Probing Early Memories

Early memory, age four: on a driveway by a creek; facing little Ricky, just learning how to walk backwards; trusting me to say stop before reaching the bank, I say nothing as he tumbles backwards onto the creek bed. That such a memory punctured my so-called childhood amnesia made me wonder whether I had been destined to be some kind of psychopath.

Our discussion piece takes on the mystery of memory formation and dissipation, particularly in the early years (click: The Great Forgetting). Adults generally remember little or nothing from their first three or four years of life. Freud thought such memories were repressed but perhaps they were never formed. Research shows, however, that small children can form memories but they disappear within a couple of years. Why? Perhaps such memories are not formed systematically enough to co-exist with the influx of new information so they are swept away.

And so we learn about the interplay between the cerebral cortex, the seat of cognition, and the hippocampus that bundles multiple input from the senses into a single new memory which it links to similar previously-stored ones. The issue, then, seems to arise out of an incompletely-developed hippocampus.

Our discussion might center on our own first memories, whether they were visual, auditory, or even tactile. What were they and how might they be triggered even now e.g. smell of baking bread connects straight to the amygdala and hippocampus (olfactory-evoked recall can pull up long-buried memories, the Proust effect). Other types of early memories, though, may become so easily lost in the subsequent noise, like kudzu that creeps up and ultimately smothers an old abandoned tractor.

Let us reflect on the what/where/why of our recall with a special focus on what you may have spaced out or distorted. Remember that terrifying waterfall of your youth’s reckoning now reduced to little more than a tame cascade upon your visit two decades later? Perhaps there are others in your early life to help with the facts but, in the end, maybe all they can do is to simply offer their own distorted perspectives.

Please note the following RSVP Policy for Member Monday: RSVP sign-up opens up at 11:00am on Fridays via the City Club weekly Newsletter. Seats are first-come, first-served: the first 14 secure a spot at the table, the last 3 on the couch. Cancellations must be made 24 hours in advance or the standard Social Lunch rate applies.