Why Does Our Memory Trick Us?

Ep12.

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[00:00:05.09] - Oliver (Host)

Have you ever tried to remember your earliest memory? Like, really tried to go back beyond birthdays, beyond holidays, just to see what's there? I've tried this a couple of times. I sit quietly and I think, Okay, brain, take me back. Let's go to 1990-something. And nothing, or rather, very little. Because the truth is, I don't just struggle to remember the very beginning of my early life. I struggle to remember large chunks of it in general. My early childhood feels like a slideshow where most of the slides are missing. I don't have a smooth, continuous story. I just have little flashes here and there, moments, a few scattered memories, like islands in a sea of fog. And here's the weird part. There's absolutely no explanation for it. Nothing traumatic happened. I'm not repressing anything as far as I know. My childhood was safe, stable, and full of love. So what's happened?

[00:01:22.07] - Oliver (Host)

Before we get onto that, welcome back to English and Beyond: Intermediate English Podcast. As always, my name is Oliver. You can find a transcript and vocab flashcards to help you learn the most challenging words from this episode at www.morethanalanguage.com. And that content, like this podcast, is completely free.

[00:01:49.23] - Oliver (Host)

So, turning back to our topic today, one of the first memories I do have, and it's really clear for some reason, is from a day at school. I must have been about three or four years old. I was in the playground running around, doing whatever it is little kids do when they have a burst of energy and a total lack of balance. And then it happened. I tripped and I fell - spectacularly, I fell, in my mind. I scraped my knee on the concrete, not too badly, but enough to bleed. And naturally, I burst into tears, not because of the pain, not really. It was the emotion of it all, the shock, the drama, the sense that something had gone terribly wrong in my tiny little world. And more than anything, I wanted my mum. I remember sitting there with my lip trembling, my eyes filled with tears, wishing she would magically appear. Of course, she couldn't. But someone else did appear, the school nurse. She took me to the little first aid room. She cleaned my wound. She bandaged my knee like I'd survived a battle. And I remember that part too, sitting there on the white paper-covered bed, swinging my feet, feeling like a small, injured hero.

[00:03:21.31] - Oliver (Host)

I probably even got a sticker. But it's funny how that memory has stayed with me, not because it was traumatic, it wasn't, but because it was charged. There was emotion, there was comfort, there was a story, even if the defining element of that story was the absence of my mum. And in fact, the more I think about it, the more I realise all of my earliest memories are about my mum, not parties or games or Christmas presents, just her. Cuddles before bed, crying at the school gates because I didn't want her to leave, the smell of her perfume when she kissed me goodbye, and her voice telling me everything was going to be okay. Maybe that's why those memories are the ones that lasted when I have very few others from the same time. Maybe because they weren't just things that happened. They were feelings. They were moments where I needed someone, and someone was there. So, why is it that most of us can't remember much or anything from those early years? There's actually a name for this, childhood amnesia. It's the reason why, even though we lived through those early years, we can't access the memories.

[00:04:48.22] - Oliver (Host)

According to neuroscientists, it has a lot to do with brain development. The hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for forming and storing long-term memories, isn't fully developed in babies and toddlers. So even if we experience something, the brain might not store it in a way that we can later retrieve.

[00:05:13.34] - Oliver (Host)

And then there's language. We don't really start using language until we're around two years old. And without words, it's hard to create the structured autobiographical memories that we rely on as adults. Basically, if you can't name it, if you can't describe it, you probably won't remember it.

[00:05:38.45] - Oliver (Host)

However, not everyone is like this. There's a very rare condition called H-S-A-M, highly superior autobiographical memory. People with HSAM can remember almost everything from their lives, often from as early as two years old, in vivid, emotional detail. You can ask them, "What happened on Tuesday, 6th March, 2001?" And they'll say, "Oh, that's the day I wore a red jumper and ate chicken nuggets for lunch. It rained in the afternoon and I stubbed my toe on a coffee table." And part of me thinks, "Wow, what a gift." And the other part of me thinks, "Oh, no, no, no, absolutely not."

[00:06:28.52] - Oliver (Host)

Because I already spent way too much time remembering embarrassing things I said last week or moments that still make me cringe 10 years later. Can you imagine having perfect recall of every awkward thing you've ever done. If I had HSAM, I wouldn't sleep. I'd be haunted by every time I waved at someone who wasn't waving at me, every joke I told that landed flat, every moment of teenage melodrama and every unrequited crush. So honestly, I'm very grateful for the holes in my memory. It's like my brain is doing me a kindness. Don't worry, Oliver, we're just going to delete that for you. And here's something else that fascinates me. Memory isn't a perfect record of what happened. It's not a video that you can replay. It's more like a story that keep rewriting. Scientists call this reconstructive memory. Every time you remember something, you're not just retrieving it, you're rebuilding it. And with every rebuild, the details can shift. Maybe I did scrape my knee that day. Maybe the nurse really did give me a sticker. Or maybe my brain filled in some of those details later to make the memory more complete. But here's the thing: it feels real.

[00:08:03.48] - Oliver (Host)

And in a way, I suppose, that's what really matters, no? The emotion of it, the impact it had, and the fact that it stayed with me. Most of us don't remember days. We remember moments, emotionally charged, sensory-rich, often repetitive moments. The smell of your grandparents' house, the way the sun looked through the window of your childhood bedroom, the feeling of your small hand in a bigger one, the sound of a lullaby, or your favourite cartoon theme tune. Memory loves emotion. It loves smell. It loves routine. But it's also unpredictable. Some of the strangest things stay with us, and we never really know why. So I want to ask you, what's your earliest memory? Is it crystal clear or fuzzy around the edges? Is it a feeling, a moment, a smell? Is it something important or something completely random, like my scraped knee? You can send me an email at oliver@morethanalanguage.com. You can comment on this episode on YouTube, or you could do the same on Spotify. It doesn't matter where, as long as you're practising your English. And I honestly love hearing people's memory stories because each one is so different. If you're someone who does remember a lot, maybe you've got a detailed mental scrapbook of your whole childhood, I'm really curious to know what that's like. Do you enjoy having access to all those moments, or do you sometimes wish you could forget more?

[00:09:54.19] - Oliver (Host)

Sometimes I wonder, if I could go back and watch my childhood like a movie, what would surprise me? Would I notice things I never picked up on at the time? Would I see the beginnings of patterns I only recognise now as an adult? Would I feel proud or embarrassed, or just nostalgic? Or would I just think, wow, that little kid really, really loves his mum? Whatever the answer, I guess the fact that I wonder about it means the story still matters, even if I only remember a few scattered scenes. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe and rate, follow, share with your friends. Anything to help the podcast grow. And thank you again. And until next time.