can you remember your birth?

[lethalmind360]

that was before my birth if that makes sense but i do not remember my actual birth if i ever did I forgot it along time ago i held on tight to the memory in the post before this one cuz i thought it might mean something someday if that makes any sense

[lethalmind360]

i also remember more than i wrote because i hope someone can know more than what i have said so i know they have had the same memory

[llee]

can you?

I remember mine. I don't care if you believe me or anything, but I remember my birth.

I remember seeing a bright light through blood, someone picking me up, and I remember the face of the doctor somewhat

am I alone in this?

[/quote

You are not alone. I remember also. People that don't remember, just can't believe it. I have always remembered it. My experience was similar to yours ,only a little bit different. Right after birth, I also remember the bright room, being on a table, or up 'high' on something , and sensing I was female. This is the truth, and like you , don't minf if anyone wants to acknowledge it, I know, have always remembered and not understanding, as a child, even then, I remembered it.

[Black Hound]

Nope and glad of it. My mother still gets miffed when the topic comes up when my birth topic comes up due to the length of labor and how big a baby I was at birth.

[+susieice]

I can't remember my birth, but I can remember being put into my pram and being in my cot in my bedroom.....after that my earliest memory is from when I was about 3 years old.

My memory is similar to Still Waters. I don't remember my birth but I have a memory of being on my dressing table while my mom was changing me. She was making silly faces and I was laughing. It's really quite clear. After that I don't remember until I was 4 and my grandmother passed. I remember the night she went to the hospital and the week after vividly.

[Nims]

I do not remember my birth at all. I almost died shortly after (premature with underdeveloped lungs) but I do remember being in an plastic sort of tent. My mother tells me I shouldn't remember it because I was in an incubator infant bed from birth till I was two months.

[Rocketgirl33]

This is all realy very interesting. I do not have memory of my birth and my earliest memeory is about age 2 when I was living with my Grandmother and her boyfriend. He use to cross his legs and put me on his foot and bounce me like a horse ride. But on to my son. My son is 23 now and from the time he could realy talk he has told me he remembers his birth. I believe he does as he has always claimed it. The strange thing is when he was born the Dr. took him and handed him to me all gooy and everything and still had not cut the cord. I wiped off his face and looked at him and this brand new little human looked right into my eyes with what I can only discribe as reckignition, (spelling). He looked into my eyes for the longest time and even the Dr. commented on it, he said, "Look, he knows your his mommy." So after he told me about having the memory of his birth I realy believe he did. He never cried when he was born. After he was cleaned off and they gave him back to me he would always look into my eyes when he was nursing. And to this day he says he remembers his birth and pretty much everything. He tells me things from his early infantcy that only I would know. I don't think we know enough about the human brain to be able to say 100% that the brain can not remember until a certin age. If babies can't remember then what do they dream about?

[Fiddsi]

can you?

I remember mine. I don't care if you believe me or anything, but I remember my birth.

I remember seeing a bright light through blood, someone picking me up, and I remember the face of the doctor somewhat

am I alone in this?

Yes I do too, it was not good, I was a big 1st born child I had problems and ended up with damaged left eye sight. I always remembered a little of it as a child and told my father when I was small and was suffering behaviour problems at school, that I had problems being born and I had feeling sensations around my head. My father laughed it off, my mother died when I was six and I could not talk to her about it.

Later in life I had severe mental health problems and I enede up doing a lot of primal therapy to clean up my life and I shook off the mental health conditions that stopped me moving on in life. I had to feel a lot of feelings especially to do with my mothers death and also importantly the the head trauma I suffered when I felt 'under-pressure'. I still feel it but to far less extent these days as compared whe I was younger. The feelings come up when life challenges at work and other pile up, but being able to lie down and feel it re-sets my feelings. In short my birth has shaped the way I perceive things and by remembering my feelings of being trapped, etc, frees me to move on. Over time I have become amibidexterous and its like my left side has become more functional and I can quite clearly, mirror-write with my left hand, I use a computer mouse on the left as being natural to me and I use cutlery or chopsticks either hand. Unfortunately, my so called 'lazy left eye' damaged as I remember by me having some sort of heart attack and stroke at birth and resulting in me being dragged out filled with fluid and brought round, which i clearly remember; is still poorly sighted. I have a birth caused brain injury which I have at least come to terms with and cleared up my life.

I have very strong early memories of other events too, of being a very small baby and looking back on it now that I am 58 years old (and still quite young physically and mentally due to being quite at ease with life ) I can recall how young my parents were and what a shock it was for them having me their first born. Feeling such feelings as left me quite understanding and forgiving of people. Human birth is not easy. I suspect we are all quite affected by it and the helplessness of being an infant.

So yes I do believe that people do remember their births but normally it's so painfull and programs much of their lives, it's a good idea to repress it, unless you are prepared to deal with those physical body memories as I have done and was unable to repress for whatever reason. The more I felt the more I was able to

concentrate and ended up with several degres in teaching and social work. For me going into the feelings rather than medicating against them or avoiding them was the best way to go, but I'm not sure that is the way for everyone, I was unusual, already deeply into my feelings early in life as compared with 'normal' people who usually only remember much later events in their childhood. To me it's quite natural, I am just a person, I am not a religious person, not an extra terrestrial, just a human being who lived inside my mother before being born.

Edited September 19, 2010 by Fiddsi

[Fiddsi]

This is all realy very interesting. I do not have memory of my birth and my earliest memeory is about age 2 when I was living with my Grandmother and her boyfriend. He use to cross his legs and put me on his foot and bounce me like a horse ride. But on to my son. My son is 23 now and from the time he could realy talk he has told me he remembers his birth. I believe he does as he has always claimed it. The strange thing is when he was born the Dr. took him and handed him to me all gooy and everything and still had not cut the cord. I wiped off his face and looked at him and this brand new little human looked right into my eyes with what I can only discribe as reckignition, (spelling). He looked into my eyes for the longest time and even the Dr. commented on it, he said, "Look, he knows your his mommy." So after he told me about having the memory of his birth I realy believe he did. He never cried when he was born. After he was cleaned off and they gave him back to me he would always look into my eyes when he was nursing. And to this day he says he remembers his birth and pretty much everything. He tells me things from his early infantcy that only I would know. I don't think we know enough about the human brain to be able to say 100% that the brain can not remember until a certin age. If babies can't remember then what do they dream about?

Yes, I'm sure he does, and it sounds like his birth was pretty Ok. I can remember mine and much of my very early life as if it was yesterday, I can see the kitchen from the floor, the decore and style of the early fifties and just what a wild and full on child I was, so strong and full of life, and I still am now.

I can even sense the roundness of the American army Nissan hut hospital in which I was born here in Australia in 1952 , I could not see it but I sensed I was born into a round curved space. It was so cold, and my first breath was like breathing sand...it was noisy, I got a whip-lashed back from being hung from my feet and shaken and things were pushed up my nose to suck out goo, and I was placed on a towel and gentle hands pressed my chest to make sure I took breaths..

Edited September 19, 2010 by Fiddsi

[Fiddsi]

I do not remember my birth at all. I almost died shortly after (premature with underdeveloped lungs) but I do remember being in an plastic sort of tent. My mother tells me I shouldn't remember it because I was in an incubator infant bed from birth till I was two months.

Well to be fair it's no wonder you have not been able to recall it and why should you if your doing OK and dont need to explore your early memories unless your suffering post traumatic memory intrusions such as I did.You must have been a toughie just to survive and you do remember a very early event which is unussual in itself.

Being able to remember in my case has just settled me down I am not any different than anyone else except I can remember being very small and i do apprecioate that infants remember and know much more than we give the credit for..

[Fiddsi]

In my personal opinion memory isn't really possible at birth since its something a person comes to grips with in the first 3 years of brain development. Any memories would probably come from dreams you recall from your subconscious when trying to remember, however realistic they may seem. Like I said this is personal opinion if you could actually recount details you could not possibly have known with external confirmation then I'd confess to being amazed. <img src="http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

Yes I understand, memories are quite subjective and I canonly say that the meomories were just terrible to access, i had to go through a lot of very frightening feelings to come to terms with such close to deat experiences. I still can't handle confined spaces..

[Fiddsi]

I'm glad I don't remember. <img src="http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" />

I can certainly understand that, but I have pleasant feelings too about it such as there were people there who really cared for me and what a tough fella I was as you sepnd a lot of time snaking out, your just not passive and being squeezed along, I was doing alot of work to make my own way out...

Edited September 19, 2010 by Fiddsi

[Fiddsi]

Yes I do too, it was not good, I was a big 1st born child I had problems and ended up with damaged left eye sight. I always remembered a little of it as a child and told my father when I was small and was suffering behaviour problems at school, that I had problems being born and I had feeling sensations around my head. My father laughed it off, my mother died when I was six and I could not talk to her about it.

Later in life I had severe mental health problems and I enede up doing a lot of primal therapy to clean up my life and I shook off the mental health conditions that stopped me moving on in life. I had to feel a lot of feelings especially to do with my mothers death and also importantly the the head trauma I suffered when I felt 'under-pressure'. I still feel it but to far less extent these days as compared whe I was younger. The feelings come up when life challenges at work and other pile up, but being able to lie down and feel it re-sets my feelings. In short my birth has shaped the way I perceive things and by remembering my feelings of being trapped, etc, frees me to move on. Over time I have become amibidexterous and its like my left side has become more functional and I can quite clearly, mirror-write with my left hand, I use a computer mouse on the left as being natural to me and I use cutlery or chopsticks either hand. Unfortunately, my so called 'lazy left eye' damaged as I remember by me having some sort of heart attack and stroke at birth and resulting in me being dragged out filled with fluid and brought round, which i clearly remember; is still poorly sighted. I have a birth caused brain injury which I have at least come to terms with and cleared up my life.

I have very strong early memories of other events too, of being a very small baby and looking back on it now that I am 58 years old (and still quite young physically and mentally due to being quite at ease with life ) I can recall how young my parents were and what a shock it was for them having me their first born. Feeling such feelings as left me quite understanding and forgiving of people. Human birth is not easy. I suspect we are all quite affected by it and the helplessness of being an infant.

So yes I do believe that people do remember their births but normally it's so painfull and programs much of their lives, it's a good idea to repress it, unless you are prepared to deal with those physical body memories as I have done and was unable to repress for whatever reason. The more I felt the more I was able to

concentrate and ended up with several degres in teaching and social work. For me going into the feelings rather than medicating against them or avoiding them was the best way to go, but I'm not sure that is the way for everyone, I was unusual, already deeply into my feelings early in life as compared with 'normal' people who usually only remember much later events in their childhood. To me it's quite natural, I am just a person, I am not a religious person, not an extra terrestrial, just a human being who lived inside my mother before being born.

[Fiddsi]

<!--quoteo(post=2741168:date=Feb 10 2009, 09:41 PM:name=Neognosis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Neognosis @ Feb 10 2009, 09:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2741168"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->None of you do. You remember something else and think it's your birth you are remembering, or you have just convinced yourself that you remember your birth. A neonate's brain is not able to form long term memory at birth.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Supposedly we are not supposed to be able to remember anything before 24 months of age, yet I remember my grandmother beating the heck out of me when I was 15 months old. And I've had that confirmed.

Time will tell, what is concidered confirmed by science is always moving on, as for what a neonates ( nice de-humanising term that one ....) brain is capable of is still not able to be confirmed by anyone. All we can say is that memory is suspect, that it varies and that is changes over time and memories are not reliable such as in a court case for instance as deiffert poeple can have different recollections of the same event. But as it is impossible that another can appreciate my memories as experienced by me whether others believe my memories as I claim is not the point. I can't prove anything but my father does say I do remember very real events very early in my life which he can remember as occuring without me having be en told about them, so why cant some poeple remember being born? Admitedly its unusual, and in some cases imagined and in some cases actual, it can't be proved nor disproved not yet at least and I suspect there will be big shocks for sceptics in the future when technology and testing techniques become more reliable in testing such ideas..

[Fiddsi]

I definitly do not remember my birth..

My first memories are from when i was 7 years old <img src="http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="blink.gif" /> Is that normal ??

What's normal? My tertiary studies in psych discussed a wide range of memory ranges for people with no explanation as to why different people remember different ages when they can definately decide how old their memories commence. I think the everage age is 3-4-5 years old, but plenty of people remember earlier....

Edited September 19, 2010 by Fiddsi

[Fiddsi]

<!--fonto:Lucida Sans Unicode--><span style="font-family:Lucida Sans Unicode"><!--/fonto--><!--coloro:#ff0000--><span style="color:#ff0000"><!--/coloro-->i uhmm really don't think i want to remember x.x<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--fontc--></span><!--/fontc-->

why do you suspect it was not good?

[Fiddsi]

why do you suspect it was not good?

Humans have difficult births. We are the only animal with a fontenelle, a 'hole' in our head at birth to enable our brain which had doubled in size about 1/2 million years ago from our more ape like predessors. The fotenell enables us to get passed through our mothers hip girdle which also had evolved to be larger.

The fontelle evolved when our hands doubled our brain nuerons due to evolved behaviours; complex-language (we used our hands to assist us to talk (pointing beaconing etc before our sounds became more articulated and when complex-tool counting manipulating objects specialised the brain areas. Our brain size was enabled through us leaving the trees and standing up and using our hands technologically. Our brains are complex indeed but easily hurt, easily affected by mulnutrition, or thorough infections especailly when we reall very smally and especially in underdeveloped countries with por water or sewerage disposal or in the not so distant past when we lived more in the landscape. Its only fairly recently that modern sterile hospital births prevent death or serious injury to both infants and mothers or that you can have a home birth but can call in help due to having a phone line. Any doctor will tell you humans need help at birth or that help should be at hand if needed if a mother wants to do it without clinical assistance.

Boys too are normally larger at birth than females, and are more suseptible to acquired brain injuries (ABI) at birth due to complications and oxygen starvation.

Boys are more suseptible to ABI's later on also due to being shaken or struck as children due to being more challening to adults, due to risk behaviours, falls sport and fighting let alone excessive drinking in adolecents when the brain is still developing.

Edited September 19, 2010 by Fiddsi

[Fiddsi]

I don't remember my birth, but I remember many other things from before I was 24 months old.

I remember having chicken pox when I was 6 months old. Falling on a coffee table, and chipping my tooth when I was like 9 months.

Slapping my new born brother, when I was about 18 months old. My parents talking to me when I was very young. I remember many things from my childhood.

I also remember what seems to be my mom talking to me. Thing is, she's still pregnant o.O

Its prolly just a dream or something, but idk

The stuff she had been doing during the memory, my moms said really happened, and I hadn't been born yet. The memory is in a 3rd person point of view though. Really weird. She was eating chocolate covered Pretzels, and watching the Simpsons. Talking to her stomach and rubbing it.

Its so vivid...Really strange.

Yes I believe it, and i have heard things like that from children and it shocks their paremts who know they have not told them of events being related and can often confirm tose events and of the child being very young indeed...

[Torgo]

While it is true that long term memory is not really working well for the first three years after birth (or the entire period before birth) it does not strike me as impossible that a few memories might slip through now and then, probably highly distorted. I have nearly no memories from before I was four, but I do have an impression of doing something with my mom and a large black dog - a dog which died when I was one year old. I know it has been heavily distorted because the memory is more like a scene, as in I see myself in the memory rather than looking out through my eyes.

[Fiddsi]

While it is true that long term memory is not really working well for the first three years after birth (or the entire period before birth) it does not strike me as impossible that a few memories might slip through now and then, probably highly distorted. I have nearly no memories from before I was four, but I do have an impression of doing something with my mom and a large black dog - a dog which died when I was one year old. I know it has been heavily distorted because the memory is more like a scene, as in I see myself in the memory rather than looking out through my eyes.

Yes I can remember our dog a golden Cocker Spaniel 'Rusty" shortly after I came home after birth, I could not see him my eyes were hazy but I could feel him, He was quite put out by my arrival, they showed me too him whe I was in the bassinette. He was and resentful but patient. He was my parents 'child' before me' and quite snobby of me when got all the attention. I remember being quite scared of him and had dreams of him as something who could eat me. Later he was my friend as I learned to walk and I became someone who could hang out with him. I also can remember the plastic baby toys in the pram when I was in it, they were on an elastic string they rattled they were three colours, they were ducks. There was a pink blanket with a yellow ribbon edge my head was very large and I could not escape being bitten by mosquitoes, I was very helpless. It was 1952 & 53, my father wore quite baggy pants in the style of the day. When I could crawl Rusty growl if I crawled near his food bowl. I remember my parents training me to use a potty, I was not impressed. I was mostly happy but life had its moments my parent could be pretty p***ed off with having to deal with me.

Edited September 20, 2010 by Fiddsi

[hurm]

Not at all...in fact I only remember certain days from grade school through high school before grade school i remember a lot though. I'm bout to turn 21 in less than a month, but yea my long term memory pretty well sucks horrifically.

[Melamity]

As a women that has given birth to someone, I am grateful that I don't remember my birth. Apparently the doctor nearly scalped me with forceps and I got stuck a number of times. I really don't want to remember that. Thank you.

My earliest memory is my window breaking just before my mother put me down in my cot to sleep. I really don't remember much. Burning my arm on my mothers iron when I was about two, my smurf, watching TV in my high chair while eating Vegemite sandwiches and drinking Ribena out of my sippy cup, Bumping my head on my cot because the mattress was springy and I was enjoying jumping, running away with my brother with my little blue suitcase.

I pretty much remember everything from age 4 onward's.Some of it's not pleasant but I do remember most of it.

[Fiddsi]

Not at all...in fact I only remember certain days from grade school through high school before grade school i remember a lot though. I'm bout to turn 21 in less than a month, but yea my long term memory pretty well sucks horrifically.

Memory changes over time, long term memory seems to improve with time, and contrary to popular belief older people may have memory problems due to having to trol through a life time of memories due to a brain full of experiences to retieve things rather which takes time than having memory problems due to being old. As time goes by you may remember things you have forgotten, I ghet reminders like tastes on my tongue, smells flavours and reminders such as the smell of linolium for instance, a rare smell these days, which can flash me back to sometime over 50 years ago.

[Fiddsi]

As a women that has given birth to someone, I am grateful that I don't remember my birth. Apparently the doctor nearly scalped me with forceps and I got stuck a number of times. I really don't want to remember that. Thank you.

My earliest memory is my window breaking just before my mother put me down in my cot to sleep. I really don't remember much. Burning my arm on my mothers iron when I was about two, my smurf, watching TV in my high chair while eating Vegemite sandwiches and drinking Ribena out of my sippy cup, Bumping my head on my cot because the mattress was springy and I was enjoying jumping, running away with my brother with my little blue suitcase.

I pretty much remember everything from age 4 onward's.Some of it's not pleasant but I do remember most of it.

Sure women certainly go through a lot and I have every respect for what my mother went through with me because i do remember. But babies go through it too, can get injured often permantly and are not the passive little blobs with no feelings or memories as are commonly thought of. People like Frederick Laboyer, a doctor in the 70's who did some primal therapy work on his own birth memories wrote a photo essay publication called 'Birth without violence' that my generation read. His writings and others did a lot to change hospital birthing practices such as reducing bright lights, reducing noicy birth expereineces such as covering metal surfaces with towels to reduce clatter, and raining the room temperature for the comfort of the baby as appossed to the comfort of hospital staff to reduce cold shock on the baby coming out of a warm mother. Such care was seen as being important to contributing to a better baby mother bonding experience and reducing birth shock to the baby. Birth experiences can shape the rest of your life if say your mother was unable to feed you due to being injured or unconcious due to complications and in my experience, I had some mistrust of my mother until I was able to conciously connect birth and other experiences as a smmall child with some of those bonding problems we had due to her being knocked out for the last part of her labour, and also in the first year whehn she suffered post natla depression and struggled as a new mother with me her 1st child. (Dad was a railway man on shift work and was often a couple of days up the line somewhere and mum did not have relatives close to assist. Understanding my memories and being older now, has really assisted me understand and let it go, and be more trusting of women in general because I believe our early realtionship with someone as important at ones 'mother' is very closely related to how one relates to ones 'lover'. Even the word relationships of sucking feeding sounds such as mumummumm with mother a common sound for mother in a lot of cultures is formed very early in life and such behaviours are carried over into sex, intimacy romance ....in music blues for instance you get lines such as 'you done me wrong mumma' all very primal (basic) human experiences described associated with losing ones love interest etc ......so those very intimate early experiences are very important to the rest of your life as to what is concious or unconcious in how you relate to others and how you parent yourself. Birth and other early child and adolecent experiences can shape our lives conciously or unconciously and can create deep tension and division in our minds and bodies. When we are one; the mind is the body and the body is the mind, splits or

divisions occur when the body is overwhelmed with pain and trauma and makes us afraid of ourselves and our memories and we spend our lives running from anything that may churn up too much of the past that we cant deal with or if our memories are so overwhelemd and leak all the tiem they can give us severe mental illness. True cases such as that of Syble, read the book or see the movie (with Sally Fields) describes the phenomena very well indeed..

[kitty81]

I remember very little of my childhood.. and its quite frustrating.. a few things I do remember are my sports day at (I think 8 or 9yo?) a trip to my dads with my brother, being given a colouring book and pens (8yo?) sleeping with the light on at my dads because of spiders (8yo?) I still do.... lol I don't remember alot at all.

I wish I could.. I have a few memories return when I look at photographs..