Just a question for anyone interested in helping me figure out if its possible for a 22 month old to have true memories, or what age do you think we are before memories truly stick? I was in a traumatic car accident at that age, unbelievably I was told I was fine but other family members suffered severe injuries. I always wonder what it did to me to have my whole family disappear (hospitalized) for about 6 weeks.

You don't have to share any bad memories or such, but share what you'd like. thanks!

[Morgansangel]

I know I was in a crib, and I remember looking out of the bars at my sister's favourite toy on a rocking chair by the crib.

I don't know how old I was, but since I was in a crib I'd guess at young, and it's a random memory, I have a few of them but that seems to be my earliest.

[KC Steely]

I think one of my earliest memories would be in one of those swings that my mom or dad would crank up on the top for the swing chair to move on it's own. I remember thinking it was fun, as I suppose most children would.

[too SHy]

I believe I was in the stroller with my mother, just rolling along and being very interested in everything.

[danvb]

I remember a time when I wasn't quite 2 yet. It must have been in the spring or early summer of 1955. (I was born in July, 1953) I'd just woken up from a nap. I was all by myself. I called and called for my mother but she didn't show up. I didn't know where she was and I felt frightened and terribly alone. I cried and cried. Finally the door opened and my mother came into the room and saw how upset I was. I remember telling her that I woke up and was all alone and I didn't know where she was and that I was scared that she'd left me. I was so scared. I cried and cried. She walked over and picked me up and said "Don't cry! It's alright. I just stepped outside to hang up the clothes on the clothes-line! I wouldn't leave you. Oh, I'm so sorry that I wasn't there when you woke up!" And she hugged me. I remember how wonderful that hug felt... and I remember the scent of my mother... how familiar and reassuring it was. I remember what her hair smelled like. It's funny, but I can remember everything so clearly... I remember the wool blankets I had on my bed. I was wearing cream-colored pajamas that had feet on them that looked like bunnies with long ears. I remember that we were living in a trailer at the Pleasant Valley Trailer Court in Port Hueneme, California. The interior of the trailer had wood paneling and all of the drawers and cabinets and cupboards were all made of the same wood. There was a laundry facility in a small building not far from our trailer. We had a vegetable garden right outside our front door that had lots of flowers growing in it. My father was not living with us. I didn't know where he was... and it's interesting, but even at that age, I didn't care that he wasn't around. We had a cat named Silky. She was a gray tabby. Our car was a brown Hudson. I remember thinking what a funny name that was for a car. The license plate on the Hudson was GWM-774. I only knew that because it was something my siblings and I called out like a chant as we were driving down the road. I didn't know that that was our license plate number until many hears later. I just liked saying it because it had a nice rhythm. And there was a big sign for Chase Brothers Dairy on the road to Ventura. It was a lighted sign that changed color from white to yellow. Whenever we saw the sign we'd always call out "pretty" when it was white and "awful" when it changed to yellow. Pretty-Awful-Pretty-Awful-Pretty-Awful. I honestly don't know how my mother kept her sanity after listening to that racket for as long as it went on.

I have so, so many memories from when I was very young... Walking on a path that went through a springtime forest of deciduous trees... How everything seemed so green and alive and beautiful. I know that I could barely walk at the time... I was a toddler. And another time when we went to visit someone. My father was around that time. He stopped the car and lifted me out of it and set me down on the sidewalk. I remember trying to get my balance when he set me down. I thought I was going to fall down. We went to visit some people and stayed until after dark. When we went to leave I remember stepping out onto the front porch and being completely surprised. Everything was completely white. I didn't know what it was, but I remember being completely fascinated by it.

Gosh... and I have so many other memories from when I was around 2 years old.

I could fill a healthy book with memories from when I was between 3 and 5 years old. That's for sure. I remember LOTS of things from those ages. There is a picture here in my PC picture album. It's a picture of my wife and me in November of 1955. My wife was 5 and I was 3. I remember that picture being taken. My wife's mother took it. She had this big, boxy sort of camera...

Anyway. As usual, I've carried on for way too long here. But, the memories... Yep.
I've had a remarkable and wonderful life... and it never ceases to amaze me.

Dan

[-jimi-]

22 months is almost 2 years. Most people I think have more solid memories from about age 3-4. That of course doesn't mean it is impossible to have early memories.

I don't have continuous memories from my earliest memory, but I remember this and that from before I was one. I remember silly things like my bro took my cuddly toy away from me and I remember trying to get my mom on my side but she said he can play with it for a while (Totally unfair in my mind LOL). We lived in that place up to I was maybe one year old so I sort of have proof of my age. I also remember I wasn't outside much my first few years but my mom said we were, I just fell asleep in the stroller LOL. So I mostly have memories from indoors.

[lizardlady]

I have two memories that have to be from before I was nine months old because I started to walk at nine months and could not walk yet in either memory. In one I "ran away", actually crawled away, from home. I escaped my playpen and took off down the sidewalk. The other was looking over the foot of my crib to the kitchen where Mom and her friend were having coffee. I couldn't understand why the other person was so upset. all I was doig was standing on her chubby little kid so I could see over the foot of the crib!

As to what age we can form memories, they taught us in grad school that most people don't start to form memories until they have spoken language to encode the memory. I tend to think that's hogwash. My "running away" and crib memories are in picture form.

[StarStrike]

When I was four years old I got a Megasketcher for Christmas. That's my earliest memory. I still have the Megasketcher. It was the one thing that got me interested in art and drawing.

[-jimi-]

I wonder why they think we cannot remember without language. I have memories from before I could speak and I spoke full sentences at age one. Most my memories these days are sort of visual in nature.

[0w6c379]

I think we all have different capacities for memory at varying ages. I believe you most certainly can have a true memory at 22 months. I was a little older when I had mine, but still in a crib. My memory was brief but vivid. I think if your experience was traumatic it will remain with you.

[willowbrook]

I have one early memory of being in my bouncinette, so maybe 12 months old, 18 months at the most. It's not a fully formed memory though, just a brief flash of being in my bouncinette in the lounge room, and laughing and bouncing like crazy. I do remember how I felt at the time though, or at least I can recall an impression of feeling, and I remember I was wearing a yellow jumpsuit. I have a clear memory of visiting my Mum in hospital after she had ear surgery when I was 2. I remember the way my mum looked, the hospital bed, how it was positioned in the room, which direction the window faced, what colour the tiles on the floor were.

[Perna]

My first memory is from when I was two. I followed my brothers across a bridge and into the "woods", they were going to a little mom & pop store to get a snack and I was not supposed to follow them, I distinctly remember my oldest brother (he's 9 years older than I am) telling me not to, he would not bring me home "this time" (so I'd done it before :-) I was in a little girl dress and ankle socks so the underbrush in the woods got me and I remember announcing I was ready to "go home now!" only my brother(s) ignored me so I turned around and started back myself only got to the creek (drainage ditch) at a different point so could not see the bridge. I looked both ways, knew very well which direction it was but it wasn't there! I thought about my options, knew I was too small to jump and did not want to take off my socks and shoes to wade across because the sea monsters might get me Eventually I gave up and sat down and started crying my heart out. My big, strong, brave father came along in the nick of time, jumped the creek and picked me up and I lived happily every after

In reality, I learned 50 years later that the "sea monster" was actually a very friendly, smiling whale and other fish creatures at the end of my favorite Dr. Seuss book when I was 2 (McElligot's Pool) but my mother was in the hospital, dying, and my father and I were struggling with my toilet training (I decided to become un-toilet trained when my mother went into the hospital), etc. The underground river in the book looks/reminded me instantly of the "creek" when I reread the book. The whole thing when we discussed it in therapy felt so right, I am sure it was very helpful to me psychologically.

When I talked to my father about it (my mother died when I was 3) he said the bridge was around a bend where I could not see it and we know from Piaget that I could not imagine such a thing yet at that age, out of sight=doesn't exist. I can still remember my puzzlement that I could not see it and and yet knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what direction it was in. But it is a wonderful memory tying me to my self before my mother died, as I have no other clear memories from then but now have a good sense of "Me" ongoing.

[Grey Matter]

I think I was two. I remember organizing cereal on our coffee table and my brother wanting to hold my hand so I had to stop and I got a bit upset. It's by far the least exciting memory I have haha

Around 2-3 years old ...

[too SHy]

This is a little bad. I was very small when my Dad went to fix the furnace in the basement and suffered what must have been a small cut on the hand. I was hysterical. Of course this was a minor thing but seemed big to me.

[IzzyMeadows]

I was about 22 months for my memory of being lost at a homecoming. I'm not sure how old I was when I almost drowned but it was houng enough that I couldn't pick myself up on my arms, so fairly young.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[shezbut]

My earliest memories begin around age 5.

I just realized what it is this past weekend. I've always had this vague memory of waking up in the middle of the movie, Mary Poppins. Right in the chimney sweep scene. But I was never sure whether that was a real memory or not.

Well, last weekend I was talking to my mom about Saving Mr. Banks (wonderful movie by the way), and she mentioned that we had seen that movie when it first came out, which would have been sometime in 1964 and would have made me no more than 2 years old. Then she said I had slept through most of the movie, and I realized my memory was accurate.

[tealBumblebee]

I have a legitimate memory of being a baby, old enough to walk, too small to talk though. My "big" brother (was maybe 5 or 6 at the time) and another boy were playing in a small room in a toy box at someone elses house, and the other boy hit my brother in the head with (what I assume was) a plastic bat. I remember him crying and I remember going to my biological mother (I guess it was me trying to "tell what happened") who was standing, talking to another woman behind the aisle in a small apartment kitchen. I remember being very upset for him. I've always told my grandmother about that memory since I was a young girl and she believes it really did happen. Beyond that, my memories don't start before maybe four or five, or young enough to still have "accidents" on myself but old enough at the same time not to.

[(JD)]

I have memories going back to being in diapers, and of standing wobbly but unable to walk yet, and of my surroundings at those times.

[cool09]

I have great memories of the 60's in our small house listening to my Dad's music, watching my brother in his crib, watching Vietnam War on the news every night, watching Robert Kennedy's train procession on TV (and crying).

Well thank you all for sharing, I'm fairly certain I could remember before the age of two. There just isn't the verbal connection but I think we still have images we can remember. Such as texture and shapes of something as meaningless as a floor, or a favorite toy...interesting, thanks

I have several very clear memories from when i was a week old, a couple more from when i was three months old-- just visual images, and longer memories from when i was a year old.

[phaset]

I remember being in the hospital wondering what a coffee vending machine was when my brother was born. I was 2 years and 4 months old. I think I have memories before this, but it's difficult to sequence them.

[NWgirl2013]

I have lots of memories but this one I always thought was interesting. I used to have a bad dream as a very young child, had it for years.

In it I was stuck in a very tight place, everything was red around me & I couldn't see anything else. I would try to move & got sort of stuck sideways in this place, knees up in my face, unable to get free.

As a child I couldn't figure out where I was in this dream and the only thing I could think of is that I was stuck in a chimney with red brick.

Was I remembering my birth?!