Something Like a Dream

After very busy days doing other things, finally perhaps there are a few minutes for this blog, mainly touching upon some previous reference to the book Unlocking the Secrets of Your Childhood Memories. The importance of this undertaking struck me again last night as I watched an old Miss Marple film. When Vincent Price introduced “Sleeping Murder,” he said Agatha Christie once wrote that her earliest memory was her third birthday party. The table of cakes and flowers and the ambience of the large house where her family lived, made a greater impression on Agatha when a huge spider swooped down over the table to join in the delights. Then Price said Agatha grew up to write about evil in pleasant surroundings. This is an excellent example of recalling and understanding one’s earliest memories.

Once we know this possibility of understanding ourselves through our earliest memories, it is highly important that we realize what they mean. The book cited above stresses we need to acknowledge what emotions we experienced in the memory, which may be more than a single emotion. In fact, the authors suggest we divide the memory into parts. In Agatha’s experience, part one could be the joy of anticipating eating birthday cake with her friends. Part two could be surprise at the spider’s appearing on the scene. Part three could be great fear. When one realizes the parts, then he decides which part had the greatest impact on him. That is the part that has more to do with our later personality. It could, of course, be a double blessing or a double whammy. The pleasure and the fear Agatha felt could have been equal in intensity. Ergo, all those mystery novels about evil in pleasant surroundings.

A friend recently told me her earliest memory, which she had never thought much about till then. She said she recalled holding onto her blanket when she saw her mother going out the door and wondering if she would ever return. She admitted insecurity then. I asked her if she’d carried over the feeling of insecurity into later life. She said after a moment’s thinking, “Yes, I think I have.”

If all early memories are filled with negativity and one can’t straighten out the results in his later life, he should seek counseling. For example, some earliest memories are of a father’s beating a son again and again. The boy learns the way to have power over other people is to beat them. So, he grows up to beat his own sons. This person needs counseling. When he understands why, he can change his behavior.

The authors also suggest when a young man calls a girl on the phone to invite her out for the first time, she should ask him what his earliest memories are to help her make up her mind if it’s okay to date him. Hilarious and a great idea! Now in case he’s wise to this memory business, she can go to dinner with him and during that time sneak his earliest memories out of him, perhaps by remembering one of her own to tell him first, then springing the question on him.

And there’s nothing ungentlemanly for the guy to know a girl’s earliest memories before he asks her out.

♥