Adults: What are your earliest memories?

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My earliest memories are from 2 years old.

i was a toddler somewhere between a year and half, and two [by my adult recollection] and i was awake and standing in my crib which was next to my sleeping mother's bed, and i climbed out of the crib and jumped on my mother, who awoke with a startled yelp-like "WHA?!" then she said "mata!" [japanese for "WTF?!"] and proceeded to put me back in my crib and then move my crib over against the wall. at about 2 or so, i was in my own room in a crib, and i was awake at night, like maybe around 8PM or so, and the door to my room was ajar just enough to where i could see through the crack the TV in the living room, and they were showing a napa auto parts commercial, i distinctly remember that trapazoidal symbol of NAPA shown on the screen, in addition to a baritone announcer's voice saying something about it. when i was between 4 and 5 i remember hearing the news on the radio, the announcer was talking about long-haired university students at the berkeley campus [USC] smoking pot, and in my little kid mind i pictured a bunch of long haired teenagers walking around with pot handles sticking out of their mouths, but i was too young to know what pot was. when i was 7 or so, i remember being with my family at commencement bay [north tacoma] watching an airshow when the pilot of a biplane for some reason lost control and the plane dived into commencement bay with a "BOOM!" and i remember thinking that was a neat stunt, i was too young to know that he died. i also remember at about age 5, in kindergarten or maybe a bit before, being made to take some kind of IQ test but i had no clue as to what to do with all those geometric symbols i was supposed to match, so i just sat there in a stupor and drew randomly on the test sheet. i was in special ed after that. i was slow.

Two years old.

I was living at a foster home with 9 other kids at the time. I would wake up earlier than everyone else so I could sit alone in the living room in the dark and rock and think about stuff. Also at that time my foster dad was paralyzed from the waist down and he used an electric wheelchair one night i decided to dismantle the whole thing. I took out every nut and bolt. When my foster mother woke up she found me playing with some wires with what was an electric wheelchair scattered all over the kitchen floor.

I remember being in a high chair at my grandparent's house, eating some ice cream. It was around Christmas because the old Charlie Brown Christmas special was on but all I remember was when the characters were singing as the end credits roll. But I didn't understand what they were singing, it was like they were speaking in a different language. I've always found the end credits to that show slightly creepy. I was maybe around two. When I was around four I had to go to the hospital to have my tonsils/adenoids removed. It felt like I was in the hospital for weeks although my mother told me it was only a couple of days. When I returned home after the surgery I was doodling on some graph paper my dad gave me and I used it to draw the hospital. I've always been really good at drawing cartoon characters but I usually stink at drawing realistic buildings, and yet my mother said the picture looked very close to the actual hospital. I remember mostly drawing the symbol that was on the side of the building, it was a sort of shield or crest of some kind. I wish she had saved that picture but Mom threw away all the drawings I had made when I was small.

My earliest memory was of my mom asking me ''How old are you today?'' I said ''Three!''
I can remember things very well from 4 years old and on. I can remember very vividly our house being built when i was 4 and a half.

I remember 2 dreams from when I was 2-3. One was of many UFOs flying straight overhead and the other of hooded people- Ku Klux Clan types. When I was 3 , I found my pet duck. A cat had bitten it's head off.

I have very vivid memories from fairly early on in life. I can remember rubbing the fabric of my blanket together along with cracking my jaw. I did that a lot, for comfort I guess. I loved the sound of air swishing in my ear when I would crack my jaw just right. I was just a toddler at the time...maybe in my 2nd year. I also remember my mother giving me a magnetic board with plastic magnetic numbers & letters, & I'd sit in my crib & play with them for hours while mom did other stuff around the house. The one memory I lack is any affection from either of my parents. Dad didn't like to touch or be touched...mom just didn't like me. I do remember spending a lot of time entertaining myself because I was an only child.

I also remember visits to the childrens' shoe store. It was called Granny Goose, & when you bought shoes, you'd get a golden egg with a toy inside. My favorite shoes were Buster Brown's. I think it's because the boy had a dog. I liked anything that was related to animals. I also remember ponies & going horseback riding, starting school, & being bullied. There are many other memories too...the above are just a few. I can recall all these memories without any difficulty. It's just like taking a book off a shelf.

I'm not sure I can recall which order any of these went in, so I'll just list them all.

I think I can remember getting my tonsils out. Just before and after, really.

I remember learning to ride a bike, and hating having to use training wheels because I felt they were too restrictive. I also remember my brother taking them off for me while our parents were away. Some time after that I'd fallen off in our back yard and scraped my knee pretty good(and to date I think that's really been the biggest injury I've ever had).

I remember the first friend I'd made, Rachel, who lived in the apartment below on the first floor. Picked flowers for her, went to her birthday parties, asked her to marry me once(and she ran off after that ). Was even caught naked with her, though I don't recall why we were. Also remember the big yellow lab her family had and that I was afraid of it. Maybe that's why I'm afraid of most other dogs.

I think I must have maybe been about 3 for all or most of these, as I was talking again by each of them.

No offense please. Just remembered also when I was 6. It was the first time I got naked with a girl (Linda).

The first memories that I'm sure of how old I was are from when I was 3. They're of things and of situations. Physical objects are the easiest to remember from back then. I have a very distinct memory of the door of my pre-school. I also have a strong memory of the first time I took a ride on a tandem, including the swing at the house that we turned in front of to go home.

My earliest memory was from when I was just under one, I can remember sitting in my cot playing with a toy that was strapped to the bars. It had a mirror in the middle, a pink and blue ball you could spin in the lower right corner, a red and yellow cylinder under the mirror you could also spin, a rabbit on the left hand side you could push up and down and clicked, and finally a circle on the top right hand side that had numbers like an old telephone and clicked when you spin it.

My mum said I couldn't have been older than one because I kicked the cot apart just before my first birthday and broke the toy. I was very destructive when younger.

My long-term memory in general is awful, but my earliest memory is being taken to the doctor's office to have my tracheotomy tube and stoma removed. This would have been when I was 4 years old, and as I have heard that emotions are strongly tied to our brain's memory recall, it makes sense that I would be able to recall this frightening event so easily when most of my childhood is rather indistinct.

I have a load from around 2 onwards.

Watching rainbow on TV - 2-3
my green push along.
my mother collecting her things.
falling into my grans pond (a surprisingly pleasant, but vivid memory, considering I nearly died)
several play group memories - cups, handwriting practice, dressing up as a mechanic. - age 3-4
Sunday school - I remember some of the specific arts and crafts stuff I made.
my gran teaching me to count with tiddlywinks - and bring uninterested.
painting and multiplication practice. - yes I was doing multiplication at 4-5

dozens and dozens of very specific memories. most are about me, doing things, rather than other people. From 5 onwards I can remember most things, more than anyone else in my family.

Jason

Most concrete memory for me starts at 3, though I do recall climbing in my sister's crib once. Two dreams, which I have described here...
In one dream, I die in an explosion ( I do not believe in reincarnation, so this thing remains a mystery to me. Might have been plucked from adult TV shows the parents were watching??). The other is the nightmare about holes in reality that kept swallowing me.
One non-dream memory relates to my concrete thinking. It is someone saying "pitch black" and me looking at very, very dark paint on a brick wall.
After 3, I could probably tell you what I had for lunch the first day of First Grade! LOL

Sincerely,
Matthew

I remember that, when I was 1 and a half year, I was convinced that "one and a half year" was younger than "one year" and someone explained me that not, that "one and a half" was older than "one". These mean two things:

- That I am memories from 1 1/2 years

- That, when I was 1 1/2, I had not memories form 1 year.

My earliest memory is from when I was a baby and I would guess that be in 1987 in the summer. I would go to this one house filled with toys and lot of kids and the lady lived there. It was a daycare my parents would bring me to and it was at her house. I didn't talk or interact there.