Earliest memories

From Moments of Awakening by Scott Alexander.   He asks for peoples recollections of their first memories.  An interesting topic and interesting responses.  

I respond with:

Because my father's career was in the international oil industry, I have the advantage that we moved frequently and that time-stamps memories by location.  My first four years were in Venezuela and we did not live there again so all memories from there must be from between 0 and 4.  Stripping out all memories that could be contaminated by family stories or family pictures, I have four categories of memories probably in a rising hierarchy of complexity and from earliest to latest.

Event vignettes - memories of things happening and the experience of that thing.  Exploring a just-built empty house with some friends; falling from a bulldozer and gashing my head (and the whole subsequent emergency room visit); splash pool, trips into the Andes, riding in a car with rusted out floor boards and watching the road go by beneath my feet, etc.

Conversations - Snatches of dialogue from events.

Self-reflection - Hearing something said and reflecting on the implications of what was sais.  For example, Billy Frank Snorgrass intimating that the Easter Bunny was not real was discombobulating.  It was one thing that he might not be real at all but an entirely different thing that everyone should be lying about him being real.  

Awareness of agency - My father was sawing a large sheet of plywood in the garage and needed someone to hold up the far edge to keep it from bending.  He called me in to do so.  I came over and held it up over my head (because I was short).  My mother saw this and decided it was dangerous and came out and took my place, holding it just above her knees.  However, when my dad finished the cut, the sheet fell down at his side and she lost her grip at her end and it fell and scraped her shins.  I can remember my wishing that she had not taken my place and believing that had I continued, the accident could have been avoided.

I am guessing that the vignettes and conversation memories might be as early as 2-3 and the reflection and agency memories more like 3-4 but cannot be certain.  

Some wonderful stories in the comments.

Tony Bozanich

Tony Bozanich's Newsletter

22m

It's not my first memory, but I vividly remember the moment when I found out that two different people can have the same name. I had a friend named Chris Hanley when I was a child in Passaic, NJ and then around age 6 moved to a different town and met a different Chris Hanley was like "What the fuck is going on??!!!"

[snip]

Naremus

20m

I have a fair number of memories from when I was young, probably 2-4 years of age, I don't recall any of them being standout in terms of "I'm conscious now", maybe the one in which I was in my parents bedroom and found a pair of scissors. I decided to give my favorite stuffed animal a quick haircut because that seemed like a thing that needed to be done. Fortunately I didn't entirely ruin it, the same stuffed animal is now in my own kids bedroom, but I can at least recall having a thought process even if it was half baked.