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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

I try very hard to avoid making myself special in amongst the general case. But, I came here to observe I had verified memories from close to pre-verbal times, something I am told is not common.

If these were subsequent implants from conversation or comment from my elders, it was pretty subtle. The memories are far weaker now, but up to my twenties they were strong, lasting visual impressions of three specific locations.

(I'm in my fifties now)

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Near my work, a heavy gate has fallen on a people. One of my colleagues was a witness and has been asked for his testimony one week latter. There was also a video recording of the events and he was told all the mistakes he has made in his testimony. He was stunned how his memory was so unreliable.

I believe I remember potty training but my parents said I learned at 13 months. I'm likely misremembering using a tiny plastic toilet in the bathroom from that age to 2-3.

I can almost certainly remember the daunting climb onto a full sized toilet between age 3-4.

I have this memory of the first time I seen a ladies breasts. It was a lady from church who was breastfeeding at our house (it was hippy-ish Vineyard church, there was no hiding it under a blanket). I was somewhere between 3 and 4, so I wasn't that young. But it was a very personal experience, obviously.

What's interesting, to me, is how the memory changed over the years. The colors, and ..um.. shapes have distorted, enlarged, and some details have disappeared completely. It's changed so much that it's probably completely degraded, but it was such a shocking event that I can't forget the memory itself.

I think my earliest memory was standing at the door to my basement with one hand on the door knob and the other hand counting, saying something along the lines of "I'm 3 now" or something. Either that or it was some sort of daycare visit. Order is difficult to remember.

As I began typing this I just remembered this football toy chest I used to have in my basement.

The earliest thing I don't remember for which there is (was?) recorded evidence of, is me as a toddler picking up giant carpenter ants and trying to put them in my mouth before a parent came over and stopped me.

Football toy chest! I had one of those. I remember climbing inside it -- being able to fit inside it even. I remember, when I was older, trying to climb inside but backing out because I was afraid of getting stuck in there (and trying to imagine how they would cut me out of the thing, that kind of gives me the heebie jeebies even now).

Lol, yeah, I think everyone that had one of those must have climbed in at some point. Me and my cousins used to put the lid on and roll each other around probably giving us brain damage in the process. I think the last time I got in was after one time when my older cousins were torturing me by sitting on the lid and not letting me out.

I remember waking up in a cot and shaking the bells on my legs deliberately to get my mother’s attention. I had a picture in my mind of my mum responding to the shaking of my leg, I shook my leg and my mother responded in the exact way I thought she would.

I remember the first day I was at kindergarten, I remember distinctly talking with my classmates about our ages. I remember answering I was 2. (2 years 9 months)

Right. Yet we're told there are few retained memories from this time. Maybe what they meant is each of us retain only one or two.. but all of us retain some.

Not sure that's quite right either. I have no recollection of any events before the age of 10 or so.

I am also like this, I basically remember nothing before grades 5/6 and all of my "Memories" are derived from stories told by others.

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