Basically I want to know if it's just me or does everybody else NOT have any memories from the moment they were born up until the age of around 4 or 5 ?? I just can't seem to recall what I used to do when I was that young. WHY is this ?? I can't remember seeing my grandad either even though I've seen photo's of him and me together when I was just a baby... WHY is it that we only start storing memories after 5 years or so..??

Because as babies and small children our brains are not even close to as developed as they are later in life and therefore we have no long-term memory banks. Some people get lucky and remember from 3 and on, but most people's first memories are from around 4 or 5, when the long term memory is created in the childs growing brain.

cuz u didn't learn anything til you got to about 5. I can't remember that either

What BS said.

For the record I had one memory of being a baby...that is being in a room with family (a gathering, Christmas or something) and someone was holding me by the arms (like they didn't know how to hold a baby).

I asked my mother about this and she said she remembers aswell, it was Easter and she passed me to my uncle for a moment and the memory just stuck in my mind.



To answer your question...I believe in life and living to the best of my ability. I don't need the comforting belief of a ficticious paradise to be happy. For some that may be enough, afterall, ignorance is bliss.

their brains are busy learning how to interpret their senses. they don't start making memories about what's happening to them until they can understand it.

i have two memories from when i had just turned two. i remember my mom having to ride an airplane while she was pregnant and when she went to the hospital to have my little brother. his birthday is two months after mine and i'm two years older than him.

I actually have one memory too. I was 2 years old and in a push chair.

I understand the develpment part BUT what I'm trying to find out is why this is. I mean there must be a reason why we can't remember or is it just simply the fact we weren't developed enough? If this is the case then surely it would be possible to quicken the development of the memory part of a baby's brain just like they have done experiments on rapid learning experiments etc... on babies..!! I think the answer is more complicated than mere lack of brain development. If we can store words and recognise people as babies then why can't we remember a major accident like falling down the stairs or something..?? Hmm Bizzare..

we start making long term memories when the "preoperational stage" of development starts, around when you're two years old.

There's nothing bizarre about it.

Ever noticed how a baby is smaller than an adult?? Because the body is not developed. It takes a good 20 years to develop fully.
The brain is no different.

Are you saying learning other things or trying to understand senses that are unusual to you would affect your memory development ?? What was the first ever smell you can recall ?? or your first words ?? I'm sure you understood them at the time you recognised the smell or spoke the word BUT do you remember actually smelling or saying them..??

no, i mean that they don't understand what their senses even are. if they fell down a staircase, they couldn't make a memory of it because they wouldn't understand that they were falling down stairs, they would only know know that something in their senses changed and that they felt pain.

How can you say with certainty that there is no pradise or whatever else that may come after death ?? Also if you believe in living life to the best of your ability then why do you not try figuring ways of using more than just the 10% of your brain. How can you say what the best of your ability is anyway ?? No human knows the full potential of his capabilities and surely NO human has ever succeeded in living life to the best of their ability... That is merely a false perception humans have created for themselves because of their insecurity... I am sure what we percieve as best of our ability really isn't even half of what we can really achieve because there is always room for improvement...

Well I have read articles where a todler of 5yrs has the same muscle mass and strength as an adult. It was caused by a genetic mutation which inhibited production of myostatin or some chemical that reduces muscle growth. If we follow your theory then wouldn;t it also be possible that there is some hormone or chemicals that reduce the further development of our brain ? not only in terms of memory but other parts too, and if these were recognised wouldn't it then pave the way for accellerated learnign techniques or super-intelligent babies ??

I suppose it would be possible, but we're not discussing possibilities, we're discussing why you don't remember your first years, and naturally this is why. The brain isn't developed.

well ok I suppose that is one way of thinking about it, BUT don;t you think it would be possible to stimulate the brain somehow to bring back lost memories? either from your baby days or just memories you thought you never had..

It is possible.
Hypnosis is already used to surface old discarded memorys that your subconcious has blocked because of something or other.

However, a baby has no memories. The ability to create memories is not in the brain until a later stage of development, when memories start getting stored in our long term banks.

Humans are so weak...20 years to reach our physical peak.

Every other animal and lifeform is up and actively contributes to the natural cycle within a month.

I wonder if the reasons memories are not stored in very early life is due to that stage of life.
That is, the early stages of life for creatures(human or not) are very precarious: mistakes are made on all levels. So, perhaps nature said this: blank-out the memories of developmental mistakes in order to foster true, important growth as the creature matures.

it's not. once the neural pathways that the memories are stored on degenerate, it's impossible to bring them back. even if the pathways weren't completely degenerated, it would be hard to bring them back.

there are alot of proteins that make your brain cells degenerate and die. they're called apoptosis-inducing factors (AIFs). apoptosis is the scientific term for cell suicide. the gene bc1-2 lowers AIF levels, but it's better to increase cell growth than it is to reduce cell suicide, because old, unused pathways are destroyed to make way for new ones through cell suicide.

Is there a particular reason why these cells degenerate or is it just ageing? Are there no inert chemicals/proteins that would inhibit AIFs by binding to the brain cells and neurones thus preserving the memories forever and inhibiting apoptosis?

I feel lucky.....as I have many memory's before I was 5 years old.

the earliest I can remember I was one year old..not a good one though


perhaps it as do do with the situation or how you perceived it at that time...

...and dies a few years later, its all proportional, we live longer so we take longer to develop

also i can rember two seperate events from when i was 3 years old, actually i was 2 going on 3

they degenerate when you don't use them to make room for new cells in areas that you do use. a chemical called galantamine lowers AIF levels. you don't want to stop apoptosis completely because brain areas that aren't "pruned" of unused brain cells at all don't work as efficiently as brain areas that are "pruned", even though they have more brain cells. there are other chemicals called neurotrophic factors that make your brain cells develop and divide faster.

Why we can't remember when u are born as a baby.Because if u remember ur passed life u will not be able to accept ur parents and u will feel sad of what u had did in ur passed life.And u may wanna to take revenge.

Yeah. That's exactly it. Bravo.

Bravo goes to you for being able to understand that

This is from a post I did in another thread that is relevant to this topic

How can you tell I am concious... just because i told you I was? I think humans really need to take a look at ourselfs and how Much control of our lives ( mind and body ) we have, influences of outside world and our genes etc..

You could argue that if Humans are also pre-programmed also ( genes ) giving the essenstials before Learning.

Why not give robots the 5 senses , give them basic commands or programs to learn. When they reach a certain state of knowledge. would you then consider them concious?

Ok, Take a NEW BORN BABY for example. Does it understand when it first see's the world? Is he Self aware? Does he only become and get a certain state of Conciousness When he learns more about the world from his/her 5 senses. yes a baby reacts to you, he smiles at something you do or crys. But so does a DOG yet he doesnt understand death or conciousness, the dog dont questions its existence and neither does a new born baby.

So conciousness has A LOT to do with Sensory and Intelligence. i believe/

like others said, your brain is still developing therefor thats why you dont remember anything, your brain is doing a lot more important things that trying to remember a memories for when you are older. The brain has to understand the body.

the brain has to make new nueral Connections rapidly, so you can understand the body you have got. When you watch some1 walk, when you hear some1 talk your brain makes more Connections and has a better understanding. So your brain is rapidly trying to make sense of the world.

thats why we dont really have memories at early life

Hmmm OK but I still think brains are stupid because they should've evolved by now to store memories from day 1 so that I can recall who exactly it was that dropped me on my head and plus the harsh experience of being a baby would come to use sometime in the future

dunno if it answers amyones questions but i thought i'd share this anyway

Apparently humans are actually born before their brains/bodies are ready to be brought into this world...but they have to be born when they are, because due to evolution and our ability to walk upright, the pelvic canal is too narrow for a baby to pass through if it had a fully developed brain.

This is why animals are born and can walk straight away, but human babies cant.
Also, a babies brain surface is smooth....then as it develops it outgrows the cavity in the skull and starts to fold in on itself, which gives it that wrinkled, rippled look we all know...

I just think god doesn't want you to remember all those horrible times when you wet yourself and had horrible nappy rash, plus all those memories of shitting yourself... Hmmmmm

I do have lots of memories of under 5.
Even one where I was supposedly under 1.

Yet, those who can remamber themselves at some under 3 , try remambering how did the time feel then. Was it the same way it is now - past - present & future - or was it like one long film ?

Good Luck!

Some people get "flashbacks" esppesially if something really bad happened in that time. I have two memories under the age of 3... watching my house being built and seeing a fox run through the constrution site, and being in the basement of my 1st home while a really bad storm hit. I only remember tiny bits though

for me it was the same as it is now.

I actually have a memory from when I was two. I was pushing a bottle into the VCR. I thought it would clean it, but I ended up breaking it.

NOT TRUE...i still remember when i came out from my mothers womb.

Have you guys ever seen "Baby Geniuses"? Well that's an interesting theory they portray. You should watch it and see. The movie isnt all that great though.

What's it about?

Doesn't the title seem self-explanotory..??

here is the plot summery of the movie

"Dr. Elena Kinder and Dr. Heap work for BABYCO, the world's leading manufacturer in baby products. What the public doesn't know, however, is that Dr. Kinder and Dr. Heap are secretly working on cracking the code to "baby talk" which is actually a highly sophisticated language which allows babies to communicate the knowledge of the secrets of the universe with which they are born. Problems arise when Sly, the smartest of the babies, escapes from the lab and unites the babies of the outside world to help free the babies trapped in the lab."


"NOT TRUE...i still remember when i came out from my mothers womb."

really? is that possible but exactly what do you remember

umm, you think in language right? well as a baby you have an other language as now (or no language at all) so you might have the memories, but cant decode them so you can't remember anything

I have a few memories from 18mths upto about 4yrs. Most of them had a high emotional aspect which is why they've been highlighted in my mind rather then everyday things.

very hard to accept ye?
i wished all my family died if i'm telling a lie.
is that enough for you ? coz i don't wanna talk about it this time.
maybe next time.

"is that enough for you ?" dont mean to offend you or anything tell it when ever you fell comfortable

C-iscus i think so far you got the best theory, we might of forgot a unvirsal language between babies and by that i mean how all babies start out crying first or emotions.

its nothign to do with baby talk its nothing. its because babys are not really concious when they are first born, they dont understand the world. they are not intelligent.

I think we just forget as we get older things which aren`t important enough to remember or things we prefer to forget. My son is five now and last year when he was four he was talking about something that had happened the previous Christmas (when he was three). My husband and I had forgotten it until then and so had his sister who is nearly 7yrs older.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and have a wonderful new year.

Sarah

Babies could only see and feel but can not understand languages.
They are intelligent observer, fast learner if they are born normal.

If suppose everyone in the world are able to remember ur passed life.They world will be getting different and funny.


If u remember ur passed life,If suppose u are a university teacher at ur passed life.Then when u go to kindergarend sudden,U will be teaching ur teachers rather then ur teacher teaches u.Ur teacher will get crazy

If u are a president in ur passed life and when u are born.U will command ur parents and the world to obey u.How many presidents will be in ur country

Will u wanna buy toys when u are born with ur passed life memories.Toys shops need to change their ways of making toys.

If u are a mililtary highest intelligent commander in ur passed life.A baby is commanding to whole unit.Babies world

Many parents are very excited to know who u born.Maybe ur friends,ur passed away father or mother,a doctor from other country,ur enemies etc..If enemies.Kill the baby

Will there be any more primary,secondary schools,etc.All are pro,adults when u are born.Baby can flight a plane as ur passed life is a pilot.

New born babies are scaries.Kill if enemy.The world of scaries born baby

If ur baby is ur passed away "Boss" Sorry is u Boss

Baby is coming back to tell the judge who kill him or her .Criminals are scare of babies born U can run but u can't hide.Baby is telling the truth.

"Babies are the best"I love babies

I have several isolated memories from my early childhood.

One is me sitting in my high-chair, pulling on the phone cord.

I remember sucking on a pacifier ( I was told I did not have one past the age of two).

I also have a memory from my crib ( baby cage ) which I slept in until I was three.

I think a lot of it has to do with associations, as well. Much of what we know, or think we know, about the world around us comes from our associating it to something else. (That's not wet, so it's dry and so on.) We also have a language that allows us to associate an object or feeling w/ a word. (That thing in the middle of the room is a 'chair'.)

Have you ever tried to think about or remember something if you don't have a word or experience to associate it with? When we are born we have no vocabualry, nothing with which to cross-reference our experiences. The brain when we are that young is just a sponge, soaking up all these new sensations and experiences; they will be processed later. Sort of a sensory overload with no way to make sense out of it for a while.

I hope this makes some sense...

Long-term memory, I believe. is based on three things in early childhood; the ability to understand spoken language, the ability to speak and having a concept of time. I have early memories of specific events such as dropping my ice-cream cone at a fair (18 months), being in a car wreak at the age of 2 years, being left alone at home for 2 hours without a sitter but my uninterrupted long term memory began when I understood the passage of time.

My granddaughter began speaking early (6 months in complete sentences) and her concept of time at the age of 3 years. She is now 6 years of age and may later have a complete long-term memory from the age of three.

There is another type of memory is expressed by Ray Bradbury in his book titled; "Dandelion Wine" which I paraphrase here: I remember when I first knew that I was alive. In other words the moment you know you are a living soul with a beginning and a end. For me that moment was when I first understood that I could die and I knew fear for the first time.

Cotton c.