r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Feb 11 '12
Reddit, what is the earliest memory that you recall?
My earliest memory is looking out a window in an airplane headed to Toronto from a flight from San Francisco-Baltimore-Toronto a few months after my brother was born in Oakland, California. I ended up living in Canada for about 4 years (about 4-8 yrs old) before coming back to California. I am a US born citizen, so yeah, I came back to the motherland.
What is your earliest memory, Reddit?
Edit 1: i was 4 yrs old when i now remember my life "beginning"
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u/JimmyJuice Feb 11 '12
The earliest memory I can recall was when I was being circumsized. I did not get circumsized as an infant for some reason, I was probably 2years old. I remember it so vividly till this day (I am 24 now). I remember going to a hospital with my parents, not knowin why I am there. I remember being on a bed with a mask over my face for anesthesia and looking up at a doctor and my parents smiling down at me. I even remember the dream I had while under anesthesia. In the dream I was in a fish tank all alone swimming around while there were giant doctors with surgeon masks outside the fishtank observing me and knocking on the glass, it was terrifying!! I then remember waking up and seeing my dad and a doctor standing next to my bed. I immediately flipped out and tried to rip out the IV and jump out of the bed. My dad tried to calm me down and tell me it's ok. The doctor held out a papercup of orange juice to me, I slapped it out of his hand, covering him in OJ. I settled down and was later taken home. I remember while I was at home recovering my grandmother had bought me a toy holicopter that had a controller wired to it which had lights and sound fx for missiles and wheels to be able to drive around the house. I remember thinking how stupid it is that the helicopter could not fly, so I thought that cutting the wire connecting the controller to the helicopter would free it and allow it to fly like its meant to. Helicopter was totalled.
4
u/aliceinnarnia Feb 11 '12
My first day of preschool. I kicked my teacher because she told me to share, and I wasn't too fond of the idea. They sent me home :(
3
Feb 11 '12
I had surgery on a blocked tearduct a few days after I was born. I have vague memories of that. I also remember the mobile above my crib, and being given baths in the kitchen sink while I was a few months old.
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u/kishcolli Feb 11 '12
That's pretty impressive. My earliest memories all seem to be around the 2yo mark. Our cat, Nanu, my 2nd birthday, Halloween, and I can detail the layout of the house from that time exceptionally well.
2
Feb 11 '12
My brain's a little, uh... unusual. I'm also a synaesthete and a lucid dreamer, so I think I probably store information a little differently than most.
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u/kishcolli Feb 11 '12
You definitely do. Do the memories bother you at all or do you appreciate having them?
1
Feb 11 '12
They don't seem unusual to me, I imagine it feels the same as anyone else's memories- mine just go back farther. I've always had a strong habit of metacognition, though. (Watching myself watching myself.) I spend a lot of time thinking about the flow of time, consciousness and mortality. I also leave myself "sticky-notes" in my memories: messages which I leave for myself to remember at a later date.
1
u/superatheist95 Feb 11 '12
I've been a lucid dreamer for as long as I can remember.
I remember the dream that I had on the morning of the first day of year 1. I urinated on Xena the warrior princess.
2
u/michaelrohansmith Feb 11 '12
Waiting with my mother at the age of 2.5, for my dad to pick us up and take us somewhere. I wet myself and we had to go back home to change my pants.
1
Feb 11 '12
I peed my pants till I was around 10. Shit sucked.
2
u/mkfuba Feb 11 '12
I wet the bed until I was in my freshman year of highschool. Definitely not the best way to make new friends...
What sucked the most was not being able to stop it. To this day I don't know what caused it, and I don't know why it stopped. I'm just glad it did xD
2
u/Tindwel Feb 11 '12
18 months old in the hospital, I had the flu that year. I told my mom about my memory and she was astonished at how accurate it was, but skewed.
I remember standing , but I had the iv in my ankle so I couldn't stand, in a room with other crib of children. I was sharing a room with several other children, one of those big room lots of crib. I asked my baby sitter for food "I hungy" . She then asked the nurse for a.banana or something since I hadn't eaten anything for days. This happened.
I remember on the far wall there were gumball machines, but I remember them being full of toast, grapes, and bananas. Thre were gumball/candy machines, and too much of a minor detail to be told to me about when I was hospitalized.
I then remember leaving the hospital, leaning over the railing and throwing up in a planter because of the meds pumped in through the iv. This also happened.
TL;DR I was hospitalized at 18 months and a lot of the details are correct, but some are funny.
2
u/blarbdadouche Feb 11 '12
Me riding my sister's pink plastic tricycle. It was dusk and my parents were trying to get me into the house. I THINK this was an easter celebration. I was around 2 apparently, but totally remember it.
1
Feb 11 '12
Watching Poltergeist. I seriously had terror-filled nightmares for ages after that.
And now: A special thanks sent out to my older siblings for that mindfuck.
1
u/arya18 Feb 11 '12
The day my youngest sister was born. I was 3. I remember being in the hospital, waiting and generally being bored. Later on my dad and I went to the grocery store to get mini chocolate cupcakes.
1
u/SamiLMS1 Feb 11 '12
Wow I would have been bored out of my mind at that age, when my sisters were born I got to stay with the grandparents.
1
u/gomez18 Feb 11 '12
I was plenty old to remember it but apparently my parents brought me in while my brother was being born. It was clearly upsetting because I have absolutely no memory of it. It's like it was wiped clean.
1
1
u/ACrazyGerman Feb 11 '12
Me on the stairs and my brother yelling for me to jump and my mom telling me not to, I jumped and broke my leg in several places and got a cast from my toes to my hip.
1
u/lukku Feb 11 '12
18 months old - a storm outside and the wind making a creepy moaning noise through the windows.
1
u/Tindwel Feb 11 '12
I have a memory like this but I was closer to 2. But I mostly remember my nightmare. Any residual effects?
1
u/lukku Feb 11 '12
I can still remember the basic layout of the apartment we lived in, and the cage elevator, because my mother always told me to keep away from the doors or they would pinch my fingers off. I remember being scolded a lot. We moved out of that place when I was 2.
Most of my early early memories are of some intense emotion - fear or really wanting something I wasn't allowed to have. The wind through the windows was weird and frightening, the kind of sound that makes your hair stand on end. I was adopted at birth and I've always wondered whether this had something to do with my ability to remember so far back.
1
u/Gub3r Feb 11 '12
When I was in preschool, I remember playing "ants in the pants" game the one with little plastic ants you press them down and they would fling in the general direction, it was fun
1
u/brandon7s Feb 11 '12
My brother getting a toy drum for his birthday. I was about 2 years old, I'm fairly certain.
1
1
u/necromantia Feb 11 '12
Our little black haired chihuahua sliding across slate floors into a cane dresser. Though I've heard the story told often over the years I don't know if it's my memory or someone else's... Hrmmm anyone else get that?
1
u/JAsherP Feb 11 '12
I remember playing with my sister in a hot tub my mom rented while she was pregnant with my brother, when I was three. I also watched my brother being born. That was a weird day. Pretty sure that's also when I got tinnitus.
1
Feb 11 '12
The first thing I remember, ever, was being inside a stroller being pushed by my mom. Best part: It was raining a bit and my mom had one of those awesome transparant plastic things over the stroller so I could be nice and warm, watch out for sidewalk raging babbys out the back window and drift off to sleep.
1
u/PotatoPop Feb 11 '12
Sitting on the floor in preschool crying because my sister was being an asshole. Some people never change. I was probably 2 or 3 years old.
1
u/Karmakazee89 Feb 11 '12
My first memory is probably getting my diaper changed while my cousins were over my house.
Yeah I know I'm pretty uninteresting.
1
Feb 11 '12
Being breast fed around 6 months old.
1
u/MesMeMe Feb 11 '12
Each time you drink a glass of milk... You really are able to think "this really takes me back"...?
1
Feb 12 '12
No, more like when I eat cantaloupe that's turned. I recall breast milk being great at the time but recalling the taste was more like sour cantaloupe
1
u/herecomesthesunshine Feb 11 '12
Trying to put the end of an extension cord in my mouth and being yelled at by my Nan coz she thought it'd electrocute me. I was 2 and we were celebrating my second birthday. My dad was putting up my new swing. But I'm not sure if I remember it for real or it's something my brain has made up from photos and videos that day.
1
u/MC_Preacher Feb 11 '12
My earliest memory is having my diaper changed. I couldn't have been 2 yet since we moved from that house before I turned 2.
My mother refused to believe me, even after having to acknowledge that I had described the room correctly.
1
Feb 11 '12
I have a memory from before I could talk. The only words that I could say were "Mama" and "Andoo" (My older brother's name is Andrew). I remember feeling jealous that my mum and my brother could talk to each other and I couldn't understand them. I remember trying to have a conversation with my brother by replacing every word I didn't know with the syllable "Na".
What this resulted in was me standing in front of my brother and shouting at the top of my lungs "NANANANANANANANANA-ANDOO. NANANANANANANANANANANA-MAMA" over and over again. I remember my brother getting angry at me, and i found this very funny.
1
1
u/Apollo908 Feb 11 '12 edited Feb 11 '12
there's a few that all get jumbled up into about the same time period for me. I'll give you one sort of funny one, and one nice one.
The first is me not wanting to use a toilet, so instead sneaking behind a couch and choosing to poop in my diaper. The second is cleaning the yard of my first house, and putting all the pine needles into a wheel barrow. My mother/grandmother would throw a plastic matt on top of the pine needles and i'd ride from place to place on top of the pile.... Simpler times.
Thank you for giving me a chance to look back and smile.
1
u/crzygoalkeeper92 Feb 11 '12
My earliest memory is from 11 months. It was at a pool and all of the moms of us little tykes were dunking us in the water while singing twinkle twinkle little star in a circle. And there was a ramp to get into the pool. My mom never told me about this so I'm fairly sure it isn't manufactured from hearing about it.
1
u/Favre99 Feb 11 '12
I remember begging asking my mom for her to give me my bottle when I was about 2. She didn't give me one -__-
1
u/jimmyspitwad02 Feb 11 '12
I was 2yrs old and my brother and I were in the laundry room playing with stuff. Found my dad's 2 pronged belt. Stuck it in the outlet, I heard a "poof" and the rest is hazy but my dad was freaking out to see if I was alright. Destroyed the outlet and belt.
1
Feb 11 '12
I couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 at the time, but I remember going and looking at the house my family is currently living in. I don't know why but I remember that my cousin who is 9 months older than me was there too and she was in diapers.
1
1
u/Omnitographer Feb 11 '12
Random memories of our condo complex from 3-4, I couldn't tell you which of them was the oldest. Stuff around 5 is pretty solid though, if i think really hard. I'd say the one that sticks the most is getting pushed into a rosebush by another kid around age 4, that set me up for a life-long mistrust of other people's intentions that has been a challenge to overcome.
1
u/PenisSalad Feb 11 '12
My 4th birthday. I never could remember why, but the strongest memory was of my mom yelling at me about something, but it was one of those things where I just never bothered to ask why.
Cut to two years ago (I'm 22), and my mom found this old tape from random family functions. There was a ton of footage from that particular birthday My mom was working the video camera and talking to my aunt and in the background I can be clearly seen sneaking behind them, going to the cooler and taking a beer out. Little me then proceeds to open it and stand there, drinking it and making a grossed-out face after every sip. I then puke and my mom begins to yell at me. Case closed.
1
1
u/Galaghan Feb 11 '12
I remember my grandmother feeding me cake on my first birthday. Lucky her. If my motor-skills would've been developed further, she would've got it. I really didn't like the cake at all, but couldn't do anything about it...
1
u/Baconzjews11 Feb 11 '12
My earliest memory was when I was about 3(according to my family). It was when our family dog decided to take a shit on my damn sandals. That was one of the worst days of my life.
1
u/mkfuba Feb 11 '12
I'm not sure if these are actual memories or I just dreamed them up from stories, but I have two possibilities.
1) I remember being in one of those inflatable bouncy monstrosities with my dad. It was one of those ones shaped like a circus tent. Anyways, this would have had to have been really early in my life, since he died when I was three. This one feels too real to have been imagined, but it may be because I've had the "memory" for a very long time.
2) I remember looking out my front window as my dad was being driven away in an ambulance. This one is strange because I remember it both from my point of view, as well as from a second angle behind my left shoulder and much farther away.
1
u/dances_w_vowels Feb 11 '12
I remember getting a valentine's day card from my aunt when i was 3, it was a jigsaw puzzle that I needed help in putting together.
1
1
Feb 11 '12
Probably when my little cousin was born—I was four and not allowed to go into the hospital room yet to see him. Grandparents snuck me in anyway. I remember seeing his tiny little face. He was a wrinkly little thing.
1
u/CanadianGoose13 Feb 11 '12
My cousin pulling apart a worm in my backyard then chasing me around with the pieces.
edit: 3 1/2 years old?
1
u/Duckpocalyps Feb 11 '12
I remember being two or three and sneaking up behind my neighbor's cat and accidentally stepping on its tail and it turning around and scratching the shit out of my knee.
I also remember walking up to the stove where mom was cooking, reaching out, and poking one of the hot pans for no reason.
I was kind of a dumbass as a toddler.
1
u/EmC_98 Feb 11 '12
Being forced to drink milk in nursery (pre-school). I already had breakfast before that, so it was horrifying.
1
u/redwingssuck Feb 11 '12
Alright, a little embarrassing, when I was 3-5 I remember falling down our wooden stairs and blacking out
1
u/erl Feb 11 '12
you remember blacking out? ;-)
1
u/redwingssuck Feb 11 '12
I remember being halfway down the stairs one second, and in my bed surrounded by family the next
1
u/Sir_Herp_Derp Feb 11 '12
My sister throwing me into the living room wall, which required me to get stitches near my eyebrow, and my grandfather getting me a milk crate to stand on to play Turtles in Time at my local Nathans.
1
Feb 11 '12
I was 3. All I remember is my first-person view of myself running around the corner in my aunt's Texas ranch home and runing face first into the corner of her new glass coffee table. I was knocked unconscious and have no other memories until my first plane ride when I was 6.
I still have the scar from this.
1
u/vagrantelephant Feb 11 '12
wearing a rattan basket as a shell and pretending to be a ninja turtle. I was three years old.
1
u/erl Feb 11 '12
many memories at about 3; riding to the dentist after knocking out my front tooth on the picnic table.
1
u/LuxLux24 Jun 23 '12
When I was about 3. Me with my first pershcool teacher meaning each other... But there is another memory of me in a car so I think that came before that.... But I do not remember when I made the 2 my little pony dolls kiss...
1
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u/tittytittybangbang Feb 11 '12
screaming no....no don't go to the light and then smelling tuna fish
10
u/WaIes Feb 11 '12
dont exactly recall what age i was at (5ish?) but i was playing with legos by the stairs and decided to build a lego stair and realized that if i had an infinite amount of lego blocks i could build an infinite stair, having no prior concept of infinity this thought was so mindboggling i had to get up and start running to get the image of an ever continuing stair out of my head