it's my contention that consciousness develops/emerges as we develop and grow and reflects the emergence of consciousness in general along the lines of how a developing embryo passes through the evolutionary stages as it develops. I think it would be useful to study this emergence of awareness and consciousness as an aid in understanding consciousness.

I've heard of people that claim to remember being a baby and lying in a crib etc. Unless I'm mistaken some even claim to remember things from inside the womb.

Now to answer the question myself, the earliest memories I have seem to be from a few years old, maybe one or two...playing in the yard outside the house where I grew up. Prior to that is nothing.

What about you?

I remember my older sister pushing me in a pushchair down a hill and I remember complaining to my mother about how she pushed it - and listening to my sister denying my account! - so I must have been about two.

I have quite substantial chunks of memories from about three years old onwards with a reasonable degree of continuity from my first day at school.

Yep, I remember many parts of first grade pretty well.

I remember a similar incident Blip....I got out of our truck at my great grandmothers house and tumbled down a very steep hill hitting my head on a rock and blood gushing everywhere....followed by a quick trip to the hospital and a few stitches in my scalp.

I know that my first, accurate memory that has been confirmed as something that did happen was watching my family dog be hit by a car. For a long time my family said this was impossible since I was 2 and was meant to be asleep. However telling the story in front of my grandmother lead to her backing me up as she had been there that day and remembered coming in just after it happened and seeing me crying looking out the window.

After that I have memories from being 3 but not too many and as time goes on more and more can be recalled.

I remember being left at a primary school at night time, waiting for Santa with loads of other kids. Santa gave me a pair of purple mittens with a wale picture on the backs. Santa stank of baccy n booze. I think I must have been maybe 4 years old, not sure.

GUIL: What's the first thing you remember?
ROS: Oh, let's see...The first thing that comes into my head, you mean?
GUIL: No - the first thing you remember.
ROS: Ah. (Pause.) No, it's no good, it's gone. It was a long time ago.
GUIL (patient but edged): You don't get my meaning. What is the first thing after all the things you've forgotten?
ROS: Oh. I see. (Pause.) I've forgotten the question.

Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

Ironclad wrote:I remember being left at a primary school at night time, waiting for Santa with loads of other kids. Santa gave me a pair of purple mittens with a wale picture on the backs. Santa stank of baccy n booze. I think I must have been maybe 4 years old, not sure.

Interesting that you have an olfactory memory from so young: my first is the characteristic smell of the infants school, so shortly after my fifth birthday. That stays with me quite markedly (like Proust's madeleines ).

Blip reads Proust, Evolving Stoppard.

I'm fairly confident I remember several things that happened last week.

I actually have a pretty bad memory, always have really. But the cricket bat to the head and the fractured skull it caused seem to have crimped it a fair bit more at times.

My earliest memories certainly occurred after I became self-aware.

They are also certainly fabricated memories.

One, which supposedly happened when I was approaching two years old, consists of me telephoning my father, who was at work - on one of those plastic and wood play telephones.


Another consists of me seeing a cat who went outside and was never seen again when I was about 3.

Both I am sure are fabricated memories, as they are of places I only really would have heard about and not seen myself, or contain fantastic elements.

My first valid memories were from when I was between 4-5.

That whole process of fabricated memories is a fascinating part of all this as well. I'm sure any number of my early memories are fabricated or partially fabricated.

My earliest memory is of a spanking I got when I was about 3 years old. I didn't understand it and didn't think I deserved it.

I have some memories from when I was about 3, but I'm not sure how much I can trust them. The ones I trust the most are fleeting, like a single frame from a movie. More elaborate and detailed memories are probably either completely fabricated or, at best, contaminated by family anecdotes.
My earliest memory that I am confident is true is of being in a utility room while my mother was doing some laundry. She had put some water in a sink and added some washing powder to make it blue, and I was playing with some toy ships. The back wall was a cliff face (it was in Cornwall, in a seaside town).
Those details I'm fairly sure are true, but my sense of scale is almost certainly wrong, even accounting for the change in my own scale since I was 3.

My earliest independently confirmed memories are at age 4, from our emigration from the UK to New Zealand. The most vivid is a sunset seen from across the cabin of the plane; but also losing my new toy plane (located and restored by the people behind our row); and walking across the incredibly hot tarmac after arriving at Perth.

When I was three years old, I was outside riding my tricycle. I remember putting my index finger into the end of the handlebar and getting it stuck. I remember sitting in the yard a long time yelling for help while passersby, neighbors, siblings and parents ignored me. I remember that after my mother recognized my plight, she was unable to extract my finger so she called a neighbor who arrived with a hacksaw. The hacksaw didn't work on the handlebars. Eventually, someone had the bright idea of lifting the tricycle over my head.

Ok, I'm going to confess I have no idea how that trick worked, but I'm glad your finger is safe!

And that did what? Lifted your index finger over your head too?

Oh, did the weight of your body pull the finger out?

NamelessFaceless wrote::lol:

Ok, I'm going to confess I have no idea how that trick worked, but I'm glad your finger is safe!

Just call me stubby

Obviously I didn't know why it worked at the time, but lifting the trike over my head raised my arm up allowing the blood to drain out of my finger to help reduce some of the swelling