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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think this is a real memory?

81 replies

kokosnuss · 26/01/2018 23:01

I have always had a very early memory that feels real to me, but my Mum says it must have been a dream, imagined, or similar, as she never heard about it.

The memory is that I knocked over a cup of tea at nursery, and it scalded a girl, who was taken to hospital in a yellow blanket. The girl in the memory is a real girl who went to my nursery. Something about the vividness of the memory, and distinctly remembering the yellow blanket, and exactly how it looked, really makes me think it was real.

I can well imagine that in the panic of having left hot tea around pre-school kids, and a child being hurt, you wouldn't care which child knocked it over, and so it's entirely reasonable my Mum would never have even heard about it?

But I'm not sure. What do you think?

OP posts:
TimbuktuTimbuktu · 28/01/2018 15:44

We moved house just after my third birthday and I have some memories from them, including being left outside in the pram (one of the massive silver cross ones so I assume I was about 21/2) for a nap and waking up cross.

It is hard to know if things are real or not though. I remember my bedroom being brown but it was green apparently.

luxed · 28/01/2018 15:50

Is there any way you could contact the girl via Facebook etc to see if she has a memory of this incident happening, if she was taken to hospital her parents would definitely know that it happened.

angstinabaggyjumper · 28/01/2018 17:36

I have a memory of being on my home town seafront no sand just a rocky descent to the sea and a big cement square that people could sit on, it was busy and people were right up to the edge of the concrete and rocks everyone chatting my mum included. I saw a small girl tumble into the water but she went RIGHT DOWN and disappeared and I tried to tell my DM but she was busy talking and I was an unimportant small child and didn't know what to do so I watched and finally the girl's mother stopped talking and looked down, did a double take and screamed and jumped in after her. I don't know what happened after that because my DM decided we should move off or maybe it's a false memory but it has always seemed very real to me.

LemonysSnicket · 28/01/2018 19:04

I once had a dream so vivid as a child that I told my auntie my mother had beaten me with a hairbrush. I swore that she had and still remember it to this day - auntie confronted my mother and it all came out - was 100% a dream.

Sometimes dreams stick in the mind.

LemonysSnicket · 28/01/2018 19:05

I remember where, the type of hairbrush, the tea cup on the side, the words she said, what had happened that day... none real

Youngmystery · 28/01/2018 19:31

treeofhearts oh my god if you find that episode you're amazing as no one has for over 2 decades. Everyone thinks I've made this episode up.

TooManyPaws · 28/01/2018 19:52

I have a very vivid memory of an accident that happened to me as a toddler; pretty horrific in that I had to have a good chunk of my lower lip sewn back on, couldn't suck me thumb, and have been left with a scar and misshapen lip. I suspect that I may have reconstructed some from family discussion but, when my dad and I were discussing HIS earliest memory, he was amazed that I could pinpoint exactly where it happened, down to the kitchen cupboard door. My mother had only said that it had happened in the kitchen. I was just starting to walk, at the stage where I walked a few steps then fell forward, and was barefoot and silent on the lino tiles.

However, I do have some very vivid dreams which I remember and carry over into real life. It took me a long time to get over the "knowledge" that I'd killed someone years before and hidden the body. Of course, I hadn't done anything of the sort but I had a sort of emotional memory from a dream.

treeofhearts · 28/01/2018 20:29

treeofhearts oh my god if you find that episode you're amazing as no one has for over 2 decades. Everyone thinks I've made this episode up.

Tbh I think you're mashing two scenes together because I don't recall a fountain. But I do recall Scully seeing it and thinking she was going to die so will try to track it down for you

SpongeBobJudgeyPants · 28/01/2018 20:34

@Peachyking000 How did they get the dolphins to the school?

treeofhearts · 28/01/2018 20:36

youngmystery are you sure it wasn't this? Because the X Files episode I was thinking of isn't quite right and this is much closer to what you described.

Youngmystery · 28/01/2018 20:47

Nah I don't recognise that sadly. There definitely wasn't a girl in the scene I saw on the TV, it was two adults. The girl was in my dream, although I don't know who she is. Never figured that out.

treeofhearts · 28/01/2018 20:56

Hmm. The Episode I thought it was, was Elegy. The context is wrong though, it could be misremembered from your childhood. I can't find a link but if you have Amazon prime the episode is free on there, its season 4 and the scene I was remembering is about 15 minutes in.

Onemorecornetto · 28/01/2018 21:06

I had a memory from nursery of me pushing one of the ‘aunties’ and her telling me off saying she was an old lady and soon after she died. I carried the blame for her death for years although I can see now that (hopefully!) a small push from a 4 year old wouldn’t have killed her. She might even have died months after but I had conflated the 2 memorable events.

SundaySalon · 28/01/2018 21:15

I have a memory of finding my nans brother dead on his sofa, I was about 4 at the time and could describe the scene to anyone. I even remember what colour slippers he was wearing and that he had a local newspaper next to his hand, like he was reading it when he had a heart attack. Apparently I was at school when he died and it was his neighbour who found him, he did die on the sofa though. My parents claim they never discussed it in front of us and we never went to the funeral but I knew so many details that were right I must of eavesdropped or something?

Laiste · 28/01/2018 21:21

One of my early memories (5 ish) is of my mum taking me to see a film. Except the place i distinctly remember us going into isn't a cinema and never was. It is a large town hall. I remember us sitting in one of the rows of red chairs. I wonder if it was a projector film or something?

The film was Ring of Bright Water and i remember coming out in tears at the end (i howled and sobbed at the end when the darn otter gets bashed over the head. Who decided that would make a good kids film anyway?! Confused)

Jacobismyboy · 28/01/2018 21:21

I have a memory... it's In the local town hall where my playgroup was held. I'm on the stairs looking into the bathroom. It has a marble floor... there's a flood with about 6 inches of water. There's a large swan waddling about and flapping its wings as it's trapped.

Except... the floor I remember couldn't have flooded like that as it was one story up from the street... and it's unlikely that a swan managed to get up a set of external stairs and through two fire doors without someone noticing. So I conclude that this must not have happened. Even though my 3 year old self is sure its a memory and not a dream.

JellySlice · 28/01/2018 22:04

DogsDoodahs, that's Earth Abides by George Stewart, and the only people I've ever come across who have also read it are Mumsnetters!

Many memories are either kept alive or completely informed by photographs or other sources. So your perspective is that of an observer, even if the memory feels extremely true. If the perspective is correct for the rememberer then it is more likely (but not guaranteed) to be true.

In my memory of catching hold of a kind stranger's skirt so that I didn't get lost in an airport, I need to reach down to the skirt as if I was an adult - probably either not true or influenced by other sources. Actually true, she was a stranger to me but knew my dad and told him about it, and he then told me about her.

In my memory of leaning against my dad and wrapping my arm around his leg while waiting at the airport, and then realising in horror that this was a complete stranger, I can barely reach around with my arm and I look upwards at a stranger - very likely a real memory.

DogsDoodahs · 28/01/2018 22:13

Omg Laist - Ring of Bright Water traumatised me for DAYS! 😟😟😟

DogsDoodahs · 28/01/2018 22:16

Jelly - hmm, I’ve just looked that book up and I’ve never read it!

NSEA · 28/01/2018 22:20

I had a horrible vivid memory of being mistreated by mu Nursery teacher and whenever I mentioned it to my mum she said it wa a dream etc similarly to you. This has been the case for 30 years until a couple of months ago my brother said “do you remember when you were 4 and this happened to you in Nursery”. Describing my memory so clearly. My mum doesn’t doubt it now!

ThisIsTheVoice · 28/01/2018 22:23

Peachyking000 I also have a vivid memory of going to a dolphin show in the 80s. It was my birthday and I was called out along with another child to feed a dolphin some fish. My parents say this never happened but I'm pretty sure in did!

ElderflowerWaterIsDelish · 28/01/2018 22:29

OP you could have hypnosis to regress you back to childhood so that you could remember if it really did happen Grin

fedupandsickofeverything · 28/01/2018 22:38

For years I had a memory of waking up in the dark, in a chair in front of a fire, in the dark being frightened and going to find my parents. Mentioned it one day to dm and she told that during the rolling blackouts i the early 70s( I must have under 3) that they would put me to sleep on a chair in the sitting room where there was a coal fire when the power off as my room was cold. I was unaware of this so think it is a genuine memory

JellySlice · 28/01/2018 23:07

DogsDoodahs Shock How weird. Maybe the same plot device is in another book?

AveAtqueVale · 28/01/2018 23:41

My best friend from when we were 7 tells a story about something funny and naughty he did in an IT lesson in Y5. Except he didn’t, because I made it up Shock. I was experimenting with lying at the time Hmm and told my mum this completely made up story about what friend had got up to. Unfortunately she was friends with his mum and told her the next time she saw her as she found it funny. I was utterly horrified as I thought I’d be found out, but the next time I heard about the episode was my friend recounting the story with great relish and utter sincerity when we were both about 18. He came to my wedding a couple of years ago and evidently told it again because a different friend who only met him then mentioned him a couple of months ago as ‘your friend x who did y in the IT lesson’.

He’s one of the most honest people I know and must have known it didn’t happen at some point, but now absolutely believes it did. Unless I didn’t make it up at all and that’s the false memory...