False memories?

[Quiet]

This might belong under dissociation. 

This is a weird thing, and I'm curious if it's just me, or anyone else has this?

I have several significant memories from my childhood that no one else remembers.  I've been told by the parent(s) involved in each memory that I must be remembering a dream, or I imagined these things.  My first thought is that they don't want to, and it's denial.  But it makes no sense to deny some of these.

I need to provide context.  Here are the three that most easily come to mind, but there are more.  All three of these memories are quite vivid, and still have a lot of detail.

• I remember wandering into the street when I was a toddler, being run over by a car, and passing under the undercarriage, relatively unharmed.  I remember being taken to the hospital.  I remember both my parents being there.  Both swear this never happened.  I can understand denying this - it would be quite obvious gross neglect.
• I remember having been hospitalized, in an oxygen tent, with pneumonia.  Considering how bad my asthma was as a child, this is not surprising, and no one could blame either parent for this happening, so there's no reason to deny it.  But no one remembers this.  Also, no one remembers my uncle, who was on drugs at the time, making the effort to come see me while I was there.  He gave me a plush toy that I remember playing with after I came home from the hospital, but could not find later in life.
• I remember hitting my head on a pipe (those big sewer pipes that they used to put on playgrounds, for kids to go into).  My mom took me home and was worried about concussion, so she and I made up stories together to keep me awake.  I remember her writing this story, so we could refer back to it later.  She remembers the injury, she remembers keeping me awake, but not writing the stories with me.  Why deny the good part?

So, it has occurred to me as I've written these memories that all of them have a common thread of me being hurt, and someone taking care of me.  Maybe these false memories of really bad situations I was "rescued" from, so that I could have a bit more faith in my parents capability to care for me.  I don't know.

Anyway, does anyone else have memories like this?

[Sceal]

These are some serious worrysome memories!

The two first ones you end up in the hospital, the hospitals have to keep patient journals. Maybe you can start there?

Memories sadly though, are not always correct and reliable. There has been quite a bit of research on this matter of how much one can recollect of a memory and how much of it was true. Flashbulb memories are memories which are a mix of the truth and also imagination, they are also crystal clear. Could it be that it's something like this? But remember too, eventhough your memory might not be 100% correct, neither is your parents.

[Quiet]

I'm fairly sure the first memory never happened.  But I sure do remember a lot of details.

The second one, I think it did, but it's possible it didn't.  Unfortunately, all my medical records were lost when I was transferred to an adult doctor.  I wouldn't know which hospital to look to for  original records.  My wife remembers me talking about having pneumonia when we were in elementary school, but that doesn't mean it for sure happened.

The third memory, for sure, happened.  Well, except for the most reassuring part.

What I really wonder, now that I've noticed the common thread, is if I was trying to reassure myself that my parents would take care of me if something really awful happened.

[Blueberry]

Those are hugely detailed memories for never having happened.

I'm pretty sure - if I remember correctly - that this thing called False Memory Syndrome was particularly expounded by the FOO of a survivor of CSA who went public with what happened to her, but under a pseudonym. Nevertheless her FOO went to a great deal of effort including financial to expound this theory of FMS.

When I have resurfacing memories, I can actually tell if they're real or not. So occasionally something has come up in a dream or even in therapy, or in a bout of spiritual healing I got mixed up in, where I could say that xy could be symbolic but it had never actually happened. I've also had therapists (particularly the one into spiritual healing) suggest that this or that might have happened, but I knew it hadn't, it just didn't ring true.

There's one memory, and it's from really early on too like yours, that was never corroborated. I remember asking about it as a relatively small child, so must have been just a few years on, and nobody could remember. In the memory my M was present, adn I think a sib, and also another person whom we helped - or my M did, I was far too small and young - but it was my M I asked. It was a harmless memory, but she didn't remember. But as Sceal points out, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Parents' memories aren't perfect either.

As for your wondering whether you were trying to reassure yourself, well, I have heard "It's never to late to have a happy childhood" from a therapist, and while I first thought: "No way can that apply to me", I grew to learn that it can in fact apply a bit, and one way to have a happy childhood is to provide better outcomes in your own narrative, even to re-enact bad scenarios in the way you wish they had turned out. This is part of re-parenting the child within. 

[AphoticAtramentous]

Just skimmed all this but perhaps you dreamt of some of those things happening? I know there's been a few 'false memories' of my own. I swear I broke a TV once but when I asked my parents about it they said it never happened. So I can only assume it was a very realistic dream that somehow got put into my 'real life memory' storage.

[JayDubs]

I have no answers.   The brain is pretty powerful, that is for sure.  First thing I thought of was Plato's Allegory of the Cave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave  and possibly dreams.   We have memories of dreams too.   I am pretty confident that my memories aren't 100% accurate..especially in some circumstances.   

Very interesting detail you have with these.  Shall I say impressive!  If that were me, I would be curious and want to look further.

[Piou]

Yes, sometimes I remember things that I'm not even sure happened but the memory  just seems so...I don't know... realistic? Real? Like it could totally have happened.

As others have mentioned, it could also be a case of  "false memories".

[Blueberry]

There's an article and discussion (now closed, but you can read the comments) at the Guardian Newspaper on false memories.  I'd say TRIGGER WARNING for it, but some of teh comments are interesting. I'm not sure if I should put a link or not, so I won't, but if you're interested, google it.

[Blueberry]

Some of what we're discussing here is covered in Chapter 12 of Bessel Van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score He makes some really interesting points e.g. there wasn't much doubt about forgotten / repressed memories after trauma until the 1990's when the trauma caused by CSA came to the fore.

Anyway, just another reason to read Van der Kolk's book. I'm not in any mental state to summarise any more of what he wrote, but it was very revealing.