how old I am, maybe three or four. It's the only memory I have from the first place my parents lived in. I'm outside the garage and I've got a hammer.

My mother is smashing computer components and I'm "helping". I remember being so fascinated with what they were and how they worked. I was particularly enthralled by what I now recognize were the internals of a hard drive. The platter is just so shiny! This memory sparks a long term interest in computers.

Later I'd learn my father had been caught consuming particularly violent BDSM pornography.

Laying in a crib crying while there was a full moon. I legit can't tell if it was a lucid dream.

I was 6 months old when I saw my mom and dad fishing. My mom caught a snapping turtle and freaked out, so my dad pick up a stick and beat it.

Only reason I know how old I was because I was telling a friend the story when my mom chime in asked that how could I remember that I was only a baby and left on a blanket while they fished.

Yet I do and can see it clearly to this day. What sucks is I can clearly and vividly see all my past memories to that point even the bad shit.

My first conscious memory is of me gaining consciousness at age 3 or so. Everything before that are visual or tactile memories that are difficult to describe.

Anyway, when I had children myself, I suddenly remembered a lot more of those. Things that I never knew that I remembered somehow got recalled by watching my own child do the same things. So at age 40 I vividly and weirdly remembered what it's like to be standing in a crib, holding and twisting the bannisters.

Tactile memories are weird. I've always enjoyed coming to my grandparents house later in life, because of the way the handles on the cupboards feel just the way they're supposed to.

I can recall being in the cot under the window in my parents room, but there is nothing else attached to that memory.

I can also very clearly recall being put onto the floor in the back of my dad's dark blue side opening van, which had an orange tinted skylight, and crawling across the corrugated floor panel to pull myself up against the wheel arch - since this was evidently before i could walk - whilst my parents were talking just outside, and the van itself was parked across the road from the entrance to our garden.

However, apparently my dad never owned a van of that type, nor anything like it, and nor did anyone that either of my parents or my - significantly older - siblings are aware of. So despite the clarity and detail of that memory, I have doubts that it is at all real.

I have a few memories that could be it, but they have no timestamps. I don't know how early they are. Could be me sitting on potty in living room in the doorway, looking at TV where my dad was reading something on Telext of channel 1 (recognizable by the orange bar on top).

I remember being small enough that I took baths in the kitchen sink. And I remember exactly how uncomfortable that was.

Earliest I can date is reading a newspaper about a significant event when I was not quite 4. I remember having to ask my mother for help with some of the words. I think I have earlier memories than that - like my mother teaching me to read, but I can't tie them to a specific time.

I was probably 3, i remember walking up to my great grandpa, who was seated, and putting my hands on his knees. My mom asking me if I knew who he was and i was like “yup, that’s grandpa Jim”.

I've got a memory from pre-k where I was basically refusing to participate in nap time and got kicked out of class and ultimately kicked out of Pre-K entirely. I don't remember a lot of the details but I do remember not wanting to take a and then getting kicked out to go to the toddler daycare room something like that

Earliest one I can actually put a date on is my first day of kindergarten. I remember the other kids doing some sort of crafting project outside. Other memories may or may not be earlier, hard to tell.

I remember my first brother coming home after being born. My mom said I could go in the room and look in the crib but not to say anything, he was sleeping. I leaned down and said his name - I was one and a half years old. I know this is a real memory as nobody was there, nobody told me this happened.

Then nothing I remember until my 3rd birthday, I remember the depressing zoo birthday, and then remember learning to read (sort of- I was 3 and memorized a short book, claimed I could read, but after that just could read, pretty much anything - so I don't remember the actual learning, however it happened, just that book, pretending to read it and that felt like it magically unlocked all books, it was remarkable and memorable).

That's about all my memories until 5 years old, but after 5 it's still just a few memories, even now I'd say just a few memories per year just a whole lot more years.

I can remember learning to see in three dimensions - that what I was seeing was objects in space rather than simply different colored patches on a flat background. I think it was a big mistake because my vision has always been shit. Something clicked before it should have.

I was in my crib, holding the spindles and looking between them at the room around me.

I was 2.5 years old.

Can recall with precise detail where I was, with who, on which situation and even what clothing everyone, including me, was wearing.

An added note:

Memory development is tied with the development of language capabilities. This means the earlier one becomes capable of speech, the earlier conscious memories start to set.

I remember playing with a wire controlled car when I was about 3. It was a battery powered f1 style red car and it had yellow bumper wheels on the corners to allow it to not get stuck when it hit a wall. It had a 'remote' that was connected to the car by a short cable. It had 2 buttons, one to go forwards and one to go backwards. It could go straight backwards but it would go in a circle forwards. It had been a gift from my aunt and uncle and my father stepped on it to break it because it bothered him.

Second memory, I'm walking into the yard on a summer evening. I open the gate, look up, and then towards the entrance door. The fence is green but the paint is chipping because it crumbles under my fingers. The sky is all sunset colors; blue, purple, orange, and the sun is blocked by the great big apricot tree between the house and the garage.

I remember my mom sitting at the piano, feeling awe, and telling her she must be a zillion years old

It might be a false memory because how tf would I know the word "zillion" at that age

I remember being in the bathroom with my aunt when I was a little shy of turning 4.

She had been staying with us to help my mom with the kids, but had to leave the country as her temporary visa was expiring. I had grown quite attached to her, and the morning she left, she took pity on me and let me follow her around everywhere. Even into the bathroom. I also remember being at the airport and watching her plane take off. But my mom said it took weeks for me to accept that she was really gone and I kept looking for her around the apartment. I don't remember that part.

Today, she lives a few hours away from me at nursing home. I plan to visit her around the new year.

Back when I was 4 I was stuck to the 220 mains because 4 year old me was quite the idiot. My earliest memories were from the months after that where I’d have waking nightmares constantly. Like some AR horror game would suddenly take over and I’d just see this horror scene play out while I was just walking around the house during the day. It wasn’t anything super gruesome, but it was also by no means pleasant.

I was like 3. We were moving into a new home, my brother and I are sitting on the front steps and the driveway is just gravel and rebar, no concrete yet.

Nothing special about it, just a memory of sitting there with my older brother on a warm day. I'd bet we went to the park afterwards but can't recall.

I have vague memory of the house before that. The curtains in my room for some reason. Nothing particular, just them moving in the wind. .

The brain is weird.

I was 3 and I was sitting on the floor at my grandparent's house. My mom and her mom were hugging and crying because my grandpa had recently passed away.

I remember walking around in the backyard during a party my parents were having. I couldn't have been more than 3, since I had no siblings yet. It's a super vague, and weird memory of basically nothing but one that has stuck with me since as long as I can remember.

I have a fair few from when I was very young, but mostly indescribable feelings like specific textures/sights etc. However, the first meaningful memory I had was waking up on holiday in some kind of resort (I believe I was 3, like most other people posting here) and I screamed, not knowing where I was in the middle of the night. If I recall correctly, my parents had carried me from the car straight to the bed in the hotel room.

My older sister shouting at me for getting a math problem wrong. I think i was 3 or 4?

Going to school for the first time.

My earliest really solid memory was getting our first dog when I was about 3-4 years old. I remember odd bits and pieces from before then, but that's probably the earliest thing I can conjur up in any significant detail. Things before that are just kind of brief flashes and glimpses with no real context, glimpses of preschool, Christmas, playing with different toys, etc. but I remember the days leading up to bringing her home very well, my mom finding a classified ad in the newspaper, she was advertised as a chocolate lab (she was white and gold, and maybe there was lab in her mix somewhere but that wouldn't have been my first guess, didn't matter once we met her, she meshed right into our family like she'd always been part of it)

Interestingly it's also my sister's earliest memory, she would have been about 2, so definitely a very important moment in both of our lives.

I have handful of memories when I was probably 4 years old. Not sure which one was the earliest but my favorite one is my grandpa and I walking to the beach and passing by a wall of little white flowers that smelled really nice. I wish I knew what those flowers were.

No idea at what age it was, but I remember refusing to get into a car my dad just bought because the new car could not "fly" like the old one. Quite the fantasy.

Eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich by a window when I was 2 years old. I have a few memories from when I was two.

all my memories pre-primary school (elementary school), i am convinced i just made up, as they are too foggy.

Pressing my face against a glass door and feeling how cold it was and seeing the outside world.