Age of first memories

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I have memories of the following events that all occurred before I reached the age of 5:

Standing up in a little wooden crib and calling for my parents (probably saying, Ma-ma, Da-da, or something)

Having tea parties in a play pen with my stuffed animals and a little plastic pink and white tea set

My mother taking me for walks in a pink stroller - once we stopped beside a honeysuckle patch, and when my mom said to me, "Look LtlPinkCoupe; honeysuckle!" I was intrigued - you see, I associated the honeysuckle with Winnie the Pooh (in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Roo brings Pooh a bouquet of honeysuckle, which makes him sneeze and destroy the part of Rabbit's burrow that he is half-in and half-out of), and at the time, I loved anything related to/I could associate with Winnie the Pooh. I do believe that Winnie the Pooh was one of my very first special interests.

My mother rocking me to soothe me for bed, and then tucking me in with my one of my then-favorite stuffed animals, Night-Night Bun (who I actually still have)

My dad buying me a box of double-chocolate-chip muffins and sitting with me on the stairs as I ate one and talked with him about whatever the heck I had to talk about back then.

Helping my mom pick cherries from the cherry trees we had in the backyard.

Walking out onto our front lawn with my mom and running into the neighbors across the street - another mom and her two little boys who liked to beat me up sometimes. The reason why I remember this so clearly is when I peered cautiously from behind my mother (I was actually afraid of those boys and never went outside without either one of my parents if there was a chance I'd be spotted by them) I noticed that the youngest boy was lying listlessly in his stroller with chicken pox all over him. That was the quietest and most serene I'd ever seen that kid.

My mom taking me to preschool and trying to persuade me to go in while I was crying hysterically and clinging to my Baby Bop plushie.

Visiting one of my aunts in a nursing home - this particular aunt wore an eye patch, and while I was sitting on her lap, she must have noticed me looking at it, for she asked me, "You want to see what's under it?" And when I said "okay," she flipped it up and I got to look inside where her eye used to be. My dad was a bit startled, and my mom made a great show of softly groaning, "Oh, no" and staring up at the ceiling, but I wasn't scared at all...in fact, wondering what was under the eye patch had been more worrisome to me than actually seeing what was under it. I wasn't nervous about it anymore.

Playing in the bathtub in my grandma's house in Texas and cutting the tip of my finger on a razor that someone had left on the edge of the tub.

Sitting in the living room listening to audiobooks of A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh stories, Angelina Ballerina (long before the cartoons) and the Berenstain Bears. I liked it when we listened to tapes on the stereo, but I was always scared when my dad played his vinyl records because when I walked across the floor too fast, the records would "skip" loudly and frighten me.

I also have several memories of both of my parents reading to me, as well. In fact, I am told that my first spoken word was "book."

A lot of these memories are a little on the vague side, but vague ones still count, right?

I have a memory from when I was about 18 months or 2 years old (somewhere around that age) when I was really sick. I remember being on the couch in the living room and looking up at the ceiling. There was a silver film on the ceiling because it wasn't finished yet (it was in a house my parents were building. I think the silver film was fire proof insulation or something like that). Then I remember seeing the entrance to the emergency room of the hospital as I was being brought in. I seem to remember being on a stretcher or something, but I'm not sure if I was brought by ambulance or if my parents brought me to the hospital.
My mother was telling that story to someone once, and I said "Yeah, I remember that." and described what I wrote above, to my mother, and she seemed really surprised that I remembered it.
I also have a memory from when I was about 3, when I cut my arm on a piece of broken coffee mug. I remember my mother dragging me to the bathroom in a panic to put some tissue on it to soak up the blood, then dragging me by the arm down the hallway with a long trail of tissue following behind us. I still have a scar on my arm from that.
I have a couple of other memories that are more like snapshots of things that happened before I was 3 years old.

I remember going to visit my baby brother in hospital when I was 3, and he had just been born.
I got a rubbish bin and turned it upside down to stand on it, so I could see him through the window of the room he was in, with the other babies.
I remember wondering how the mothers would know which baby was theirs, as they all looked very much alike in identical cribs and identical bedding.

I remember first day at pre school, first day of school, and the feeling of being abandoned.
I remember feeling very lonely, alone, vulnerable, and scared.
I still get the same feeling on most of my firsts; first day in a new job, first day at any course, first time I do something new.
I know it's just vestiges of experiences I couldn't process at the time, but I suspect it's some form of PTSD.

My earliest memories were when I was about four years old. I think I remember living with people who were not related to me. Also, I remember a specific time I was in preschool at that age. Those are my earliest memories that I can think of.

Perhaps as early as as 2 months, I remember an orange tabby cat that lived with us back then.

The reason I recall when I was 3 was because I had a traumatic experience.

I was sitting in Ascot Cinema on Eastern Main Road in Sangre Grande, Trinidad watching Jerry Lewis in "The Nutty Professor." This was 1965.

I jumped out of my seat and went screaming out into the lobby when poor Jerry started transforming (vibrating, really) into the nutty professor. That was just too much for my young brain to handle.

My earliest memory seems to be of when I was about 2.5 years old. My family were on vacation, and my parents were trying to put me on a small horse (not a real one) to take a photo, and I was very afraid to fall down.

I still have quite a lot of memories from my early childhood, but unfortunately they are fading with age.

Earliest memory for me was being carried by my mother at 18 months and watching my grandfather put down a sick horse on his property. The sound of a shotgun was probably a bit too loud to expose a baby to.

I'm unusual here; I have no clear memories before about age seven. Everybody I know can rattle off names of preschool friends and kindergarten teachers, but I have only the odd mental snapshot, and nothing that's definitely before age five or so.

My earliest memory was off pink and blue elephants moving in a circle. I told my mother about it when I was in my teens and she said there was no way I could have remembered those. Apparently, they were part of a mobile on my cot that were there for only a week when I was 10 months old. She removed them as they seemed to 'disturb' me.

My earliest contiguous memories run from about 2 years old.

I don't remember anything below the age of 3, except for one or two very quick vague memories.

This is extremely common in autism, from all I have read. My earliest memories are from just after birth, when I was in an incubator. That memory is weak, but it is there. For ages 1, 2, and 3, I have very vivid and detailed memories including specific conversations, room settings where people were standing when certain events happened, etc. I also remember things like peoples' license plate numbers from when I was a little boy, and all kinds of goofy things which don't merit remembering.

Some people in the past, have accused me of "remembering" those things based on being told of the events when I was a little older, but that is absolutely NOT the case. In fact, in several cases when I was accused of that, my memory of a certain event contradicted the memory of the one accusing me.... Then I proved mine accurate and theirs inaccurate. So that's the proof that these are MY memories, and not stories told of when I was little.

But ironically I can't ever remember what clothes I wore yesterday, or where I went a week ago.

Charles

Wow, I wish I did have that Autism trait. I want to remember what it was like through the eyes of a baby.

Wow, I'm really impressed with how many people can remember as far back as 1 or earlier. I think my earliest memory is 4 years old. I had a what would be a traumatic experience at 3 and I don't even remember it, I was in the hospital with a massive asthma attack and was unconscious for 2 days and i woke up Christmas morning. You'd think I'd remember that, but nope. My memories go as far back as preschool.