Age of your earliest confirmed memory
- Thread starter Nerys Ghemor
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This is extremely intriguing. Can you remember the actual color, or is it just a memory of seeing the color? Can you actually visualize the color?
It is very hard to explain. I can remember the colour, but I cannot visualise it as such. It is a memory, a feeling, an emotion. I certainly cannot describe it.
In the dream I was on another planet that was very different from Earth. I couldn't exist there as a human so I started to charge into something else and, among other things, my sight was altered.
I later had a feeling that a was dreaming about a colour that the subconsious mind could almost recognised but the conscious mind couldn't at all because of the limitations that our conscious minds have on interpreting what we see.
In the dream I was on another planet that was very different from Earth. I couldn't exist there as a human so I started to charge into something else and, among other things, my sight was altered.
I later had a feeling that a was dreaming about a colour that the subconsious mind could almost recognised but the conscious mind couldn't at all because of the limitations that our conscious minds have on interpreting what we see.
I don't agree with that position. WHile I'm not as good as I once was, and no where near as good as some out there, I've always taken from personal experience that every moment of our life is in our brains. It's simply a matter of learning both how to "turn on the DVR" and then learning how to use it. Some people are born with the ability from the start. Others have to work to turn it on... But the ability is there in all of us.
In life, there is no such thing as an unimportant stimuli.
I've always suspected that the ability to tap into the 'memory banks" of our minds is somehow connected to the ability to recognize and control our own dream world. Some overlap in the processing center, perhaps tied in with a need to be able to exert some manner of control over the subconscious portions.
I've spent years focusing my perceptions, expanding my peripheral vision, abstract observance (where you defocus your observation of visual and audio senses in order to engage the complete picture), Touch, Smell, Taste. I analyze everything in my mind looking for the details, and actively remembering trigger details in conscious memories that allow me to access the unremembered details. That last one is a skill set that I'm ashamed to say I may never master.
Through out all of this, I also developed a ever expanding ability to lucid dream. I went from simple realization of the dream, to subtile manipulation of the dream, to full on dream creation. I have also reached a point where I've had dreams more real than reality, a perplexing stage at best.
I figured that early childhood memories, specifically ones comprised of details, may show an ability to tap into whatever mental processes that I've messed with over the years.
I figured that, given the topic of the thread, it was a logical place to ask the question to see if there was any evidentiary string, if you will.
interesting.
Indeed.
Well I only have the one memory from before I was 3, but it is faint and I don't remember much of anything besides some flashes of images.
My strong memories begin around 3.5, when I started preschool. They are very clear and distinct memories.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I have often experienced lucid dreaming. My mom taught me how to do it by talking to me in my sleep when I was around 3-4 years old. As I was screaming (literally) from the night terrors, she would ask me what was happening and instruct me accordingly. As I've grown older and the need for lucid dreaming has diminished, it doesn't happen as often, but I could likely "will" it to happen again if I needed to.
Often what will happen is that instead of fully directing the dream, I just realize at some point "oh, I really should tell someone about this cool dream after I wake up." And then that dream ends and I immediately start dreaming about telling someone about the previous dream, and then once again realize "oh wait, this is just a dream too, I still need to tell someone when I wake up." And this will continue in several iterations until I've woken up and actually told someone.(Or did I really?)
Huh. Anyone else suffer from "vivid" nightmares or night terrors?
I constantly fall asleep while my brain is still "active" and I'm aware that I'm actually sleeping. It's always weird when you get that "I'm falling" jolt right around that time.
Very cool. Color is an interesting part of dreaming.
No, it's not. Sorry, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the brain works. Plus, personal experience (especially in this case) is not valid evidence -- Argument from Experience is considered a logical fallacy. Perception is not passive recording, it is active synthesizing. Memories are not stored on a tape or in a file, they are created, modified, distorted, and lost in an imperfect organ. Even in the few rare individuals with eidetic memories, the ability is imperfect, and usually applies only to one specific subject area. What you are saying here is simply and demonstrably false. Mind you, I don't believe you're lying about any of this, just that you misunderstand what's actually going on.
Like I told Tiberius, you don't have to take my word for it. Any book on basic neurology, brain physiology, or even an intro to psych textbook would tell you as much. And before I go on, I do concede the fact that neuroscience is a developing field and there is much about the brain that is still unknown...but there is also a lot that is known, and one of the things that is known is that our brains don't work like DVRs.
I know you're just being silly here, but just for the sake of the argument, yes, there is a hell of a lot of unimportant stimuli. Your brain would not be capable of functioning if it was busy processing all the unnecessary stimuli to which it is exposed, so it blocks it, changes it, and filters it out. You may think you're getting a complete image of the world around you...looking out the windows of your eyes, as it were, but the reality is very different: the image projected on the the lens of our eye looks nothing like the sort of film reel our brains create for us.In life, there is no such thing as an unimportant stimuli.
It is possible to "rediscover" memories that one had forgotten, and there are certainly mental exercise one can do to improve one's memory and ability to retrieve memory. However, the premis of a memory bank that stores everything we've ever experienced is false. Our brains don't even process everything we experience, let alone store it...no matter how much effort you might put into honing your senses, a la...
Firstly, remember that even well-honed senses are not actually providing the brain with an image (sound, sensation, etc) that is a perfect image of the real world. The senses give the brain discrete, malformed, and confused data and the brain does it's best to interpret, filter, and reconstruct that into our perception of the world. This involves omitting huge amounts of input to prevent overload, manufacturing images, sounds, etc to fill in gaps, and screwing up quite often (hence optical illusions, and other bizarre experiences, like seeing things out of the corner of your eye that aren't there, paradolia, etc.).
Finding trigger details is a classic and effective mnemonic, though.
Not too perplexing, though, if you think about it. The basic theory of dreaming is simply that that's how your brain works in the absence of sensory input (and the switching off of our rational thought). Since our perception of reality is the brain's synthesis of the world based on imperfect data, it makes perfect sense that a lucid dream could seem hyper-real.
This may be just a case of semantics, but I'll note it nonetheless. The phrase, "tap into" irks me a bit...it implies the sort of silly pseudoscientific thinking of people who actually believe we only use 10% of our brains. I don't know if you mean it like that, but it's an inaccurate term in any case. You've developed skills in using mnemonics, thought organization, and lucid dreaming, which is all really cool, but you've not "tapped into" any secret stash of ability.
Yes. I remember at least one dream from most nights, and my dreams are always very vivid.
Miss Chicken, that sounds very cool. Dreams have always interested me...I just like how insane and ridiculous we become in the night, I guess.
TSQ, there are reports of people whose brains do work like Data's, they record every moment of their lives. You can ask them, where were you on Decmber 2 1983, and they can answer in extraordinary detail. Of course, such cases are extremely rare. What's the cause of this, do you know?
I'm not sure that is established scientific fact, that all memories are stored. TSQ, would know better, but there is a brain structure that basically encodes memories that isn't developed until about 18 months.
Also, I really, really doubt that every single minute memory is transfered from short term to long term memory.
At any rate, I do have sub 3 year old memories. Ones that I believe are not false, but who knows. I guess there's no really way to verify. But, as certain as you can be. And, yes, I've had lucid dreaming but what do you think the connection is?
Mr Awe
I noted that in my reply to him. It's called an eidetic memory, but that's not what Data is suggesting. I know of a couple of case studies: one, a man, was so overwhelmed by the ability that he was incapable of functioning in society, the other, a woman, functioned fine. Usually eidetic memories are confined to one area, like speech or reading, and the length the memories are retained vary from individual to individual; eg, some people with an eidetic memory for speech might be able to repeat an entire conversation perfectly word for word a few days after the event, but then lose the memory after a week or so, for others, the memories stick with them. As far as I know, no one knows what causes this to happen, though it often occurs with pathologies. Bear in mind, I'm not an expert. I did some studying and work in the field and I keep pretty well up to date on the research and literature, but there are a lot of people who know a lot more about this than me.
To clarify, what is false about Data's post isn't his ability to use mnemonics and mental organization to improve his memory, it's the ideas that, to paraphrase what he said, "our brains record every moment of our lives from the time they start working," and that everyone has everything that ever happened to them cached away somewhere and it's only a matter of "tapping in." These are very popular notions, but are completely inaccurate scientifically.
Oh, and in case there is anyone here who still believes the "we only use 10% of our brain" nonsense -- and there probably is, I just had to explain to my roommate that it's not the case -- we use our whole brains, all 100%.
That's an interesting thought. Whenever I try to fly in my dreams, I can't, and get REALLY frustrated.
In life, there is no such thing as an unimportant stimuli.
You have a very old fashioned, almost romantic view of memories. However, the reality is very different.
As research builds up it only finds more and more how unreliable the human memory is. It doesn't record everything and it changes what is recorded as well.
And, there are unimportant stimuli and unimportant memories. There are good survival reasons for all of the filtering.
If you're out in the jungle and there's a deadly snake, it's a good thing that your brain is filtering out all of the background stimuli. You want your attention to pick the snake out ASAP, which is easier if your brain doesn't give equal weighting to everything else in your environment.
Further, when you have a run in with a deadly critter, you want your brain to access the proper "file" about what to do ASAP, rather than having to flip through hundreds of less important files about the background stimuli. So, it's important that certain memories are given higher weighting, others less weighting, and some are discarded altogether.
It's nice to think that you've got this treasure trove of memories up there just waiting to be unlocked. And, there are certainly many memories that you can unearth. But, not everything is recorded, and it's not recorded perfectly. You've also got entirely fictional memories as well.
Mr Awe
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Mr Awe is spot on.
That's happened to me too. I have only every had two lucid dreams that I can recall, and in the first one (which happened when I was 9 or 10) I tried to fly. I was standing on a high cliff over the ocean. I ran, jumped off the cliff, and plummeted all the way down. When I hit the water I was so annoyed I woke up.
When it happens I can feel the wind against my body, feel the weightlessness and see the ground in it's patchwork below me.
^My favorite flying dream involved really lovely imagery: I was flying naked amongst massive white marble classical Grecian columns, that were so high I couldn't see where they reached the ground below me. The sky was brilliantly blue, and strung between the columns were rainbow banners all blowing in the wind, that reminded me of the parachute they used to bounce us on in preschool. Nothing happened, I just flew around, and it was really beautiful and meditative.
lol, you don't have to tell me! That myth falls apart with a little bit of thought!
I hate dreaming. I wish I didn't have to do it. I wish I could have my head hit the pillow and immediately wake up the next morning. I'm always afraid of what I'll dream about.
I mean, it's been awhile since I've had a flat-out nightmare, but dreams are pretty random anyway, so I never know what I'll end up with. Sometimes I'll lay in bed for awhile wondering about it. I'm nervous by nature.
Although I admit I am intrigued by the suggestion (don't know if it's true or not) that all the dreaming we ever do in any given night is done in the few seconds right before we wake up...
I mean, it's been awhile since I've had a flat-out nightmare, but dreams are pretty random anyway, so I never know what I'll end up with. Sometimes I'll lay in bed for awhile wondering about it. I'm nervous by nature.
Although I admit I am intrigued by the suggestion (don't know if it's true or not) that all the dreaming we ever do in any given night is done in the few seconds right before we wake up...
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The last flying dream I had involved me taking off (or trying to) from my front porch, but instead of flying, I traveled down the street on my stomach. No matter how hard I tried to lift myself into the air, I couldn't. It was irritating.
I can remember the first one where I flew. It started with me in the back yard and just spreading my arms and feeling the wind pick me up. I remember being a little afraid because I was going rather high then I leveled out and was flying over my neighborhood. I could see the roof tops and tree tops, and my shadow on the ground.
It was peaceful up there with the clouds, I remember that too.
It was peaceful up there with the clouds, I remember that too.
Sounds like me trying to fly in my dreams, I just can't do it anymore. Sometimes I can hold onto an object, like a ball, as that flies, but that's it. As a kid I could do it all the time, no probs. Now I'm just relegated to being able to wake up at will (in my dreams this ability is interpreted as being able to shift "somewhere else".) and occasionally I can alter the "reality" of the dream.
But I'd rather be flying.
I think everyone would, all the time!
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