Memory. Can Aspies remember earlier in life?

[DCA]

I can remember being in a crib, but I cannot remember how old I was. But if I was still in a crib, probably less than 3. My dad is dead unfortunately so I cannot verify what age I upgraded to a regular bed. Thinking toddler age.

The memory is quite clear for me: I was laying on my back looking at the opposite wall. There were shadows on the wall moving. I thought they were ghosts. I remember pushing my little fist through the bars, not quite accurately, banging on one rail.

Rationally speaking, that could have just been a vivid dream. Though I'm pretty convinced it's something that happened to me...

Edit: just asked my kid if she can remember her sister's birth. She has some memories she claims. She would have been 40mo old at that time.

 

[Progster]

My earliest memory is of being weighed. I was placed in in a large steel bowl with a while towel at the bottom. I saw it from above, as I was being carried. I don't know how old I was, but obviously not old enough to walk, I was being carried.

 

[SusanLR]

I'd say most of us here do remember infancy before the age of 3-4 yrs old, as science will say is impossible.
It is claimed our brains aren't developed enough before that to form memories, but, there are too
many that know this isn't so.

The one question that was presented on this thread was the part of how could I be born knowing
words.
I have done some studies on when a baby first hears and how consciousness levels develop since I first posted this thread.
Again, it doesn't match with the presented time line that the scientific study gave, but, it gave me some ideas.

Just as it is now being found memories from generations past can be passed down genetically which
could explain a lot of the reincarnation theory memories.
The hearing, consciousness, and understanding has some scientific credence if even by a long shot.

My birth was a bit uncommon and I will post more on this tomorrow as I am needing to get some sleep
and too tired right now.
But, thanks to everyone on all the posts.
It has been quite interesting.

 

[SusanLR]

https://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20130102/babies-learn-womb#1

Here is the link to the study about hearing and learning starts in the womb.

Fetus' start hearing their mother's voice while still in the womb.
Surrounded with embryonic fluid the sounds would probably be very muffled.
Although the above link stated evidence they can hear better than we might think.
It also used to be thought consciousness to retain memory and learn didn't start until
a few months after birth.
This study shows differently.

What I meant in the above post about my birth being a bit different is the fact I was born a month
late, thus making my gestation actually 10 months.
Plus the fluid broke at 9 months, so for an extra month there would have been no thick fluid to muffle
sounds.
So I had an extra month for mental development plus a month where sounds could be heard more clearly
than the normal 9 month cycle.
Add this to the above research findings and the impossibility that you could be born "thinking" in words
isn't that far fetched.

Actually it is more a matter of the original question for this thread:
How far back can you remember?
If some can remember back to birth, and I was born a month old, then it might be that
in this case it is just a matter of remembering that far back. One month old in my case.

 

[Savageanna]

I remember way back then. I think my first memory was when I was one or two. It was my first real fantasy I guess lol. I had a dream where a weird cylindrical shaped monster made out of dark green pipe cleaners with eyes made out of hole punched circles and a red pipe cleaner mouth stared at me and then licked the carpet like it was a dog and then chased me into my room or something. It was a dream of sorts lol. I think I must’ve been two or so.

I also remember me crying in my crib in the middle of the night and my dad yelling at me to be quiet or something lol. That must’ve been when I was two and was growing out of my crib.

I also remember a lizard-like spoon and I tried to do something and my dad said “no”. That may have been two as well.

I also remember laying at home at the white-painted wooden changing station, and I remember just being fixated on a divit in the wood that wasn’t entirely painted. It looked like an animal face or something. I laughed at it eventually (lol idk why I found it funny). I might have been one then.

I also remember specific tastes from my younger years, like the taste of that cheese from the cheese and breadstick sort of snack packs. I have many many more, but I won’t keep talking about it lol.

But my answer: I remember back to when I was around one I think.

 

[Monachopia]

My partner is always in amazement that I remember so much from before the age of 4... I know these memories are true because they contain my mother (who passed away when I was 4) and at a flat that we no longer lived in after her passing. Weirdly, I remember emotions and instinctual reactions to things - there are no words, just impulse.

In fact, I remember also the first time I realised I was 'talking in my head' (i.e. thinking) and I was so confused and asked my dad if he could hear me "talking", he of course said no. This was also around the age of 4, but I could be a little wrong on that. I also remember lying in my crib, so I would have been between 1 and 2. I remember so much, but they're just small glimpses into what once was. Memories from 5 onwards are much more fluid and complete.

I don't know whether it is autism related or a product of environment - my sibling and I didn't have many distractions or toys, so we absorbed more of the happenings around us and retained them. Maybe the autism makes us more visually orientated and observant, so we concentrated on that more. Whatever the case, it seems quite a few here do remember many things from early childhood, so it appears not that uncommon.

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

I can remember things and events from the house we only lived in until I was three. While we didn't move on my third birthday, I'm assuming some of these happened before I was three. Some of them my mother confirmed are correct, such as the colours of the walls, and others couldn't possibly come from any other source other than memory.

Amazingly, I remembered a broken bench discarded in a wooded ravine, I drove back there 20 years later and it was still there. Things don't move fast in that town.

 

[Reu]

I remember the apartment we lived in that we moved out of when I was three months old. And I remember a car we had that my parents got rid of when I was still an infant.

 

[Wolfnox]

First memory comes before i was five. Darkness then evil tree monsters. At five i saw the real world for the first time. I got off a bed and walked into the hallway of a house. An older woman was there. I knew her and spoke to her. Though i wasnt sure how i knew these words or her. I had just woken up. Whoever i was in knew these things and said them. At first it was like being an intruder in another persons body. After that i took over. Though i often wondered who was running it begore me? Aside from that memory i had no experience or memory of this world.

 

[SusanLR]

First memory comes before i was five. Darkness then evil tree monsters. At five i saw the real world for the first time. I got off a bed and walked into the hallway of a house. An older woman was there. I knew her and spoke to her. Though i wasnt sure how i knew these words or her. I had just woken up. Whoever i was in knew these things and said them. At first it was like being an intruder in another persons body. After that i took over. Though i often wondered who was running it begore me? Aside from that memory i had no experience or memory of this world.

Do you think you could have been a walk-in?
I know what it is like to be in another persons body and know things they know and see.
Were you accepted by the woman or the family that you woke up to?
Did they know you as if nothing were different from before you took over?

What were the evil tree monsters and did they seem to be of this planet or some other place that
perhaps you are remembering before the take over of a body experience?

I ask so much because I have a degree in metaphysics and this is the stuff of interest.

 

[AspieOtaku]

I remember as far back when I was 1 years of age. I had my first birthday cake and ate with my bare hands and had cake all over my face, my older sister copied me but they got mad at her for copying me lol good times.

 

[SusanLR]

My most pleasant memory was when I was an infant a few months old and the daily ritual of
being held in my Mom's arm while she rocked in our big rocking chair.
She sang hymns to me and I played with her long black hair with my right hand and sucked my thumb
on my left hand.

 

[AspieOtaku]

I think i have some faint memories after child birth being delivered c section saw doctors with masks and shower caps and tossing my ass into an incubator however did not remember my circumcision thank goodness i was probably sedated then but always saw the doctors and nurses as jerks.

 

[Wolfnox]

Do you think you could have been a walk-in?
I know what it is like to be in another persons body and know things they know and see.
Were you accepted by the woman or the family that you woke up to?
Did they know you as if nothing were different from before you took over?

What were the evil tree monsters and did they seem to be of this planet or some other place that
perhaps you are remembering before the take over of a body experience?

I ask so much because I have a degree in metaphysics and this is the stuff of interest.

Yes they did accept me. Or rather had already accepted the person that was here before i came to be. Explaining that situation before to them was a none starter. I couldn't explain it so they could understand. And yes they act like nothing changed. Thats the real micker actually. I had no idea what a tree was. The knowledge was just there. As for the monsters they were unfriendly. That much i knew. I didn't really have a concept of place. They were there and unfriendly. Thats all i knew. As for your last question. Yes. That hits the mark exactly.

 

[the_tortoise]

I am an autie and I remember back to the age of about a year and a half. Nothing earlier than that.

I didn't vote in the poll because none of the options represented how far back I can remember.

 

[AspieOtaku]

Prior to

I am an autie and I remember back to about a year and a half. Nothing earlier than that.

I didn't vote in the poll because none of the options represented how far back I can remember.

the first year its cloudy get bits and pieces at most.

 

[AspieOtaku]

I remember at age 2 and age 3 running naked laughing and not know what cloths were good for and my parents chasing me and clothing me lol. I was a handful the wild child, it was funny lol age 4 i remember having an obsession with holes and dropped dominos in the air conditioner making the station wagon break down in a desert on the way back from Yellowstone. At Yellowstone i remember the rotton egg smell of sulphur.

 

[AspieOtaku]

Lol my family members still pick on me about the dominos in the air conditioning to this day lol.

 

[WildCat]

Pretty far back, around 2-3 years of age (voted in the poll). Here's a few:

I remember attempting to climb out of my crib once. Felt like hanging off the edge of the Grand Canyon, quite the rush for a developing toddler. I don't remember exactly if I succeeded or not since it's becoming a blur now.

Remember going to the clinic downtown back in 1990 to get tested for ASD. I recall the fish tank, fiddling with the toys (a playset with wooden beads, like this) and a hearing test to rule out some stuff. Yes, I heard the tone if you were wondering; no, I didn't care about the big scary man beside me. That settled it for them.

Remember being pulled from a trench at a local botanic garden, which was literally feet away from a freeway entry ramp. Being the feral child I was, I decided to take the first opportunity and go off on my own path, and being yanked from there did not please me at all. Threw an epic fit about that, but then if I had made it through there...

 

[anacrusis]

The early ones are all in pictures - moving house at 17 months, arriving at the new house, dad parking the car next to a garage at the back of the house.
Being frightened of a midwife coming to listen to my sister wriggling in my mum's belly (my sister was born when I was 22 months old) - it was the old-fashioned funnel shaped stethoscope which caught my attention, and I had no words for the device: I had something of an "aha" moment when I first saw one of these again some 20 years later...
Holding my little sister for the first time just after she was born - there are photos of this, but I can remember being shown her and being allowed to "hold" her.
Whenever I am with my parents and sister, they're constantly amazed at the things I remember - they've told me for some of these things they have no memories at all, but others come back when I talk about them...and at a 30 year reunion of some of my school friends, I was the only one who could name the entire class, in alphabetical order of surnames. We each had a registration number and the way the teachers took the register was to have us repeat our numbers, and I'd memorised the order.
Short term memory not as good, and learning style definitely more visual than verbal .