What is the oldest memory you have? . . .How far back can you remember?

I would say 2 to 2.5 years old. Definitely 3.

6 months old. I remember being in my grandmothers kitchen. I can still describe it in detail. She had died and the family had gathered at her house. FTR, that was the only time I was ever in her kitchen. She lived in Pennsylvania, and we lived in Indiana.
The next memory I had was when I was a year old, and my godparents had brought over a "Sleepy" doll for me. It was like a stuffed animal, but had a plastic dolls face, and it was all pink with a tuft of yellow yarn for hair, on the top edge of the plastic face.
When I was 2 years old, and a patient at Children's Memorial in Chicago. I tried to escape. I hid in a laundry bin they took from room to room for soiled laundry, and made it out all the way to the front door, but I couldn't open it, I was too little. I tried escaping again, and got caught quickly, and they tied me to the bed.
When I was 3 years old, and visiting my godparents in their community. I was supposed to be watched by my godparents daughter, but she didn't watch me close enough. I started walking to try to get back home. I made it close to a mile, but lost my direction. I stopped at a house to tell them I was lost, and 2 elderly ladies that lived there called the police. I gave them my name and where I lived, also my godparents names. I was reunited quickly with my family.

Yes, I was something else, to say the least.

I know! People don't think little kids know what's going on. It was years before I realize that it was an affair, but I still recall the unease.

A few snippets from what I was around 1 to 1.5 years old.

laying on my back getting my diaper changed. The Talcum powder, mom wrestling with the diaper pins for the cloth diapers. Dad (the giant) standing behind her beaming.

Sitting on a neighbor's linoleum kitchen floor in diapers playing with a neighbor baby. Foolish waste of time. blocks and balls. Their screen door needed some attention.

I remember a few rides in the family car. And once in a green pickup truck that had the yellow clearance lights on top of the cab. Everything had 3 on the tree manual shifting except the pickup truck was the normal floor mounted gear shift.

Mom would let me play in the grass in the backyard while she sat in a chaise lounge chair with the webbing that needed replaced every year, while she sipped iced tea. There was an outdoor bassonet on wheels where I would get my diapers changed when outside. The thing had a hinged lid on top that would open to reveal storage for the diapers and stuff underneath. I noticed the robins hopping in the yard and wanted to catch one. She handed me a salt shaker and told me to put salt on its tail to catch it. I gave it a try but it was quickly apparent that this was a futile endeavor.

The neighbor had some Koi in a little pond with a heavy grate over it
and I would walk on the grate and look at the fish. (There was no fence between yards). Just some hedges for a little privacy.

DIgging in the mud a few times with a couple neighbor kids. They claimed they were making mud pies. It was just mud though. Still, it was fun squishing it around. I recall there was some fine gravel in it was well. Not very suitable for a smooth mud pie. :)


I was around 3.5 or 4 when we moved from there to a place more out in the country, which I loved. huge trees, big fields. Wonderful place to grow up.

Last Edited by JustmeTX on 01/27/2023 07:51 PM

I remember when I was starting to acquire thoughts on things around me to form my own conclusions about what everything was, I was in a crib still I would bounce the crib around the room to move places, couldn't walk yet but I remember when I first did. My memories are not that great on certain things but its rock fucking solid on others. Hit and miss.

The earliest distinct memory is from the age of 2 to 2 1/2.

I remember getting up before my mom, going into the kitchen climbing up a step stool onto the countertop putting a piece of bread in the toaster and repeatedly pushing the lever back down until the bread was burned and was beginning to smoke. Then reaching into the cabinet and pulling down some canister of either sugar or flour. This woke my mom up and when she came in the kitchen I got a few slaps across the back of my legs with a 2" wide patent leather belt and had to stay in my room until a short time later she called me out and fixed a small bowl of snow ice cream for me.

wow, I also have a memory of my mom singing to me sleep while rubbing my back ... I was a year old - I remember the house the yard and a playground across the street and riding on my brothers, sled with wheels

I remember being in the dark.

Then I heard a mighty voice say "Let There be Light!"

I remember the little wash basin my mom had in the kitchen to wash me. She told me she used that only when I was LESS than a year old. I remember some other random things like that when very young.

Being electocuted at age 15 months...put a hair pin in light socket.

I have very early memories as a baby.

Some were when I was a year or so old; not sure why I remember, possibly due to traumatic events that made me hyper aware at a very early age.

I remember crying while I was being held because they had my head back, so I was looking up at the ceiling, but I wanted to see what was going on in the room.

I remember being in my crib, standing up and looking at my parents' bed nearby.

I even (horribly) remember my father changing my diaper. He was annoyed and disgusted.
My mother told me I was potty trained at 11 months, so this may have been earlier than a year old.

Anyway, I'm 60 now.

A giant snake curled up in a white picket fence..

Around three I would imagine. Running outside with my sister after watching cartoons. It was spring of 66 or 67. Way before safety features on cars. Our driveway had a slight incline onto the street. Wanted to prove to my sister that cartoons are real and if a car ran over you, well you can just shake yourself off and everything inside goes back into place. Opened the car door, undid the emergency brake and ran to the back of the car and stuck both my legs under the rear wheel. I remember laughing because the car rolled into the street and blocked traffic. I was fine but oh my lord my mom somehow figured out what I had done and the firestorm began. Straight away to the hospital and I remember the doctor saying the word amputation. My mom was really frightened. I realize then that I screwed up and I was crying uncontrollably. Fortunately our bones when very young are more flexible I think. Also our driveway was not paved at the time and my bones were squished into the earth a bit.
As it turned out the doctor said we will Not have to amputate. I only heard the word amputate and that was enough for me. I sure miss my mom.

I was in diapers looking at my mom's bare and bruised abdomen. It looked as if she had just undergone surgery.

I think my parents were telling me that I'd done that, lol. I was a C-section baby.

But I have another early memory that disturbs me more. I was very young, I don't know what age. I was standing in a dark room, I think it was hewn out of rock, with stone benches arranged like pews in a church. But it was not a church.

I remember standing in the front, near where the altar would be. I don't recall what, if anything, was behind me. The lighting was dim and diffuse. Maybe some uplights on the walls. My mom was there, as were several other people I did not know.

I'd always remembered it as my mom took me to a place downtown in our small city, and we'd gone downstairs to this . . . temple, or whatever it was.

I've asked my mom what this place was and if she remembers taking me there. She has no idea. But it's been bothering me more and more lately. Just last week, I half-joked to my wife that maybe it was a memory from before I was born -- perhaps this was the place where my mom "chose" me and made arrangements with the people in the room.

Anyway, it's freaky.

Last Edited by Cranky Ad Man on 01/27/2023 08:25 PM

About 2 years old.

3 months old. I remember flashes and being in the dark under a fire alarm. I had no verbal thoughts just a longing for company. This was during a hurricane in Texas and my mom had put me in the hall under the fire alarm.

About 4 years old are the earliest...
Getting to sleep with grandma in her bed.
(shut up you weirdo freaks)

Grandpa pushing me in my peddle car.

Damn, I had a lucky childhood!

I may have early memories, but I have no way to place them chronologically. Dogs, for example. Dogs are very important, and I was aware of this. We had a couple of dogs named Archibald and Henrietta, but I'm not sure when and I'm not sure I really remember them as individuals. I remember Susie, but again, I don't remember exactly when I remember her. On May 1, 1963, Susie had some puppies. Somehow I know it was May Day. One of the pups didn't get adopted, so she hung around until late June, 1969.

Good Mom. Mommy ears and eyes in the back of their heads. Dads have intuition you can see a baby falling and catch them before it ever happens. You can actually sense what is next and stop it.

I dont know the exact age, but I remember being swaddled and laying in a bed, watching my Mother.
I'm guessing sometime before 12 months.

There's also the time my ass was burning from diaper rash and my mom was rubbing hot fire into my butt -- something called DESITIN, lol.

And another time, I was also in diapers, when we were on vacation. I was wading in a public pool and saw another kid enter from the other side. Being mindless and territorial, and unaware that I could not breathe underwater, I went after him -- and nearly drowned.

My dad rescued me. Probably why I'm terrified of drowning to this day.

Last Edited by Cranky Ad Man on 01/27/2023 08:09 PM

I used paper clips. I wasn't electrocuted, though. I survived. I don't think I ever got yelled at too bad.

It took several paper clips until I finally realized this wasn't something I needed to keep doing.

I have a memory of being in a highchair playing with my food and my dad freaking out on me for it. He slammed the spoon down in the middle of the plate, breaking it. I remember being suddenly terrified. I didn’t remember this until many years later while meditating. He frighin glued the thing back together and we used it all the time. I remember a feeling of foreboding every time I got that plate growing up and never knew why till I remembered that incident.

I remember back to when I was 2 years old.

I was conceived in the kitchen on Valentines Day

I did that at 1.5 years old at a Safeway while mom was in checkout. I stuck my finger in a lightbulb socket that had no bulb.
I remember that vividly.

But I recall things way earlier...
..Like my circumcision and the safety pins they put in my stripped peenie and the resulting
dried up piece of bacon looking thing it became.

We coulda been RICH! But that was the 60's.

And you recall this….how??? …and ewww!

Well nice to know not!

It just became apparent one time. I form memories differently due to a rare understanding of space time