We are sure that you have thought about this more than once. We remember our childhood and youth, but are unable to remember the moment when we came into the world - our birth. Why? We will explain in our article.
1. Neurogenesis in the first years of life
With the development of civilization and medical care our moment birth stopped being dangerous. We come into this world with the help of other people's hands, which take us out of our mother's womb - so cozy, calm and safe. We will never again be able to find places where we would be as welcome and as confident in our safety.
But we are forced to go outside - into a world filled with light, shadows and sounds, without knowing exactly why we are doing this. Most likely, we are experiencing .
This is the first time we burst into the world in tears with our first cry (after this there will be many more such times that we will not be able to forget).
But what do we experience besides pain? Fear, joy, curiosity? We don’t know this, no one can answer these questions, because no one, or almost no one, can remember this moment.
Everything happens this way thanks to a process called neuronal neurogenesis. It sounds strange, but it really is exciting process formation of new nerve cells.
Until the moment of birth, our brain continues to grow neurons. Some of them overlap each other. You may ask - why then don’t we remember anything? Aren't memory and cognition related to neurons? Isn't it more neurons does not improve our memory?
For babies who have just entered the world, everything happens differently. At least not in the first months of their lives. Memories are not stored because neutron neurogenesis becomes too intense, structures overlap and memories do not last very long because new neurons are constantly being created.
Memory is unstable during this time due to their continued growth. It takes at least five or six months for the process to stabilize. After this, new neurons continue to appear, but this process does not occur as intensively.
But it may already stabilize and memories may persist for some time. After a child reaches six or seven years of age, the process changes and some neurons begin to disappear.
Consequently, the most intense evolutionary period for a child is between the ages of one and five years. At this time, the child absorbs everything like a sponge and strives for knowledge, so it is very easy for him to learn several languages at once. However, almost all children will never be able to remember the first days of their life.
2. The importance of speech and memory
According to doctors and psychologists, we can only remember what we can explain in words. To see if this is true, try thinking about your first memory. Perhaps this is some kind of feeling, or a picture from the past: you are in your mother’s arms, you are walking in the park.
Absolutely at this time you already started talking. There are many experiments that have proven that it is much easier for us to remember what we can express in words. The brain is better able to structure and store in the hippocampus what it can associate with words. It is important to remember that language and the ability to speak are closely related to memory.
It is very difficult to remember the moments before and after our birth, when we still cannot speak. However, there are cases when people could retain small memories of their birth, some sensations. Do you consider yourself one of these people? Tell us about your experience.
Our childhood. Looking at the children from the neighboring yard, you understand that this is the most carefree time in every person’s life. However, memories of our childhood or birth are not available to us. What is this mystery connected with? Why shouldn't we remember ourselves in our childhood years? What is hidden behind this gap in our memory? And then at some point a thought suddenly flashed, why don't we remember ourselves from birth, forces us to delve into the mysteries of the unknown.
Why don't we remember our birth
It would seem like this important point, like birth, should have been imprinted on our brains forever. But no, some bright events from past life sometimes they pop up in the subconscious, and most importantly, they are forever erased from memory. No wonder that the best minds psychology, physiology and religious sphere trying to figure out such an interesting fact.
Erasing memory from a mystical point of view
Researchers studying the unknown mystical side of the existence of our universe and Supreme Intelligence, give their answers to the questions of why parts of a person’s memory erase the ability to reproduce the birth process.
The main emphasis is on the Soul. It contains information about:
- lived periods of life,
- emotional experiences,
- achievements and failures.
Why don't we remember how we were born?
WITH physical point It is not possible for a person to understand the soul and decipher the facts stored in it.
It is assumed that this substance visits the formed embryo on the tenth day of its existence. But she does not settle there forever, but leaves him for a while, only to return a month and a half before the birth.
Scientific background
But we do not have the opportunity to remember a very important moment in our lives. This happens due to the fact that the soul does not want to “share” with the body the information that it itself possesses. A bundle of energy protects our brain from unnecessary data. Most likely the creation process human embryo too mysterious and cannot be solved. The external universe uses the body only as an external shell, while the soul is immortal.
Man is born in pain
Why do we not remember how we were born into this world? Accurate evidence of this phenomenon has not been obtained. There are only assumptions that the extreme stress experienced at birth is to blame. A child from the warm mother’s womb climbs out through the birth canal into a world unknown to him. In the process, he experiences pain due to the changing structure of his body parts.
Height human body directly related to the formation of memory. An adult remembers the most outstanding moments in his life and places them in the “storage” compartment of his brain.
For children, everything happens a little differently.
- Positive and negative points and events are deposited in the “subcortex” of their consciousness, but at the same time they destroy the memories existing there.
- A child's brain is not yet developed enough to store large amounts of information.
- That is why we do not remember ourselves from birth and do not store childhood memories.
What do we remember from childhood
Children's memory develops from 6 months to 1.5 years. But even then it is divided into long-term and short-term. The child recognizes the people around him, can switch to this or that object, and knows how to navigate the apartment.
Another scientific assumption about why we have completely forgotten the process of appearing in this world is associated with ignorance of words.
The baby does not speak, cannot compare current events and facts, or correctly describe what he saw. Infantile amnesia– this is the name given to the absence of childhood memories by psychologists.
Scientists express their guesses about this problem. They believe that children choose short term memory. And this has nothing to do with a lack of ability to create memories. Any person not only cannot tell how his birth took place, but the passage of time makes him forget other important ones in a certain period highlights life.
There are two main scientific theories who are trying to understand this difficult issue.
| Name | Description |
| Freud's theory | The world famous Freud, who promoted important changes in medicine and psychology, had his own opinion about the lack of childhood memories.
In other words, the girl in early age She is strongly attached to her father and has jealous feelings for her mother, perhaps even hating her.
But this theory was not widely used. It has remained exclusively one person's position regarding the lack of memories of an early period of life. |
| Hark Hawn theory | What the scientist proved: why we don’t remember childhood
This doctor believed that the child did not feel like a separate person. He does not know how to share the knowledge gained as a result of his own life experience, and those emotions and feelings that other people experience. For the baby everything is the same. Therefore, memory does not preserve the moment of birth and childhood. How do children know how to distinguish between mom and dad if they have not yet learned to speak and remember? Semantic memory helps them with this. The child easily navigates the rooms and shows, without getting confused, who is dad and who is mom. Exactly long term memory stores important information so necessary to survive in this world. “Storage” will tell you the room where he is fed, bathed, dressed, the place where the treat is hidden, and so on. So why don’t we remember ourselves from birth:
|
Why do some people remember themselves as children?
At what age do we begin to remember events that happen to us? Among your acquaintances, most likely, there are people who claim that they remember their infant years. If you are one of them, then stop deceiving yourself. And do not believe others who prove that this is so.
The brain erases events from childhood
An adult can remember moments that happened to him after five years, but not earlier.
What scientists have proven:
- Infantile amnesia completely erases the first years of life from memories.
- New brain cells, as they form, destroy all early memorable events.
- This action is scientifically called neurogenesis. It is constant at any age, but in infancy it is especially violent.
- Existing “cells” storing certain information are overwritten by new neurons.
- As a result, new events completely erase the old ones.
Amazing Facts of Human Consciousness
Our memory is diverse and has not yet been fully studied. Many scientists have tried to get to the bottom of the truth and determine how to influence it, forcing us to create the “storage chambers” we need. But even the rapid development of information progress does not make it possible to make such a castling.
However, some points have already been proven and may surprise you. Check out some of them.
| Fact | Description |
| Memory works even if one part of the brain hemisphere is damaged |
|
| Complete amnesia almost never happens. | In reality, complete memory loss is practically non-existent. You often watch movies where the hero hits his head, causing the previous events to completely evaporate. In reality, it is almost impossible that during the first trauma everything is forgotten, and after the second one everything is restored.
|
| The onset of brain activity in an infant begins in the embryonic state. | Three months after the egg is fertilized, the baby begins to place certain events in the cells of its storage. |
| A person can remember a lot of information |
It's just that you can't get the necessary facts out of your storage, the volume of which is unlimited. |
| It has been proven how many words can the human brain remember? | This figure is 100,000. There are so many words, but why don’t we remember ourselves from birth, it’s still interesting to know about this. |
| False memory exists | If unpleasant events happen to us that traumatize our psyche, consciousness can turn off the memory of such moments, recreating, exaggerating or distorting them. |
| Works while sleeping short term memory | That is why dreams mainly convey recent events happening to us. life facts, which we don’t even remember in the morning. |
| TV kills your ability to remember |
|
| Brain growth occurs before age twenty-five |
|
| Always needed new and unique experiences | Memory loves nothingness
Have you ever wondered why time flies so quickly? Why are the same impressions and emotions subsequently devoid of novelty? Remember your first meeting with your loved one. The appearance of the first child. Your vacation you've been waiting for all year.
But when it repeats, it no longer seems so joyful, but fleeting. After you have just tripled back to work after studying, you look forward to your first vacation, spend it usefully and slowly. The third and the rest are already flying by in an instant. The same applies to your relationship with a loved one. At first you count the seconds until your next meeting; they seem like an eternity to you. But, after the years you have lived together, before you know it, you are already celebrating your thirtieth anniversary.
|
What can you remember from childhood?
Which are the most vivid memories Do you remember from childhood? The child's brain is designed in such a way that it is not susceptible to sound associations. Most often, he is able to remember events he saw or those that the children tried by touch.
The fear and pain experienced in infancy are forced out of the “storage chambers” and replaced by positive and good impressions. But some people can only remember negative points from life, and they completely erase happy and joyful ones from memory.
Why do our hands remember more than our brains?
A person is able to reproduce bodily sensations in more detail than conscious ones. An experiment with ten-year-old children proved this fact. They were shown photos of their friends from the nursery group. Consciousness did not recognize what they saw, only the galvanic skin reaction revealed that the children still remembered their grown-up comrades. This can be determined by electrical resistance experienced by the skin. It changes when excited.
Why does memory remember experiences?
Emotional memories become scarred by our most negative experiences. Thus, consciousness warns us for the future.
But sometimes the psyche simply does not have the ability to cope with the mental trauma suffered.
- Horrible moments simply do not want to fit into a puzzle, but are presented in our imagination in the form of scattered fragments.
- Such a sad experience is stored in the implicit memory in torn pieces. A small detail - a sound, a look, a word, the date of an event - can resurrect the past that we are trying to erase from the depths of our brain.
- To obsessive terrible facts were not resurrected, each victim uses the principle of so-called dissociation.
- Experiences after trauma are fragmented into separate, incoherent fragments. Then they are not so associated with real life nightmares.
If you were offended:
Are there really options for answering the question of why we don’t remember ourselves from birth? Maybe this information can still be pulled out from the depths of our capacious storage?
When certain problems arise, we most often turn to psychologists. To help cope with its solution, specialists in some cases resort to hypnosis sessions.
It is often believed that all our painful real experiences come from deep childhood.
During a moment of trance, the patient can list all his hidden memories without even knowing it.
Sometimes, individual non-susceptibility to hypnosis does not make it possible to immerse yourself in early periods life path.
Some people, on a subconscious level, put up a blank wall and protect their emotional experiences from strangers. Yes and scientific confirmation I didn't get this method. Therefore, if some people tell you that they perfectly remember the moment of their birth, do not take this information seriously. Most often these are simple inventions or a clever professional advertising trick.
Why do we remember moments that happen to us after we reach 5 years of age?
Can you answer:
- What do you remember from your childhood?
- What were your first impressions after visiting the nursery group?
Most often, people cannot give at least any answer to these questions. But, nevertheless, there are still at least seven explanations for this phenomenon.
| Cause | Description |
| Unripe brain | The roots of this hypothesis have come to us a long time ago.
But at present, many scientists argue with this statement.
|
| Missing vocabulary | Due to the fact that until the age of three the child knows minimum quantity words, he is unable to clearly describe the events and moments surrounding him.
For example, a girl remembered the smell of her grandmother’s pies in the village where she spent up to a year. |
| Muscular form |
You saw that they constantly copy the movements of adults, gradually bringing their actions to automatism. But psychologists argue with this statement.
|
| Lack of sense of time | To put together a picture from flickering details from childhood, you need to understand in what specific period the corresponding event occurred. But the child cannot do this yet. |
| Memory with holes |
|
| No desire to remember | An interesting position is taken by pessimists who argue why we don’t remember ourselves from birth. It turns out that unconscious fears are to blame for this:
Everyone is trying to force their helpless state out of uncomfortable memories. And, when we are able to serve ourselves independently, from that moment we begin to “record” all the information we receive and reproduce it, if necessary. |
| Very important period life | The brain is like a computer
Think about how a computer works. If we make changes to system programs at our own discretion, this may lead to a failure of the entire system as a whole.
|
Do we remember or not?
It cannot be assumed that all of the above hypotheses are one hundred percent correct. Since the moment of memorization is a very serious and not fully studied process, it is hard to believe that it is influenced by only one of the listed facts. Of course, it’s curious that we keep a lot of different things, but we don’t imagine our birth. This is the most greatest secret which humanity cannot solve. And, most likely, the question of why we don’t remember ourselves from birth will worry great minds for decades to come.
Your comments are very interesting - do you remember yourself as a child?
It will be interesting to find out.
Despite many decades of serious research, our brain still jealously guards a colossal number of secrets. On at the moment we received answers to only a small part of the questions; today it is not even possible to say with certainty why we do not remember how we were born. What can we say about more serious topics.
Why is memory needed?
Human memory It’s hard to call it something frivolous, it’s a complex combination biological processes created by nature:
- It is a collection of static pictures united into a dynamic idea of the past.
- Memory is individual and unique for everyone, even if people witnessed the same events.
- Modern theory suggests that information in the brain is stored in the form of constantly circulating nerve impulses.
- It is the connections between nerve cells allow us to remember past events.
- The psyche leaves its mark on all memories, some of them are completely replaced, the rest are distorted.
- The memory of children is especially interesting in this regard. They can imagine events that never existed in reality and religiously believe in them. Such is self-deception.
When a person loses his memory, he loses a part of his personality.. Despite the fact that all the acquired skills and qualities remain, too much goes away important information about the past. Sometimes irrevocably.
Why don't we remember the first years?
In one of the scenes of the film " Lucy» main character remembers not only his childhood, but also the very moment of birth. Of course, she's on drugs and has Superman-level powers. But how realistic is it for the average person to remember something like that, and why most people have no memories of the first three years of life?
For a long time, this was explained based on two theories.
And both proposed hypotheses are not ideal:
- Every person has a dozen not-so-pleasant memories.
- For some, truly terrible moments in their lives are etched in their memories for many years.
- There are millions of deaf and mute people in the world, but they do not experience any special memory problems.
- With the right approach, already at the age of three, a child is able to read books, let alone speak and remember.
Destruction of interneuron connections
Recent studies conducted on rats have shown interesting result:
- It turned out that during intensive growth of nervous tissue, old neural connections are disrupted.
- This also happens with neurons located in the so-called “memory center”.
- And since we have come to the conclusion that memory is electrical impulses between cells it is not difficult to come to a logical conclusion.
- At a certain age nerve tissue grows too intensively, old connections are destroyed, new ones are formed. The memory of previous events is simply erased.
Of course, carrying out any similar experiments research on children is doomed to failure; ethics and the moral side of the issue will not allow such research to proceed. Perhaps scientists will find another way to confirm or refute this theory in the near future. In the meantime, we can enjoy any of the three generally accepted explanations.
All this does not mean that a person cannot remember something from early childhood. Some people have fragmented memories of this period - vivid images, fragments of moments and life situations. So You need to spend time with your baby at any age., it is in these years that most mental characteristics.
Why are babies born blue?
When a mother is shown her baby for the first time in the delivery room, the joy of the baby's appearance may change worries about his life:
- IN popular culture the image of a newborn was formed - a rosy-cheeked, screaming baby.
- But in real life everything is a little different, the child will appear either cyanotic or purple.
- He will become that rosy-cheeked baby within the next couple of days, no need to worry.
"Abnormal" color may be physiological and pathological:
- From a physiological point of view, it is explained by the transition from placental to pulmonary circulation.
- As soon as the child takes his first breath and begins to breathe on his own, the color of his skin gradually turns pink.
- The presence of lubricant on the baby’s skin plays a role.
- Do not forget about the presence of fetal hemoglobin and a different blood picture from an adult.
WITH pathology everything is simpler. There are two options - either hypoxia or injury.
But here it’s up to the obstetricians to decide, so trust the opinion of the specialists. Don't push yourself too hard empty space, these people attended hundreds of births and saw plenty of newborns. If they think that everything is fine or that, on the contrary, something is wrong, most likely it is.
What influences “children’s forgetfulness”?
Today we can explain the absence of memories of birth and the first three years of life with the following theories:
- Replacement and displacement from memory shocking information . Let's hope that people don't have access to such a source of stress in the coming decades. It’s certainly interesting to know what we were all like. But at the same time negative emotions won't go anywhere.
- The beginning of the formation of associative connections with words. For a period of 2-3 years it falls active development speech and only after this is it possible to fix massive blocks of information in memory.
- Destruction of connections between neurons due to their intensive growth. Experimentally proven on laboratory mice and rats. Looks like the most promising explanation at the moment.
But the truth is always somewhere in the middle. Ultimately, it may turn out that all three hypotheses are true, but only partially. Memory formation - too complex process so that it is influenced by only one factor.
It is not so important why we do not remember how we were born - whether it is due to intense cell growth or blocking shocking information. The main thing is that it is in 1-3 years that character and future child's inclinations, and not in some 7-10 years, as is commonly believed. So the baby needs to be given appropriate attention.
Video: remember how I was born
Below is a video from interesting explanations from psychologist Ivan Kadurin, who tells why a person does not remember how he was born and very vaguely remembers his childhood:
The first three to four years of life. Plus, we generally remember quite little about ourselves before the age of seven. “No, well, I still remember something,” you will say, and you will be absolutely right. Another thing is that, when you think about it, it can be difficult to understand we're talking about about real memories or about second-order memories based on photographs and stories from parents.
A phenomenon known as "infantile amnesia" more than a century is a mystery without a solution for psychologists. Despite huge amount information that can be used, and technological developments, scientists still cannot say for sure why this is happening. Although there are a number popular theories which seem most plausible to them.
The first reason is the development of the hippocampus
It might seem that the reason we don't remember ourselves as infants is because babies and toddlers don't have complete . But in fact, The Conversation adds, babies as young as 6 months can form both short-term memories, which last for a few minutes, and long-term memories related to events in recent weeks and even months.
In one study, 6-month-old babies who learned to press a lever to operate a toy train remembered how to do so within 2-3 weeks of being able to last time saw the toy. And preschoolers, according to another study, are able to remember what happened several years ago. But here, experts explain, the question again remains open: these are autobiographical memories or memories obtained with the help of someone or something.
The truth is that memory capabilities in childhood are indeed not the same as in adulthood (in fact, memory continues to develop in adolescence). And this is one of the most popular explanations for “infantile amnesia.” It is important to understand that memory is not only about the formation, but also the maintenance and subsequent retrieval of memories. At the same time, the hippocampus - the area of the brain responsible for all this - continues to develop until at least seven years of age.
It is also interesting that the typical boundary of “childhood amnesia” at 3-4 years appears to shift with age. There is evidence that children and adolescents usually have more early memories than adults. This, in turn, suggests that the issue may have less to do with the formation of memories and more to do with their retention.
Reason two - language proficiency
Second important factor, which plays a role in childhood memories is language. Between the ages of one and six years, children basically go through the complex process of developing speech to become fluent (or even languages, if we are talking about bilinguals). Scientists believe that the assumption that the ability to speak affects the ability to remember (we also include the presence of the words “remember”, “remember” in the lexicon) is to some extent correct. In other words, the level of language proficiency in a given period partially influences how well the child will remember this or that event.
This is evidenced, for example, by a study conducted with the participation of babies taken to the emergency department. As a result, children over 26 months of age who could talk about the event at the time remembered it five years later, while children under 26 months of age who could not speak remembered little or nothing at all. That is, preverbal memories are really with more likely are lost if they are not translated into the language.
Reason three - cultural characteristics
Unlike simple information exchange, memories revolve around social function sharing experiences with others. Thus, family stories support memory accessibility over time and also increase narrative coherence, including chronology of events, theme, and .
Maori, the aboriginal people of New Zealand, have the earliest childhood memories - they remember themselves as early as 2.5 years old. Researchers believe this is due to the consistency of Maori mothers' storytelling and the tradition of telling family stories from an early age. Analysis of data on the topic also shows that adults in cultures that value autonomy ( North America, Western Europe) tend to report earlier childhood memories than adults in cultures that value integrity and connectedness (Asia, Africa).
So what's the matter? After all, children absorb information like a sponge, forming 700 neural connections per second and learning language at a speed that any polyglot would envy.
Many believe the answer lies in the work of Hermann Ebbinghaus, a 19th-century German psychologist. For the first time, he conducted a series of experiments on himself to find out the limits of human memory.
To do this, he formed ranks meaningless syllables(“bov”, “gis”, “loch” and the like) and memorized them, and then checked how much information was stored in memory. As the forgetting curve, also developed by Ebbinghaus, confirms, we forget what we have learned extremely quickly. Without repetition, our brain forgets half of it within the first hour. new information. By day 30, only 2–3% of the data collected is retained.
While studying forgetting curves in the 1980s, scientists discovered David C. Rubin. Autobiographical Memory. that we have far fewer memories from birth to 6–7 years of age than might be expected. At the same time, some remember individual events that occurred when they were only 2 years old, while others have no memories at all of events before they were 7–8 years old. On average, fragmentary memories appear only after three and a half years.
It is especially interesting that in different countries There are discrepancies in how memories are stored.
The role of culture
Psychologist Qi Wang from Cornell University conducted a study Qi Wang. Culture effects on adults’ earliest childhood recollection and self-description., within which she recorded childhood memories of Chinese and American students. As might be expected based on national stereotypes, American stories turned out to be longer and more detailed, and also significantly more self-centered. The Chinese students' stories, on the other hand, were brief and factual. In addition, their memories began, on average, six months later.
The difference is confirmed by other studies Qi Wang. The Emergence of Cultural Self-Constructs.. People whose memories are more focused on self, easier to remember.
“Between these memories: “There were tigers at the zoo” and “I saw tigers at the zoo, they were scary, but it was still very interesting.” big difference“, say psychologists. The child’s emergence of interest in himself, the emergence own point vision helps to better remember what is happening, because this is what largely influences the perception of various events.
Ki Wang then conducted another experiment, this time interviewing American and Chinese mothers Qi Wang, Stacey N. Doan, Qingfang Song. Talking about Internal States in Mother-Child Reminiscing Influences on Children's Self-Representations: A Cross-Cultural Study.. The results remained the same.
"IN oriental culture childhood memories are not given such importance, says Wang. - When I lived in China, no one even asked me about this. If society instills that these memories are important, they are more retained in memory.”
Interestingly, the earliest memories are recorded among the indigenous population of New Zealand - the Maori S. MacDonald, K. Uesiliana, H. Hayne. Cross-cultural and gender differences in childhood amnesia.
. Their culture is very great attention focuses on childhood memories, and many Maori remember events that happened when they were only two and a half years old.
Role of the hippocampus
Some psychologists believe that the ability to remember comes to us only after we master a language. However, it has been proven that children who are deaf from birth have their first memories from the same period as others.
This has led to the theory that we do not remember the first years of life simply because our brains do not yet have the necessary “equipment” at that time. As you know, the hippocampus is responsible for our ability to remember. At a very early age, he is not yet fully developed. This has been seen not only among humans, but also among rats and monkeys Sheena A. Josselyn, Paul W. Frankland. Infantile amnesia: A neurogenic hypothesis..
However, some childhood events affect us even when we don’t remember them. Stella Li, Bridget L. Callaghan, Rick Richardson. Infantile amnesia: forgotten but not gone., therefore, some psychologists believe that the memory of these events is still stored, but it is inaccessible to us. So far, scientists have not yet been able to prove this experimentally.
Imaginary events
Many of our childhood memories often turn out to be unreal. We hear from relatives about some situation, we imagine the details, and over time it begins to seem like our own memory.
And even if we really remember about a particular event, this memory can change under the influence of the stories of others.
So maybe main question not why we don’t remember ours early childhood, but whether we can even trust at least one memory.
