Earliest Nightmare..

This

 

As far back as I can remember Ive had that dream. I remember events from that age so why not. And my folks have spoken of it. Its always been that recollection. But scepticism is healthy, and your entitled to your opinion.

 

Nothing major no, there were no sinister skeletons that have come to light.

 

There is something called neurogenesis, as an infant the neurons in your brain are connected in a way that looks like fairy floss, by the time you get to your teens certain pathways gets denser and those neurons start to look like branches in a dense bush

There are a bucket load of studies on the unrealiability of memory: incorrect reinforcement from relatives, giving subjective weight to reinforcing memories; overighting memories etc

But on top of all that, neurogenisis means your brain biologically patches together those childhood memories in those thinner neural links when you get to preteens

So if you think you have a memory of when you were four getting lost as disneyland in the snow; more likely your brain combined a memory of Snow white with some day you got lost in the local mall. Or think you remember a dream when you were 4, more likely you are actually remembering a dream you had at 9 about being 4

That kind of thing.

And when you recall a memory, you are recalling exactly what your brain has stored now, very confronting to think that may not have been correct in the first place, as its an atrack on your very self

 

There's great examples of VGs post in David Eagleman "the brain" series : )

 

VG, thanks for the clinical explanation brother, but i can’t say I’m completely on board with it. That may be the truth for some, but in my case, this weird dream I remember quite vividly- there were distinct voices (like fast pitched chattering), getting into a car taking off, and Just before I woke up, something warm and fuzzy would touch my left hand. There was nothing visual, just sounds. Scared the shit out of me every time. But this happened numerous times throughout my childhood.

 

Food for thought. Thanks for information. This is what I love about this place.

 

A far less scientific story then:

When I was little, Grandmother lived in a block of flats that had an outside communal laundry area, with clothlines suspended with with posts with arms in a V shape, painted with whitewash, so they glowed like Ghosts.

I know the exact year she left there as she remarried, I was at most 4 years old.

About 15 years ago,, my mid 30s, there was a funeral for one of her friends, found myself back in those block of flats for the first time in 30 years.

Having a look around, turned the corner to the laundry area, saw the clothesline posts

Total like panic attack as soon as I saw those posts, was the weirdest thing, never experienced anything like that before or since.

Must have scared the crap out of me as a kid. And had no memory of them until I came back 30 years later.

Been wondering since how much I might have been influenced by similar shapes / reminders from 3 or 4 years old and up

 

I think that series highlights the imprecision of memory but I didn't see any episode putting an age limit on reliability of memory retrieval.

Yah, I believe you're correct. I think from birth to toddler years, people have the most significant amount of increase in synaptic connections being formed. To my knowledge, there is nothing that would strictly prohibit an accurate concrete memory from an age of 4. Synaptic pruning occurs as the brain develops on into teen years, which allows for more streamlined brain activity and perhaps would make the brain more efficient for memory retrieval but in doing so, this process is also limiting synaptic pathways.

 

maybe i didn't read vg's post closely enough.
i just meant there were examples of the imprecision of memory.

 

Remember who you're talking to.- VG would argue that water is wet

 

i just will take any opportunity to advertise david eagleman : )

 

VG, you should have taken a picture of that and shared it with us- that would have been cool!! Well....cool for us, maybe not for you, because if you ever got outta line on here in one of the threads, you can bet I would be sending that pic back to you- Muahahahaaaaa, aaaaahhhhh shit!!!!

 

Earliest nightmare I can remember - I was in a car with my family travelling somewhere. We stopped somewhere to use a restroom and my mum said I had to be as quiet as possible in the restroom as a witch lived inside the walls and if she heard anything she would come and eat me. I think I dropped something accidentally and then started to hear foot steps inside the walls slowly coming closer and closer before I woke up terrified.

 

Freddy Krueger, Love the story behind it.

His mother Amanda Krueger, a nun, was accidentally locked inside Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital where she was brutally beaten and raped by a hundred maniacs.

Nine months later Freddy Krueger was born.

 

i actually just remembered a very early one. only a flash of it, but it scared the shit out of me at the time. it involved coming up the basement stairs in my parents' house and seeing my grandma under the stairs (they were the kind of stairs with no backs so you could see what was underneath). but then she was some sort of a monster instead of my grandma. i don't think she even came at me or anything, but i knew that she could.

 

I was around four years old when I dreamed I was standing in front of three doors. I had to choose a door. I can't remember which door I chose, but Frankenstein came out and kidnapped me.

I take these early nightmares as having had just the faintest inkling of the inevitability of death.

 

Terminator!

 

3 doors...You weren't watching Let's Make A Deal?

 

I remember....

I was all cosey and comfortable, dark and cold in embryonic liquid that surrounded me within the belly of indecision. I hit the walls but they only bounced back and my eyes stayed closed and everything remained black. Then I felt something foreign, not of this world holding me. As the comfortable darkness turned into an array of brightness, life was over.