Thursday 12 May 2011

before we were three

this piece in Psychology Today, rather spookily illustrated with a picture of a staircase, was brought to my attention by Norm, for which thanks.  It indicates that while most of us remember hardly anything from before we were about three, young children have memories that go back further, but they lose the ability to recall those memories as they get older.  This appears not to be the same syndrome as in older adults,  whose memory changes too, but for short-term events, and it also appears not to be to do with the ability to put memory into words.  I always thought it was, and that I couldn't remember much other than certain visual images from before that age because I didn't know the words for those events at the time, but apparently I was wrong.  A recurrent nightmare I have had, of soft walls pressing in on me and making me feel I am suffocating, is I believe a memory of my own birth, and recurs as a nightmare because that is the only way my brain can process it.  And, which concurs with the Psychology today piece, I used to have this nightmare A Lot when I was a child, and the frequency of it has steadily diminished over the years.  It is several years since I have had it at all.  I am not alone in having that kind of (bad) dream, others have told me of very similar dreams.  It occurs to me to wonder if those born by Caesarian section have that dream.  And to mention in passing that babies born by Caesarian are much prettier (perfectly round heads and flawless skin) than others are.  Just musing...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought this was another story about Lib Dem councillors?

Jonny said...

I was from my mother's womb untimely ripp'd, and my skin is lovely; and I've never had a similar nightmare to you.
I recalled my earliest memory in my twenties. Images of vertical lines close to my face, something flickering and a feeling of excitement. It turned out it was my memory of the moon-landing when I was two. I used to jam my play pen into the door if I was put in the dining-room away from whatever was going on so that I missed nothing. The memory is completely non-verbal, just sensual.

Augustus Carp said...

I am sure that physical location has a lot to do with memory. I surprise my family with detailed memories of my early years (certainly from when I was two) but I think I am helped by the fact that we moved house a lot - and my memories are located in specific places, which thus helps to fix them in time. I think (but have no evidence for my belief!) that children who grew up in one place will have less distinct memories, as they will have more difficulty in placing the events in a temporal context.