科学上有个说法叫童年失忆症（childhood amnesia），指人类无法记得 2～3 岁前的事。
It is estimated that there are a lot of big friends who come in, not to mention what happened to them at the age of 2, 3, or even 4, 5, or 6.
Don't grieve for the lost memories, because those images are not pretty......
Uncontrollably pooping and peeing, and yourself
Dominated by giant-like parents, powerless to resist will only howl incompetently
Running around with snot, climbing two steps and falling on the buttocks
In all kinds of unbearable retrospective, there may be some unspeakable ...... Well......
Anyway, it's just a bunch of things that will be embarrassing to death on the spot when I think about it now, or scared to death on the spot.
But with a good brain, how do you know whether to delete it or not? Why did it start the "one-click erase" program?
Forget the past
Maybe it's the brain that's good for you
Memory is one of the important functions of the brain, and human beings have not fully studied it.
There may be many reasons and mechanisms for those experiences that are not remembered in early childhood, such as:
- Babies don't have a sense of self, so they can't remember what happened to "me";
- Without a grasp of language, or understanding meaning and time, it is difficult to remember simply "seeing";
- The daily eating, drinking, and playing are too dull and there is no need to remember;
The prefrontal lobe and other brain regions are not mature, and I really can't remember or remember;
……
Either way, it's more or less related to one key word: forgetting.
Forgetting, in fact, is the power of the brain.
Our brains, like a high-configuration hard drive, are already extremely powerful before they are born. If you count the number of neurons, at 14 weeks, the brain has reached its peak in life.
At that time, you looked like this:
But memory does not depend on the number of neuronal cells, but on the links between neurons.
From the moment of birth, the whole world is fresh and unknown, the eyes receive light, the ears hear sounds, and the skin feels caressing...... All sensations are converted into neural electrical signals, and the brain records this novel information all the time, generating millions of synaptic links.
From babies to two- and three-year-olds, they crawl all day long, and their brains frantically input information, forming a rich and chaotic neural network.
Fetuses at 36 weeks, neonates, 3 months, 6 months, 2 years of age, synaptic networks of the brain
Studies have found that babies as young as 3 months old can remember a visual stimulus (such as a human face) for up to 24 hours and can remember things after half a year of age.
The cerebral cortex of a 3-year-old child has about 10^15 synapses (1 quadrillion). And an adult is only about 10^14~5 x 10^14 (100 to 500 trillion).
It shows that the brain does not have a memory mechanism, but actively erases these memories.
There is too much redundant information, the computer will freeze, and the brain will be the same.
More synapses do not mean better memory and smarter brains, but because they are too chaotic, retrieving and recording information becomes inefficient, and information competes with each other for sensory resources, making it difficult to concentrate.
So a synaptic pruning engraved in genes that drives the brain to "reduce costs and increase efficiency" begins.
This process is much like defragging + junk cleanup + intelligent iterative upgrade. The brain leaves behind the main neural network, removing most of the cluttered low-frequency links to support future development. This process is called "synaptic pruning".
The synaptic networks of 2-, 4-, and 6-year-olds are clearly "clear and simple" as they get older
Maybe when you were a child, you thought that the first love in kindergarten was a precious memory, but the ancestral code in the gene told the brain that if these garbage memories are not deleted, the brain will not be good in the future.
The brain becomes more and more energy-efficient, and childhood memories gradually dissipate as they grow, leaving behind some images and emotional fragments.
Something
In fact, it has never been forgotten
Although you and I have long since grown up and have long since forgotten the experiences of childhood, the pictures we see, the voices we hear, and the care we receive have long been deeply integrated into our bodies and become a part of "me".
Various signals from the outside world are transmitted to the brain and stimulate the development of the corresponding brain regions.
The smiling faces of the family, the teasing toys, the soft calls...... Abundant stimulation is essential for brain development.
They help the body train excellent systems such as vision, hearing, movement, language, and spatial perception, so that we can survive independently and take care of ourselves as adults, even if we are wandering alone.
The little things that are repeated over and over again affect our habits and preferences.
Walking, dressing, using chopsticks, going to the toilet...... How many things are learned have long been forgotten, but in the repetition over and over again, these once difficult things are retained through procedural memories (implicit memory), and the body will automatically act unconsciously.
The original milk, the added complementary food, and the taste and smell preferences of infancy and toddler will continue to be inherited, and the family's dietary choices will be passed down, and the taste of "home" will be deeply remembered.
More importantly, the interaction with our loved ones constructs our feelings of "love".
When you are hungry, you can suck warm milk in your mouth; Uncomfortable humming, stretched out a hand to gently stroke; The buttocks are wet and smelly, and someone scrubs it in time to refresh it; When I wake up in a daze, there are always familiar smiles and words that I don't understand......
Although we don't remember anything about eating, drinking, and Lazar before the age of 3, it was in these trivial things that we started the first interaction in our lives with our families.
If our needs are not responded to, or are always denied, we may have more distrust and vigilance towards the world and others, and we will be more independent and self-dependent.
If we feel more secure and confident in our interactions, we will be more proactive in connecting with people and exploring the world.
The specific details may have been completely forgotten for a long time, but the attention and response we felt in the process of being cared for made us remember the pain of rejection and the sweetness of being cared for.
It also allows each of us to get along with the world, with our lovers, and with ourselves in our own unique way.
Forgetting is the inevitable price of growth.
Childhood is very far away, memories are very vague, what happened during that time, maybe it was really completely deleted by the brain, and it can never be recovered.
But deep in our brains, the shadow of that child is still deeply imprinted.
(Source: Lilac Doctor)