What is your earliest memory?

[Tex]

I can remember when I about 2-3 years old, I wanted to help my dad raise a piñata for my little sister's 1st, or 2nd birthday party. I also remember playing Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, and a Donkey Kong game on my Nintendo 64. Soon enough, my parents gave it away to some relatives, and I started playing on my dad's Playstation 1, and there goes how I start playing Playstations. There was also a time that my parents took me to a Train Museum in Galveston, Texas, and I got interested into trans from that point onwards. I also remember taking a bath at a young age being potty trained (Some how.) About when I was 4 years old, I remember when Tropical Storm Allison struck, and flooded parts of Houston in 2001.

 

[XS]

After making an idiot of myself, here's one of my earliest memories. I do remember when I was three I was playing with the family dog and got my finger stuck in his collar. The dog began panicking and took off around the house with my me in tow. I'm sure I was screaming bloody murder as a husky was dragging me around, but it's funny now, at least my parents think so.

 

[Jared93]

Hey, you'll never know.

Some people can vaguely remember certain things. Others can spontaneously recognize random people they've never met.

The feeling of recognizing someone I've never met has definitely happened more than a few times. So strange.

 

[Jay.]

This whole thread is hilariously funny.
Psychological research and studies over the last few decades have shown that memories deteriorate with age, and many adults over the age of 20 will not actually remember anything that happened before the age of two.
Nearly all memories from birth to the age of 2 or 3 are a collective of distorted memories created from information and the memories of parents and other family members.
I.e. It is your first birthday and your dad thought it would be funny to let you taste his beer. You didn't like it and started crying. You don't actually remember it but mum and dad found it funny and spoke about it many times over the early years of your childhood. Your parents memories and recollections have created the experience for you but thirty years on after hearing it said so many times as a young child you now believe that you remember the experience because of a memory created and distorted by others.

Having said that...
I'm 39, and my earliest recalled memories are when I was about 4.5 years old, sitting on the living room floor playing with a Magic Roundabaout trainset. Then in the summer when I was about 5 or 6 in my grans kitchen listening to Buggles - Video killed the radio star on her radio.
I don't remember anything before then, and not a great deal afterwards either.

 

[PeterJB]

I have memories from before primary school which I know were early, I just can't remember their chronological order.

 

[Jet Badger]

I kind of remember when I got my appendix removed at the age of 3. I remember laying on the table before the surgery with doctors standing around me. Not much before or after that.

 

[Bo]

I'm 14, I can remember Christmas time when I was 2 or 3. I was playing with one of these:

 

[Lain]

Earliest things I can remember are around age 4-5... playing with a Tonka truck, getting a toy guitar and a Street Shark toy for Christmas, getting Terminator 2 for my birthday instead of the movie Eraser that I asked for and getting upset... until I watched T2, being freaked out by my stepsister's friend who would turn his eyelids inside-out, eating an earwig, getting in trouble for peeing in the backyard, stepsister making a snowman, me and my younger brother trying and failing at making a snowman...

Then there's three dreams I had around that age which I can still remember:

In one, I was in a McDonalds Play Place and was being chased by a deranged man with a chainsaw.

In the second, my family was riding in my dad's van and somehow me, my brother and stepsister got flung out of the vehicle and ended up in a stranger's garage. It was dark so I asked my stepsister to turn on the light, but instead she closed the garage door and made it pitch-black.

In the last, I was in the Crypt Keeper's house... except instead of being all creepy, it was pretty much an ordinary house. And the Crypt Keeper looked like a normal man. He heard me make noise and started looking for me, but I was able to sneak out before he found me.

 

[Bluntified]

I have one you all might find funny. My first day of kinder garden, I got bored so I left. Not just class but left the school! I wandered about the streets and found a corner store and went to the comic book/magazine sect. n. A while later I go outside only to see the principal outside, I didn't know who he was at the time, he asked me if I was OK and all that and I told him, "I'm not allowed to talk to strangers". He respected that, so he jumped on the payphone. A short while later, I was swarmed with police as well as my family. It turned out I was missing for nearly 4 hours! All ended well .

My brother and 2 sisters still talk about it to this day so some info was provided by them, like time frame etc. All the little personal details comes only from my head, no one ever knew exactly what I did that whole time. This was back in '84-'85.

 

[EvanJamesLee]

The National Guard depot outside our apartment. I used to live on Anzio Road. My neighbors were on Pearl Harbor Street.

 

[CinnamonOD]

1st. August 19th, 1999. My brother's 4th birthday, I was almost 2 years and 11 months old, I remember it because it was Hercule-themed (the Disney one), I gave it all to break the piñata, but I didn't even tore the paper

2nd. The Japanese Grand Prix, October 1999, I remember that the blond in the silver car won that race...

If anyone wonders, I always watched the replay of the races at 8 a.m. the day after

 

[turbolefty78]

I recall going on vacation to Disneyland when I was a wee lad of 3. The year we went: 1967.
I can only remember bits and pieces of it though. Like going on the Nautilus sub from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the big octopus, and the rocket ship(I told my dad it was a fake one).
Apart from that, the other thing that really sticks out in my memory as being the earliest is the headboard of my bed. It was one of those old big flat jobs, covered with a plasticy material, off white/grey and speckled. I had dreams of that being the doorway into another land, like a special play world of mine. Hmmm, I wonder where that headboard is now?

 

[Omnis]

I remember how pissed my dad was when I **** my pants at Metro Zoo. I made us skip the bathroom so that we could go get ice cream. Apparently I produced my own Carvel swirl somewhere in the queue. Must've been 2 or 3.

 

[NoobMan DS]

Earliest memory? Hmm...I somehow have recollections of looking up at the ceiling lights of my room, with my pale yellow crib also in my field of view. Not sure how old I was in that moment.

 

[gtavcfan]

The earliest I can remember - when I was about 5 years old, living with my grandma, her family and other relatives living in Mexico (lived there for about a year or two), playing with the other kids, going to school...

 

[MatskiMonk]

I was probably 3, the only thing about it I remember was playing with a Matchbox Shell Oil Tanker toy on a table next to a dance floor, at a function. There is a picture of me there to prove it. Other than that, lots of things from living in Yorkshire till the age of about 5. It all starts to get hazy again around age 22, .. I.. I remember a bottle of Southern Comfort.... hmm.

I have the scar on my finger from my Mum slamming my little finger in the car door when I was about 4.. 31 years ago. And, apparently, I once opened the car door whilst Dad was driving around a roundabout. This was in a Lada that did not have rear seat belts... I don't remember that though...

 

[The Bman]

I was 2 years old walking into my old home. I went to the living room and took a glance at the TV... to see that my least favorite NASCAR driver (Tony Stewart) was leading in a race at Dover.

 

[Johnny1996]

My earliest memory is also a NASCAR memory, like @The Bman. 2003 EA Sports 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. It was all calm for about five seconds, then Elliott Sadler is flying through the air and tumbling over and over and over.

 

[D.Kadettdriver]

My earliest memories date from when I was about 2 years old. From one of them I know the exact date (August 1992) because it was then that we moved to a new home. I remember my grandad showing up with a Mercedes van he had rented to help us with moving, and how big it looked to me. It was a TN-series like below, not really impressive now but it appeared enormous back then.

I also remember several occasions of visiting my great-grandparents, who were still alive in the early 1990s.

 

[Inferno251]

This whole thread is hilariously funny.
Psychological research and studies over the last few decades have shown that memories deteriorate with age, and many adults over the age of 20 will not actually remember anything that happened before the age of two.

I agree with this, as my earliest memories are of when I was in Singapore (which I arrived when I was 3 years old):

• My earliest memories were attending school in Kindergarten/early 1st grade at my first school (mid-1999 to 2001). I do remember getting in trouble by teachers, playing with students (although I don't remember their names), some classes and events (including a heritage day-style march around the school that coincided with the Sydney 2000 Olympics)
• However, come late 2001 onwards I do have more vivid memories, of places I went to (such as shopping malls and flea markets), of events (New Years celebrations), watching entertainment and by far, my second school (I went to from mid-2001 to early 2003). I remember learning specific class topics, some conversations/interactions with teachers, playing with students (and remembering their names), events, etc-I even remember the building layouts.

I would hate to see these memories 'fade.' The main reason they haven't yet, is due to what happened during the rest of my schooling days (in Australia from 2003-12) where I dealt with bullying and readjusting with new people-working to limited success. More or less, the crappier, more recent memories glorified my oldest memories of both school and life in Singapore (and although everyone here likes to remember the best memories, my best memories happen to be my oldest). And its because of this that I still feel that when I remember good memories, I will remember my earliest ones (especially when schooling memories)

 

[MoLiEG]

Earliest memory????

Hmmm...

Actually, I can't remember almost anything that happened before my 7th birthday... just a few sporadic things:

I remember that I used to play with a purple and a green tricycle inside my parents house...

Also, I also remember this guy from kindergarden... I hated him...

I remember going to this fancy & elegant restaurant near my house with my grandpa... he bought me a balloon, an airplane shaped balloon...

I remember that back in primary school (at some point between 1st and 3rd grade) I had a crush with my music teacher... Every recess, I waited for her to cross the playground, just to say hi and give her a kiss in her cheek...

I also remember I sucked @ football

Just to name a few of them Nice memories...

 

[chzsln485]

I remember sitting in the back of my dad's green Mk. 1 Ford Mondeo I think coming home from Costco. It was quite dark and the bit I specifically remember was driving past a pub called The Wheatsheaf. I think I must have been only 1 or 2 years old, because that Mondeo was replaced quite early on in my life with a blue Audi A4.

Why do we remember such mundane things from so long ago?

 

[Katiegan]

Dancing in front of the TV in just my nappy (diaper to you 'muricans) to a Madonna music video.

Swaggin' it up since '97.

 

[Jump_Ace]

I don't remember anything from when I was super little....Getting chicken pox when we just moved to Cali. I told my dad I feel swollen all over and he put on a record. I later found out was Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb is what he played first. Real funny Dad....


Jerome