8 ms·

I have distinct memories of when I was 2-3 y.o. that have astounded my parents. I was raised in Korea till I was about 3, then we all flew to Hawaii to immigra

I have distinct memories of when I was 2-3 y.o. that have astounded my parents. I was raised in Korea till I was about 3, then we all flew to Hawaii to immigrate to the U.S. I remember the flight, I remember my life in Korea, I remember going to the public spa's with my dad, I remember feeling ashamed of my nudity in front of many older folks around me. I told all of this to my parents later in life, and they were amazed. I even distinctly remember the time when I thought I was lost, being scared, walking through a tunnel only to emerge to find a statue of some Korean soldiers. My parents found me and took a picture of me pointing at that statue. I asked my mom about that time, and I said, "How did I get lost? I was scared." My mom said that they were following me from afar, making sure I didn't see them, and they wanted to see how I would explore the world. I've told people about this many times. And, people just can't or won't believe me. A history professor told me that this is impossible, because children can't remember anything before the age of 3. He was adamant about it, and completely dismissive of my claims. I think these kinds of pseudo-scientific research (you know, taking polls and applying statistics) should be taken with a grain of salt. One should NOT draw definitive conclusions from them.

mathattack 13y ago
There are always outliers. You should feel blessed!
crimsonalucard 13y ago
You're not the only person. I also remember things from around age 2 to 3. It all gets really blurry before that. Most people I know don't remember anything before 5.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jpeg_hero 13y ago
There was sort of research that showed that this happens more often in early immigration situations (ie person emigrates as a very young child and subsequently retains early childhood memories from their "home country") Fascinating
- peteretep 13y ago
  I moved countries at ages 3, 4, 5, and 6. Knowing that I can pin any image, sensation, or similar to a certain age really helps me identify the age I was at for those memories, where I'd probably just assume I'd been older, if that makes sense? If it happened in Bangkok, I was 3 or younger, the UK, 3-4, Malawai, 4-5 or Barbados, over 6. This makes it much much easier to know which memories I have from when I was < 3 (very few, but some), and 3-4.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  We didn't change countries but when I was one my parents moved from California to Lansing Michigan, then when I was three, to Saginaw, then when I was 5 to Battle Creek, then when I was 8 to Richfield, Utah. I don't remember California at all. I remember the Michigan cities all very distinctly. So I believe that research.
barrym 13y ago
I was 2.5 years old when my brother was born and I remember a lot about that night - being at home with my nan, what our curtains were like, how the room was laid out. What the hospital was like, the toy I was given, the fruit jellies that someone gave my mum. Everyone's always been surprised that I remember so much.
adventureloop 13y ago
I have several memories from before 3. The earliest I can pin down is my second birthday. I can distinctly remember the cake (Thunderbird 2) and running around, looking at the bon fire in our garden.
- Crito 13y ago
  The only very early memory that I can firmly date is visiting my mother in the hospital before or shortly after my brothers (twins) were born. That was when I was about 2.5 years old, judging by our ages/birthdays. Other than that, I've got nearly nothing. No solid memories that aren't possibly just reconstructions from photographs or stories until I was about 10 or 11.
mcherm 13y ago
I have rather poor childhood memories - I remember only a very few scattered scenes before about age 13. But I know exactly what my earliest memory was, probably because it was such a significant occasion. I was 3 years old and I remember being in the house and watching my mom come home. She'd been gone for a day or so and when she came back she had this new baby with her (my brother). I specifically remember her walking into the house: I was behind the sofa peering up at her as she walked in the door, and she had the baby. I was mostly just glad to have my mom back. Touching tale, here's where it gets interesting. I remember that, but later (over 30 years later) I discussed this with my parents. Turns out, I'd been left at a neighbor's house while my dad went to fetch her home. They got me afterward. I wasn't THERE to see her walk in. I'm not trying to suggest that your memories are not real. But memory is a strange thing. They do not work like photographs or audio recordings; instead memories are laid down in nerve connections and are refreshed by running through them again. It's sort of like having VHS tapes that are brittle: you keep the data by copying them over and over again. Having a photograph to refer to helps to cement it; having a story that goes with it helps you to repeat and thus remember it, and this can happen regardless (as in my case) of whether there was an accurate original "memory". So perhaps that is the source of your history professor's skepticism. Now, he is simply flat-out wrong to dismiss your claims out-of-hand. There is significant individual variation in early memories -- and there ARE some people who have memories from age 2 or 3. But the nature of memory itself is such that such having an early memory like that may not mean exactly what you think it means.
- jtheory 13y ago
  To be fair, your memory could be only slightly altered over time -- e.g., your dad fetched you home from the neighbors, told you to wait in the living room, and brought your mother (and baby down) from upstairs, so only the bit about the door was off. It's also possible that your parents' memory is off. :) Not that I'm disagreeing with your main points -- memories are subject to a strange game of telephone over the years. My own early childhood memories (all of childhood, really, and much of post-childhood as well) are pretty limited; I was under general anesthesia more than most kids (more than 5 times; less than 50; I can't remember), which apparently messes with memory. By contrast my wife has abundant and clear memories of much of her life, including early childhood; she's a writer. I'm sure her memories are reworked as much as anyone's, and inaccuracies are introduced; but the raw material is so obviously greater than what I have in my own head. Related tangent: she wrote a piece about navigating the unreliability of memory a couple of years ago: http://www.michiganquarterlyreview.com/2012/01/blue/ http://www.michiganquarterlyreview.com/2012/01/blue/
cglace 13y ago
All my memories that took place before the age of three are very hazy. Almost like a few snapshots of a moment. However, I can recall the way I felt during the memories very well.
beachstartup 13y ago
i remember being on a flight from asia when i was 18 months old. i ate jello for the first time on that flight, and remember the experience. it was green and cold. i've met some people have earlier memories that that. any 'limit' to memories sounds like pure bullshit to me.
- egillie 13y ago
  Definitely -- I remember being in the crib, the toys I had in my nursery, and even the color of the lamp! (All verified later by asking my parents, all from before I was a year old)
tedks 13y ago
>And, people just can't or won't believe me. It seems to me that not believing you is the right thing to do. Childhood amnesia is well-studied; false memories are equally well-studied and are easily formed; since the former is more probable than an exception to the latter, unless you have additional evidence (which you can't really produce), I have no reason to believe your claims. It's more probable that you reconstructed those memories from stories told by other people, even if you forgot hearing those stories before remembering the event, than that you're an exception to a well-studied and widely documented event. Cognitive psychology is hardly psuedo-science, and in this instance, there were no polls conducted. This was a longitudinal study that took considerable resources to conduct and involved a seemingly well-designed experimental test. The findings are entirely in line with what the rest of the data in the field suggests, so it shouldn't be controversial. There were no polls involved, either. It's frustrating to believe something that contradicts most available evidence, and it must be even more frustrating to not have a way to demonstrate the truth of such a belief. You'll notice that even this article doesn't claim that all memory prior to age 7 is irretrievably erased, and it's fully possible you truly have the memories you have -- but it's nonetheless improbable, and it isn't wrong to disbelieve you.
- crygin 13y ago
  Seriously. It's pretty funny to see a community that normally goes straight for the jugular on dismissing personal experience in favor of demands for data completely abandon that when it's /their/ personal experience being questioned (and, in this case, it's one of the few that we actually have great science on).
  - downer86 13y ago
    It's pretty funny to see one person claim dominion and authority over another person's inner state. We have as much proof that his memories are false as he might that they are true. The only position one can rightfully claim in this situation is agnostic skepticism. There is no certainty that his memories are false. After all, the primary form of evidence for any given memory is the verbal recounting of detailed information. Without language, there aren't many ways to externalize a memory. Whether one is describing the experience of a memory, or reciting a coached, scripted tale ...if all the facts are correct what hope is there of disproving a dyed-in-the-wool memory? Case in point: The drunkest I ever got was during a drinking game in college. I was black-out drunk. My memories are truncated about halfway through act one, and the next thing I honestly remember is waking up to the stench of my own vomit covered bed in my dorm room, but such an adventure it was for my roommates, and such a bardic tale it was for them to recount, over and over again, ad nauseum, that now, I too, can recite the tale, moment by moment from when I blacked out until I woke up. But, to the outsider, my recall seems accurate, and is vigorously affirmed by my roommates, and based on my ability to tell the story, a listener has no honest means of determining whether I was too drunk to remember or not. So, while I buy into the mechanisms for how OP's claims to memories could be false in that he is perhaps only remembering the plot of the story, and not the experience itself, I'm still open to believing OP's claim to certain vivid memories. I don't think childhood amnesia is a bottomless black pit from which nothing ever returns. Very obviously, certain aspects of learning must survive, and I think the keystones of our emotional development are indelible. Early traumatic experiences stay with people for very long periods of time. Being bullied, humiliation, loss of a pet. Those are foundational learning experiences. The detail of the bulk of our day-to-day experiences may get lost, but set pieces, scenes that perfectly encapsulate a profound learning experience are different from the tangential recall of banal routine. I think animals are wired to retain certain types of experiences, even from very young ages. The phenomenon of memory is not necessarily constrained by hard statistical numbers. At least that is my opinion. I'd offer up similar evidence of my own experiences, although I'm sure they'd be readily dismissed as subjective and unsubstantiated.
jvrossb 13y ago
I still hang out with many people I've known since I was 2/3. Seeing them basically every day at school for ~11 years helped keep those memories of when we were 2/3 fresh, I think. Seeing them now again The result is similar - I have very good memories of being 2-6, but for almost the opposite reason as you it seems. My childhood was incredibly continuous and yours was discontinuous. Maybe we're both flukes...
pygy_ 13y ago
How old were you when you acquired language (the ability to compose complete sentences)? My first memories date back to that time, when I was 18 months old. One of the first things I told my parents was that I didn't need diapers anymore. It was on the back seat of their car, on the passenger side (I remember the place, my mother was actually changing me after a long trip). It was on the road to holidays in Spain, and I have distinct memories of the topography of the apartment, the beach and the bay, and their relative positions. I also remember going out for a walk alone with my dad, between the white villas. We moved when I was four, and I also have several memories of the old house, including the full topography including furniture, a dark blue beach balloon, a harmless fall from the top of the staircase with a spherical vacuum cleaner, unrolling the toilet paper from the first floor to the ground floor because there wasn't any TP below... having the red toy car I had received as a reward for stopping sucking my thumb confiscated for relapsing. I also remember the feeling of my long wet hairs on my back when I was lying on the chest in the bathtub, with the head raised. I only had long hairs between 2 and 3.
- mililani 13y ago
  I was older. I distinctly remember struggling with English when we first moved to Hawaii. I could NOT talk to the other kids. I also remember my older cousins catching on much more quickly than me. I think I finally grasped English when I was about 4, when I started going to kindergarten. I believe you. One of our friends has a kid who is, I think, really smart. He's only a toddler (2 y.o.), but he is really talkative and has a good vocabulary. He could start talking before 2. I wouldn't be surprised if he has some recall of his toddler years. I will have to keep abreast of this as time goes by.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  > "It was on the road to holidays in Spain, and I have distinct memories of the topography of the apartment, the beach and the bay, and their relative positions. I also remember going out for a walk alone with my dad, between the white villas." That's funny. My eariest memories are of the topography of the apartment we were living at the time. I am not sure I could tell you what the parking lot looked like or how the apartments were around it, but I coudl tell you that we were on the second floor, that it had a brick facade, the sort of flooring used in every room, the color of the walls, and the all-important detail for a 2 year old: there was a TRAIN that ran by out back every day).
dhughes 13y ago
> And, people just can't or won't believe me. You need this: http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/ http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
codingdave 13y ago
I've also retained numerous memories of significant events from early ages. But not the day-to-day events. Were you an introspective child? Because I used to run back over my memories as I grew up, thinking through them in chronological order, just to test how much I could remember. That is probably what let them sink in and last though to my older age. I also find it interesting that I recall my memory being better. When I was around 12, I remember being able to recall most of my childhood, but now it is just significant or emotional moments.
- neolefty 13y ago
  Same here. I consciously reinforced memories from earlier childhood, but I know I've lost many of them. My earliest, from before 3, are still there in sketchy form. There are no photos, just memories of playing alone and questions I asked my Mom which she doesn't remember, so I'm pretty sure they're genuine. I wonder if solitude and quiet play are conducive to preserving memories. My children have much more stimulating, entertained lives than I had -- I had no computer, very little TV until age 10 or so. They seem more mature than I was, socially and cosmopolitanly, but also less introspective and thoughtful.
- mililani 13y ago
  Yes, most definitely introspective. In fact, I used to think about life and death all the time as a kid. And, it would get me depressed thinking that my mom would someday be dead, and that I would be dead too. I realized at a very young age that if I had the decision to be born, I would haven't have been. Even till this day, I often think I would rather not have been born. But, before anyone intervenes, I'm not suicidal. Just not into the whole circle of life thing.
neolefty 13y ago
I believe you -- I also have 2-3 y.o memories. But most people I know don't, so I can understand their skepticism. I've encountered one or two young children (age 2-3) who seem to remember their own births, but those memories definitely fade -- they don't recall it a few years later. They're also hard to authenticate, since the distinction between reality and imagination is sometimes approximate at that age :)
rmc 13y ago
There can always be outliers. Just because you can remember a lot that young doesn't mean everyone can. You could be a one in a million. After all, Phineas Gage basically got a pole through the brain and he survived[1]. Doesn't mean everyone can do it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

mathattack 13y ago

There are always outliers. You should feel blessed!

crimsonalucard 13y ago

You're not the only person. I also remember things from around age 2 to 3. It all gets really blurry before that. Most people I know don't remember anything before 5.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jpeg_hero 13y ago

There was sort of research that showed that this happens more often in early immigration situations (ie person emigrates as a very young child and subsequently retains early childhood memories from their "home country") Fascinating

peteretep 13y ago
I moved countries at ages 3, 4, 5, and 6. Knowing that I can pin any image, sensation, or similar to a certain age really helps me identify the age I was at for those memories, where I'd probably just assume I'd been older, if that makes sense? If it happened in Bangkok, I was 3 or younger, the UK, 3-4, Malawai, 4-5 or Barbados, over 6. This makes it much much easier to know which memories I have from when I was < 3 (very few, but some), and 3-4.
einhverfr 13y ago
We didn't change countries but when I was one my parents moved from California to Lansing Michigan, then when I was three, to Saginaw, then when I was 5 to Battle Creek, then when I was 8 to Richfield, Utah. I don't remember California at all. I remember the Michigan cities all very distinctly. So I believe that research.

barrym 13y ago

I was 2.5 years old when my brother was born and I remember a lot about that night - being at home with my nan, what our curtains were like, how the room was laid out. What the hospital was like, the toy I was given, the fruit jellies that someone gave my mum. Everyone's always been surprised that I remember so much.

adventureloop 13y ago

I have several memories from before 3. The earliest I can pin down is my second birthday. I can distinctly remember the cake (Thunderbird 2) and running around, looking at the bon fire in our garden.

Crito 13y ago
The only very early memory that I can firmly date is visiting my mother in the hospital before or shortly after my brothers (twins) were born. That was when I was about 2.5 years old, judging by our ages/birthdays. Other than that, I've got nearly nothing. No solid memories that aren't possibly just reconstructions from photographs or stories until I was about 10 or 11.

mcherm 13y ago

I have rather poor childhood memories - I remember only a very few scattered scenes before about age 13. But I know exactly what my earliest memory was, probably because it was such a significant occasion. I was 3 years old and I remember being in the house and watching my mom come home. She'd been gone for a day or so and when she came back she had this new baby with her (my brother). I specifically remember her walking into the house: I was behind the sofa peering up at her as she walked in the door, and she had the baby. I was mostly just glad to have my mom back. Touching tale, here's where it gets interesting. I remember that, but later (over 30 years later) I discussed this with my parents. Turns out, I'd been left at a neighbor's house while my dad went to fetch her home. They got me afterward. I wasn't THERE to see her walk in. I'm not trying to suggest that your memories are not real. But memory is a strange thing. They do not work like photographs or audio recordings; instead memories are laid down in nerve connections and are refreshed by running through them again. It's sort of like having VHS tapes that are brittle: you keep the data by copying them over and over again. Having a photograph to refer to helps to cement it; having a story that goes with it helps you to repeat and thus remember it, and this can happen regardless (as in my case) of whether there was an accurate original "memory". So perhaps that is the source of your history professor's skepticism. Now, he is simply flat-out wrong to dismiss your claims out-of-hand. There is significant individual variation in early memories -- and there ARE some people who have memories from age 2 or 3. But the nature of memory itself is such that such having an early memory like that may not mean exactly what you think it means.

jtheory 13y ago
To be fair, your memory could be only slightly altered over time -- e.g., your dad fetched you home from the neighbors, told you to wait in the living room, and brought your mother (and baby down) from upstairs, so only the bit about the door was off. It's also possible that your parents' memory is off. :) Not that I'm disagreeing with your main points -- memories are subject to a strange game of telephone over the years. My own early childhood memories (all of childhood, really, and much of post-childhood as well) are pretty limited; I was under general anesthesia more than most kids (more than 5 times; less than 50; I can't remember), which apparently messes with memory. By contrast my wife has abundant and clear memories of much of her life, including early childhood; she's a writer. I'm sure her memories are reworked as much as anyone's, and inaccuracies are introduced; but the raw material is so obviously greater than what I have in my own head. Related tangent: she wrote a piece about navigating the unreliability of memory a couple of years ago: http://www.michiganquarterlyreview.com/2012/01/blue/ http://www.michiganquarterlyreview.com/2012/01/blue/

cglace 13y ago

All my memories that took place before the age of three are very hazy. Almost like a few snapshots of a moment. However, I can recall the way I felt during the memories very well.

beachstartup 13y ago

i remember being on a flight from asia when i was 18 months old. i ate jello for the first time on that flight, and remember the experience. it was green and cold. i've met some people have earlier memories that that. any 'limit' to memories sounds like pure bullshit to me.

egillie 13y ago
Definitely -- I remember being in the crib, the toys I had in my nursery, and even the color of the lamp! (All verified later by asking my parents, all from before I was a year old)

tedks 13y ago

>And, people just can't or won't believe me. It seems to me that not believing you is the right thing to do. Childhood amnesia is well-studied; false memories are equally well-studied and are easily formed; since the former is more probable than an exception to the latter, unless you have additional evidence (which you can't really produce), I have no reason to believe your claims. It's more probable that you reconstructed those memories from stories told by other people, even if you forgot hearing those stories before remembering the event, than that you're an exception to a well-studied and widely documented event. Cognitive psychology is hardly psuedo-science, and in this instance, there were no polls conducted. This was a longitudinal study that took considerable resources to conduct and involved a seemingly well-designed experimental test. The findings are entirely in line with what the rest of the data in the field suggests, so it shouldn't be controversial. There were no polls involved, either. It's frustrating to believe something that contradicts most available evidence, and it must be even more frustrating to not have a way to demonstrate the truth of such a belief. You'll notice that even this article doesn't claim that all memory prior to age 7 is irretrievably erased, and it's fully possible you truly have the memories you have -- but it's nonetheless improbable, and it isn't wrong to disbelieve you.

crygin 13y ago
Seriously. It's pretty funny to see a community that normally goes straight for the jugular on dismissing personal experience in favor of demands for data completely abandon that when it's /their/ personal experience being questioned (and, in this case, it's one of the few that we actually have great science on).
- downer86 13y ago
  It's pretty funny to see one person claim dominion and authority over another person's inner state. We have as much proof that his memories are false as he might that they are true. The only position one can rightfully claim in this situation is agnostic skepticism. There is no certainty that his memories are false. After all, the primary form of evidence for any given memory is the verbal recounting of detailed information. Without language, there aren't many ways to externalize a memory. Whether one is describing the experience of a memory, or reciting a coached, scripted tale ...if all the facts are correct what hope is there of disproving a dyed-in-the-wool memory? Case in point: The drunkest I ever got was during a drinking game in college. I was black-out drunk. My memories are truncated about halfway through act one, and the next thing I honestly remember is waking up to the stench of my own vomit covered bed in my dorm room, but such an adventure it was for my roommates, and such a bardic tale it was for them to recount, over and over again, ad nauseum, that now, I too, can recite the tale, moment by moment from when I blacked out until I woke up. But, to the outsider, my recall seems accurate, and is vigorously affirmed by my roommates, and based on my ability to tell the story, a listener has no honest means of determining whether I was too drunk to remember or not. So, while I buy into the mechanisms for how OP's claims to memories could be false in that he is perhaps only remembering the plot of the story, and not the experience itself, I'm still open to believing OP's claim to certain vivid memories. I don't think childhood amnesia is a bottomless black pit from which nothing ever returns. Very obviously, certain aspects of learning must survive, and I think the keystones of our emotional development are indelible. Early traumatic experiences stay with people for very long periods of time. Being bullied, humiliation, loss of a pet. Those are foundational learning experiences. The detail of the bulk of our day-to-day experiences may get lost, but set pieces, scenes that perfectly encapsulate a profound learning experience are different from the tangential recall of banal routine. I think animals are wired to retain certain types of experiences, even from very young ages. The phenomenon of memory is not necessarily constrained by hard statistical numbers. At least that is my opinion. I'd offer up similar evidence of my own experiences, although I'm sure they'd be readily dismissed as subjective and unsubstantiated.

jvrossb 13y ago

I still hang out with many people I've known since I was 2/3. Seeing them basically every day at school for ~11 years helped keep those memories of when we were 2/3 fresh, I think. Seeing them now again The result is similar - I have very good memories of being 2-6, but for almost the opposite reason as you it seems. My childhood was incredibly continuous and yours was discontinuous. Maybe we're both flukes...

pygy_ 13y ago

How old were you when you acquired language (the ability to compose complete sentences)? My first memories date back to that time, when I was 18 months old. One of the first things I told my parents was that I didn't need diapers anymore. It was on the back seat of their car, on the passenger side (I remember the place, my mother was actually changing me after a long trip). It was on the road to holidays in Spain, and I have distinct memories of the topography of the apartment, the beach and the bay, and their relative positions. I also remember going out for a walk alone with my dad, between the white villas. We moved when I was four, and I also have several memories of the old house, including the full topography including furniture, a dark blue beach balloon, a harmless fall from the top of the staircase with a spherical vacuum cleaner, unrolling the toilet paper from the first floor to the ground floor because there wasn't any TP below... having the red toy car I had received as a reward for stopping sucking my thumb confiscated for relapsing. I also remember the feeling of my long wet hairs on my back when I was lying on the chest in the bathtub, with the head raised. I only had long hairs between 2 and 3.

mililani 13y ago
I was older. I distinctly remember struggling with English when we first moved to Hawaii. I could NOT talk to the other kids. I also remember my older cousins catching on much more quickly than me. I think I finally grasped English when I was about 4, when I started going to kindergarten. I believe you. One of our friends has a kid who is, I think, really smart. He's only a toddler (2 y.o.), but he is really talkative and has a good vocabulary. He could start talking before 2. I wouldn't be surprised if he has some recall of his toddler years. I will have to keep abreast of this as time goes by.
einhverfr 13y ago
> "It was on the road to holidays in Spain, and I have distinct memories of the topography of the apartment, the beach and the bay, and their relative positions. I also remember going out for a walk alone with my dad, between the white villas." That's funny. My eariest memories are of the topography of the apartment we were living at the time. I am not sure I could tell you what the parking lot looked like or how the apartments were around it, but I coudl tell you that we were on the second floor, that it had a brick facade, the sort of flooring used in every room, the color of the walls, and the all-important detail for a 2 year old: there was a TRAIN that ran by out back every day).

dhughes 13y ago

> And, people just can't or won't believe me. You need this: http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/ http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

codingdave 13y ago

I've also retained numerous memories of significant events from early ages. But not the day-to-day events. Were you an introspective child? Because I used to run back over my memories as I grew up, thinking through them in chronological order, just to test how much I could remember. That is probably what let them sink in and last though to my older age. I also find it interesting that I recall my memory being better. When I was around 12, I remember being able to recall most of my childhood, but now it is just significant or emotional moments.

neolefty 13y ago
Same here. I consciously reinforced memories from earlier childhood, but I know I've lost many of them. My earliest, from before 3, are still there in sketchy form. There are no photos, just memories of playing alone and questions I asked my Mom which she doesn't remember, so I'm pretty sure they're genuine. I wonder if solitude and quiet play are conducive to preserving memories. My children have much more stimulating, entertained lives than I had -- I had no computer, very little TV until age 10 or so. They seem more mature than I was, socially and cosmopolitanly, but also less introspective and thoughtful.
mililani 13y ago
Yes, most definitely introspective. In fact, I used to think about life and death all the time as a kid. And, it would get me depressed thinking that my mom would someday be dead, and that I would be dead too. I realized at a very young age that if I had the decision to be born, I would haven't have been. Even till this day, I often think I would rather not have been born. But, before anyone intervenes, I'm not suicidal. Just not into the whole circle of life thing.

neolefty 13y ago

I believe you -- I also have 2-3 y.o memories. But most people I know don't, so I can understand their skepticism. I've encountered one or two young children (age 2-3) who seem to remember their own births, but those memories definitely fade -- they don't recall it a few years later. They're also hard to authenticate, since the distinction between reality and imagination is sometimes approximate at that age :)

rmc 13y ago

There can always be outliers. Just because you can remember a lot that young doesn't mean everyone can. You could be a one in a million. After all, Phineas Gage basically got a pole through the brain and he survived[1]. Doesn't mean everyone can do it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage