What is your earliest clear memory?

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Just out of curiosity, since so many people on the spectrum seem to have this amazing visual memory.

I have clear memories of episodes that happened between my first and second year. Most of the memories are upsetting, which is probably why they stuck. When I detail them to my parents they confirm that they really did happen and are amazed that I remember them so clearly.

My son still remembers which houses had which lawn ornaments in our old neighborhood. We moved away from there when he was 2, and have maybe driven through it once a year since then.

Waking up to find my parents gone and myself in the care of a beloved baby-sitter. My father, an enthusiastic hunter, had set up a camouflage-patterned toy tent over my bed. I recall that very early home as very slightly dismal, even by the standards I understood at the time: it was dank, grayish, plain, and smelling strongly of cigarette smoke. Before being greeted by the sitter, who was probably my first ever, I was beginning to panic due to the sense that my parents weren't home.

My second-earliest memory is being led into the hospital ER at about the same age, and I think my mother was very agitated. I also distinctly remember being given a very cold bath and thinking the whole affair was very peculiar, but I learned later that I had gotten very sick at around that age. I was two years old.

I have nothing but garbled, ill-formed images from prior to that period, none of which I can pick up any underlying theme I can put a name to. They're there, but it's utterly unfiltered garbage. Trash memory.

I don't know about all of us having amazing visual memory but there are things I can remember way back yet there seems to be a huge gap in between some of the years that I have trouble remembering in.

My earliest memory was I think...age 3 when my head crashed against the wall after my dad had flung open the door.

Another memory was somewhere before school. My brother and dad use to pretend we were driving. It use to be my favorite thing. They'd tell me which key to use and where to put it, and all the mechanics to a car.

Well one day I took my little sister out to the car. We both got in and I stuck my dad's key in the ignition. The car started and I could barely reach the peddle so I had my sister take the wheel and I pushed on the gas peddle. We started going backwards and headed for a tree. I wanted to go forward but didn't know how and before we hit a tree, I jumped out of the car while my sister was still in it.

I remember the sensation in my legs. I thought I was parlyzed for good because I couldn't move them. My sister meanwhile was still in the car and even after hitting the tree it was still slowly backing up and there was a small creek. I screamed until my dad came out and chased after it. I can't remember what he did but all I could remember was not being able to move and seeing my sister crying and blood coming out of her nose.

For some days I had to be carried around. I don't think I broke a bone but I could be wrong. It was one experience I'll never forget!

Years later I did the same thing to my dad's car again. I was casually driving till one vehicle pulled out in front of me. I guess I was so focused on making a turn that I didn't pay attention. That's when the car wreck happened and I mean it was smashed!! Didn't suffer any major injury except a sore kneck. Most of the medics that arrived told me they were shocked that I lived through it. The road where that accident happened was also responsible for many deaths because there were no stop signs or turn signals.

Well that's my story. I got more but I don't want to make a waste of space.

I don't know the age, but just guessing, my earliest clear memories seem to be from when I was 3-4, possibly younger. They are good memories, such as having my photo taken with Ronald McDonald, driving my big plastic racecar with pedals, freaking out during Santa photos at the mall, etc. I also remember my kindergarten year like it was just yesterday, and I didn't go to preschool.

But you try to get me to remember what happened last week and I'm at a loss.

Have you studied "flashbulb memories"? These are very clear memories, with everything intact, including sensory information that would usually be judged irrelevant and discarded seconds later. It's often a significant event, but it can be rather mundane. Most people have at least one or two flashbulb memories; some people have more. They're thought to connect with the phenomenon of eidetic memory.

Earliest memory would be from when I was two and a half, and my father had just died. I had just been told, so I was repeating, "Daddy is dead," over and over, and my mother was telling her friend on the phone that I didn't know what I was saying; but I was thinking to myself that she was wrong--I did know. Just because you have echolalia doesn't mean you don't know what you're saying.

Incidentally, this memory also shows rather clear evidence of theory of mind--I was aware that my mother could have a different mental state than me.

Sorry if that's depressing--we're OK now, of course, twentyish years later; things like that happen in an unfair world.

I remeber reading the word melissa at age 3.

I suck at putting things chronologically... Probably lifting my brother out of his cot(he's only a year younger than me) and him crying.
And my parents waking me up. And my baby sitter when my Mum was pregnant with my baby sister, and then my baby sister being fed a bottle.
My Mum and Dad are sometimes surprised at my memory, but then horrified xD. Like, for example, an Uncle leaving and then 2 days later me asking when he's going, LOL(I had to be reminded he'd already left xD).
EMZ=]

My first memory is of a black nanny bringing me orange juice to me in a crib in my parent's room. I remember thinking that the colors were all wrong. I was supposed to get white milk from my white mother.

I was somewhere between 2 and 3 years old, I think. My mother was holding me on her hip as she talked to a neighbor outside. I can remember the sound of the neighbor's voice, and the fact that she had a hairdo that made her hair look really tall (I guess it was a "beehive"). Her voice was kind of like that of Aunt Bee, from "The Andy Griffith Show", and she said to my mother, "See you the safternoon!" Of course, she was really saying, "See you this afternoon," but I didn't understand it that way. As my mother carried me back into the house, I was wondering to myself, "What is a safternoon?"


I also remember a moment on my 3rd birthday, which could possibly have been before that other memory, but not by much. I was standing outside our house, and three boys rode by on their bicycles. I knew they were all about my sister's age, which would have made them about 7. They told me they were going to pinch me, and they each rode right up to me, in turn, and gave me a painful pinch. Pinch. Pinch. Pinch. I didn't even know these kids.

I really can't say my autobiographical memory is the opposite of what you suggest. 7-8 is about the limit.

For some reason I remember as a baby that for some reason I got fascinated by something on a coat.

My earliest memory is at eighteen months. I can remember it clearly. My mom and dad were washing the car on the driveway and I was walking around like any toddler would. Well, I eventually tripped and fell right onto a fireant bed and they started attacking me. We learned that day I'm deadly allergic to them when I immediately started swelling up.

I don't remember this part, but apparently my parents rushed me to the ER. I do remember the weird ice pack I got for the swelling though.

Another really early memory of mine was of me sitting in the high chair eating. I had on a black long-sleeve shirt with a dog on it. I don't have any pictures of me in this shirt, so I know it's from pure memory.

my 2nd birthday, I had a bambi cake and I remember standing infront of it my mum was holding it sitting on a chair waiting for me to blow out the candles

I'm not sure how old I was, able to walk, maybe 2. I was in a park on a bright spring day with my mother. I remember her legs, and her easel's legs, and bright flowers and green grass and bees buzzing in the air.

Then I was looking at a honey bee that was on a daisy, noticing the 'fur' on it's back. So I went to 'pet' it, and got stung. I have almost no other memories from that age, so I guess the sting cemented that one. I can still picture the individual hairs on the bee's back and the little veins in the flower petals.

I can clearly remember my Grandfather. He was sitting in a rocking chair and I pulled him away to play with me. We made a log cabin out of kindling wood.

Then he died and I can remember my parents arguing about whether I was too young to go to the funeral. I clearly remember the funeral home and seeing him in an open casket. It didn't bother me. I felt no emotion.

It was only years later that I realized that I must have only been two when he died.

Another very early memory. I was crossing the road with my mother holding one hand and my father holding the other. Then a truck came down the road. One parent hurried to cross the road and the other tried to go back.

I remember being spread eagled in the middle of the road watching that truck come straight at me!
I had nightmares about that for a long time.

I can specifically remember breast feeding and having diapers changed. I also remember bottle feeding and being bathed in the kitchen sink.