One of my earliest memories is of an incident that happened in my childhood. I was about 7 or 8 at the time and living on a rural road in a small community. A group of us children were playing near the road when a truck came by and through some sort of accident or faulty latch on his truck, spilled his load of goods onto the road. The items? Kraft caramels! We all shouted in amazement and grabbed hands full of the booty. I gorged myself on caramel until I was sick. The problem is, I don’t know if this really happened or if it was a vivid dream I continue to remember to this day. I have to admit it is a pretty unlikely scenario and no one else in my family has any memory of it…
Can you remember something that never happened?
Kraft Caramels
Day 6 of the A-Z Challenge!
Making Life an Art 
I remember things no-one else does. Sometimes I think I must have dreamt them. Especially when I am out-voted. Sue
It’s a weird feeling. Glad I’m not alone. This is a bit of a hard story to swallow though. ( haha no pun intended!)
I have a few and when I bring them up family members give me that weird funny look.
Haha. Stick to your guns. It DID happen!
I have that feeling sometimes of not knowing whether something I remember really happened or not. I have vivid dreams so that complicates things a bit for me. The great thing is that to our brain all memories (real or imagined) are the same, so it doesn’t matter. I like to think that we can pick and choose our memories to make up a story of ourselves. All of it is just as real.
I think it’s a lovely thought, especially when it comes to unpleasant or traumatic memories.
Come back for V day and my Vivid dream!
Will do.
That is interesting to think if it was a dream or an actual event. If no one else remembers it, hard to say if it actually happened or not since it might not have made that big of an impact on others like it did on you. I know when talking about things growing up with my siblings, we all have different takes about events as seen through our own different eyes.
betty
It’s a cool “memory” but we may never know if it’s real or not.
I’m usually pretty vivid with my childhood memories and the nieces and nephews are always asking to recount something or another form childhood. No matter what, your memory is a cool one!
Thanks, It sounds like you are the family storyteller!
I had a couple really vivid dreams that later I couldn’t tell if they were memory or not. But I know they never happened, so I know they were dreams.
Process of elimination.
I used to have very vivid dreams of flying when I was younger, and on one occasion I remember stepping off the top of the stairs at my nan’s house and floating all the way down to the bottom. It seemed so real that for years I thought it was an actual memory. I was less than four years old, but I can still see the colour of the carpet and the patterns on the wallpaper. However, after testing it out on the stairs a couple of times in real life….I found that unfortunately I must have dreamt it. Another case is a memory I have of the neighbourhood flooding and me and my step siblings ‘swimming’ in the large puddles on the road and in the carpark. Sadly I’m not in contact with anyone who could verify if the memory is real or not.
Fabulous! I love that you tested the flying theory. I used to have flying dreams but I usually just hovered slightly off the ground and had to pump my arms like crazy to do even that much!
I wish some horrible stuff never happened, but it did. Great post.
When horrible stuff happens, I try to let it go and move on. Forgiveness is a huge healer for the person forgiving.
yes! I know where my earliest actual memories are, but my memory goes back further than that. I have memories I constructed from photos of myself before my long-term memory developed.
This is an awesome, awesome post!
Happy A to Z!
My daughter actually has a memory of our family on a camping trip we took before she was born! I was 7 months pregnant with her and she remembers seeing us in the campground that was inside a volcano.
That is strange. I KNOW, for a fact, that I have memories constructed entirely from grainy 110 photos that were taken in the 70s and stuck into an album. There’s an entire apartment with pocket doors and a recliner with hound’s tooth-patterned upholstery that I could walk through blindfolded, but my physical brain never actually learned the layout. All constructed later from the photos.
And is it accurate?
My uncle used to be an insurance adjuster. We had gone to visit them in western Oklahoma right after he had had a claim for an orange juice truck that turned over. Because the juice couldn’t be sold, he got to take home as much as he wanted (this was the late 60s). My parents filled our cooler and took orange juice back home with us (my mom never bought oj for us, I guess because it was expensive – she bought canned pineapple juice, which I hated). We had Donald Duck brand orange juice for months and months!
Now that is a cool memory! And I’m sure there are several in your family who can corroborate it!
what a yummy fantasy!
Sometime even I get confused between a dream and what actually happened 🙂
I’m glad to hear I’m not alone!
Well, if it didn’t really happen it’s a sweet dream.
Where I live produce trucks tip over once in awhile and the roads are filled with oranges, plums, peaches or whatever. It’s quite a sight!
Haha! That reminds me of the Richard Scarry book “Cars and trucks and things that go!”
I used to have dreams falling as i am walking on the road side and all my teeths are broken, it used to so real that I used to cover my mouth and walk fearing that I may fall and lose all my teeth, another was missing the train – I used to always be running to catch a missing train, the images would be so clear and it would look so real… now I have outgrown and do not have these type of dreams any more.. Thanks for sharing which made me think of things I have forgotten..
I used to have dreams I was in high school and couldn’t remember where my locker was or my classes. Very stressful. I would wake up so glad I wasn’t in school anymore