It is difficult to remember personal events that took place before the age of three. Those claiming to recollect earlier experiences have had their memories tampered with. We see a prime example of this in an AskReddit thread about earliest memories, user /chocolaterock recalled an incident from when he/she was two years old in pre-K and another child attempted to swallow a toy and ended up “throwing up all over the floor.” The user later added to the post to say that his/her mother did not remember the incident. User /vebben’s story is even more far-fetched. He/she claims to remember being in his/her mother’s stomach, describing it as a “pitch black place, with water and a tiny waterfall”! Another poster commented to relate a similar experience, remembering kicking his mother in the ribs. /PerspicaciousLoris remembers going with his parents to get a new car and when he related the occurrence to his parents they informed him that although his description was exact, he had not even been born at the time.
All these stories seem rather mystical and spooky, and the fact is that we have all known people who adamantly maintain that they have such recollections. It is just as possible, however, that a person could have convinced himself these events took place when he overheard parts of a conversation in which his mother was talking about a painful pregnancy with a kicking baby or his father reminiscing about the first time he drove the old family car.
People cannot remember the first two to three years of life due to infantile amnesia and during this time all their memories are implicit.
When I was a child, I took full advantage of having a younger sister. I realized quite early on that she was extremely impressionable and that she looked up to me, as most younger siblings do their older sisters. One summer afternoon when my sister and I were bored, we decided to raid the fridge. In this process, I knocked over a large container and spilled rice all over the floor. My mom rushed in and was understandably angry. She demanded to know who had made the mess and without missing a beat, I pointed to my three-year-old sister. I still remember the look of desperation and fear in her eyes as she saw my finger directed at her. My mother asked her if she was the one who knocked the rice over and she nodded, convinced that if I had said so it must have been her fault. After my mom yelled at her for a while and told her she would be punished later, I walked over to her and patted her on the shoulder as if to say, “it’s ok, it happens to all of us.” I had forgotten about the incident till very recently, when it was brought up at a family gathering. My sister was the one to recall the incident, she said, “Remember that time I knocked over a huge bowl of rice and mummy yelled at me?” I was shocked that I had managed to manipulate her memories so successfully. Although I didn’t tell her what really happened, I will always feel a bit guilty about it.
Source: Reddit: AskReddit: “What is your earliest memory?” http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/19yvpr/what_is_your_earliest_memory/