Fake But Real Memories

Infantile Amnesia is the theory that our earliest memories happen around 3-4 years. When I was about 4 years old I was out in our backyard playing with my friends, my older brother, and his friends. In our backyard we had a patio that was connect to the driveway and it was all cemented. My brother and his friends are all about 6 years older than me so they were around 10 or 11 years old here. One of my brother’s friends thought it would be fun to put me on his shoulders, and yes I admit it was but then somehow he ended up dropping me and I smashed my head off of the concrete patio. I was unconscious and the ambulance had to be called and I was taken in it.

The one first vivid memory I have is being in the ambulance going down my street, having this big box type this on my head and the EMT’s ripping the shirt I was wearing off (and I remember this very well because it was my favorite shirt). Now we talked in class about some of our earliest memoires if they occurred really early in age most of the time they are traumas and that’s exactly what this one was. The only thing I myself specifically remember is that ambulance ride, I do not recall from my own memory the falling or anything before or after.

The only reason I know the whole story is from my family telling it to me. This was the first situation I thought of when we learned about implanting memories in class. Implanting memories involves someone telling you things that have occurred and you along with them just like as if they were your own memories. Now I know me hitting my head off the ground did happen because of what has been told to me but when I tell the story to others I, half of the time, forget that I’m not telling what’s from my exact memory. I’m telling the story from what other people like my parents and brother have told me. When we learned about this during class I thought it was pretty cool that I can literally play out the scenario in my head of the whole incident happening when really the only thing that actually comes from my own memory is the ambulance ride, all the other memories of it is from what others have told me. So I basically have these fake memories about a real memory.