What is your very first memory?

For me, it’s an image of my oldest sister in a white T-shirt with horizontal, dark green stripes, holding me near a lake when I was about 2 years old.

Aware that most of us have infantile amnesia [1] and rarely remember anything that occurred before we were 3 or 4 (our brain’s memory machinery—such as the hippocampus—doesn’t mature until then),[1] I went through dusty old family albums to see if there were any photos of that vacation. And sure enough, at Green Lake, Wisconsin, there was my sister Florence in the striped T-shirt that I remember.

Not conclusive proof of the accuracy of my memory, but promising corroboration.

It’s understandable why my other memories from early childhood, such as getting food poisoning at a daycare center, or my mother being taken away in an ambulance, have persisted: they were of emotionally charged events, and memory research shows that experiences with high emotional valences strongly encode.[2,3]

But my ancient memory from Green Lake is not associated with any strong emotions, so why is it still there?

Here’s the latest research on why we remember what we remember from childhood

Storage and retrieval of early memories

Notice the heading differentiates memory storage from memory retrieval, because it’s possible to store early memories but not be able to later retrieve them. Psychologist Carole Peterson found that careful questioning can resurrect memories that would otherwise be lost, extending recall to a time before the previous “earliest” memory.[6] For instance, when adults were primed with questions about their early life before being asked for their earliest memory, or asked to recount historical events in their first years, the age of earliest memories decreased.

Peterson’s research underscores the difference between memory storage and retrieval: Memories are like small rural villages with dirt roads leading to them; if the roads disappear in the undergrowth or are washed out, the village can’t be reached, even though the village still exists. So our first memories aren’t necessarily the only ones to survive infantile amnesia, just the earliest memories to which “memory roads” still exist.

The concept of maintaining retrieval pathways is crucial to recalling early events in our lives. Here’s a summary.

• The more often we relive or retell a memory, the more likely it is to persist,[6] analogous to traveling a road to a remote village frequently, keeping the road viable.
• Family stories that re-enact and replay memories similarly reinforce early memory traces.[5]
• Novelty and distinctiveness of early-life episodes make those events easier to access.[4] I remember seeing an enormous cow peer into our car window on the Green Lake trip. I had never seen such a creature growing up in the Mojave Desert.
• Development of verbal ability is important for later describing our earliest memories, which is why first memories often post-date language acquisition.[9,10] However, careful priming and verbal cues can help retrieve memories, even from pre-verbal periods.[6]
• Identity. Early memories are more likely to be recalled if they fit a life narrative about “who I am and how I got to be this way.”[6] Some of my earliest memories are of being physically bullied, setting the stage for a self-image of someone who rarely trusts others.

So, knowing all this, why do I remember Green Lake? I can’t be certain, but my guess is a combination of novelty (there were no lakes where I grew up) and family stories about the vacation.

Active forgetting

I wish I could forget the bullying and other traumas I experienced as a child, but I can’t.

However, sometimes our brains “do us a favor” and unconsciously erase painful memories, a process called active forgetting.[7,8] With active forgetting, the “roads” to the “villages” of early memory do not so much fade away as they are purposefully bulldozed by our unconscious. Failures of active forgetting are associated with a wide variety of mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety, along with flashbacks and intrusive negative thoughts.[7,8] Contrary to popular belief, hypnosis and other techniques, such as guided imagery, do not reliably resurrect repressed memories.[11]

Implications for your mental well-being

Something profound happened as I was writing this piece: In resurrecting my own early memories, especially the traumatic ones that made me distrust others, I realized that my whole life, I had been a slave to those memories, needlessly erecting barriers and pushing good-hearted people away.

I never consciously chose to do this; my unconscious did it to protect my fragile ego. But my unconscious fortress of distrust was also a prison, preventing me from enjoying potentially fulfilling relationships. Aware of this now, I can consciously choose to stop my brain from overprotecting me and enjoy life more.

My expedition into the poorly charted recesses of my past unearthed a key that freed me from a prison I didn’t realize I was in.

Forays into the dim reaches of your own past could do the same for you. Happy hunting!