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Comment by rightbyte | Hacker News Reader

To the day you were born sounds extreme? Does a baby even 'see'? Your game as a kid makes the concept kinda believable in some sense though. But I have a hard time believing that early?

I have quite a lot of early memories. More than usual. And I remember that I remembered more early stuff when I was a child but I have no recollection of my first year now and only really vague and maybe indirect memories of my second year.

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Everything except things up close was white. If I had to guess, I could not see further than a foot if that (although when I first was able to talk, I had thought the distance had been 3 feet or less). I did try looking around once after making great effort to push my torso upward, but everything was white and it was exhausting. I wanted to make another attempt but did not muster the will to exert myself again. The only color I could see aside from white was the nurse’s hand when she annoyingly reached into the crib (or whatever it was called) to put some uncomfortably warm thing onto my head. My hands did not work very well so I had to nudge it off my head each time using them as blunt instruments. To my relief, she gave up after a few times.

Interestingly, my grandparents had witnessed all of this. Later, when I could speak and asked my mother why my aunt kept putting something on my head one day when I was younger, she recalled what my grandparents had told her and told me it was the nurse on the day I was born. I had not realized it had been the day I was born until she told me. At the time I could speak to ask about it, I simply had regarded it to be when I was very young.

To be clear, I had no idea that various early memories were from my first year until I talked to my parents about them. The memories that have been dated to my first year are:

* The time in the room where newborn children are placed. The events here were witnessed by my grandparents and told to my parents.

* The remnant of my umbilical cord falling off my belly button at my aunt’s house. That really hurt.

* My baptism. I had misunderstood the water as a prelude to being drowned and was terrified that the deacon wanted to kill me.

I assume that there are more memories from my first year, but since they do not correspond to something others witnessed and remember, there is no way of dating them to that year.

In the case of the first two, I had asked my parents about them when I could talk and they realized that I was recalling very early memories. In the case of my baptism, my mother had decided to recount my baptism talking about happy she was that I had been the only well behaved child there (the Catholic Church often baptizes children in batches). Upon hearing that, I remembered the event and responded complaining that I had only been quiet because I thought if I had opened my mouth to cry, I would have been drowned to death soon afterward. What was a fond memory for her was a horrific memory for me.

The concept is interesting. I think the awareness of babies might be underestimated.

> I had misunderstood the water as a prelude to being drowned and was terrified that the deacon wanted to kill me.

Sounds like a rationalisation way later though? I don't think you could be aware of either concept at the time. Like, the fear of the priest as a stranger, or fear of the other babies screams from pouring water on their heads. Not the concept of drowning or killing.

Isn't drowning one of the few things that babies instinctually fear?

It was a deacon and I was not afraid of him. I was afraid of being drowned. I probably had some prior notion of drowning from being bathed by my mother. She was a very results oriented person that did not have any idea that the details of how you do things are important. It is almost certain that she accidentally got water in my nose at some point (possibly multiple times), which made me acutely aware of the notion of drowning. It is a memory that I likely elected to forget, although traces likely remained, which likely caused my fear during my baptism.

Coincidentally, I have had a lifelong aversion to putting my head below water. It made learning to swim impossible.

My goodness, this is fascinating! Thank you for sharing!

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