Science Says Your Earliest Memory You Have May Not Have Happened

The first thing I ever experienced was me waking up in my car seat. I stood up out of the seat in my childhood living room, walked around the room in a circle, and then fell back asleep in my car seat. The next thing I remember is visiting my uncle and going to Disney World which, I'm guessing, happened a couple years later when I was 4. 

I often account that memory as the first time I was aware of my surroundings, but now I'm learning that may not have happened, and much like our dreams, many of our first memories were a complete fabrication. The news comes from a study (via Engadget) performed on 6,000 volunteers, who were asked to recall as vividly as possible their first memory and the age it happened. What scientists found was that a majority of people listed their first memory as happening around age 2 or before, which according to science, isn't possible. Most humans don't form long-term memories until the age of 3 and a half, and even then most of our early memories about our childhood are gone by the time we reach third grade. Basically, you may think you know your earliest memory, but it's far more likely it's something you've held onto that your brain made up a long time ago. 

The weird thing is scientists found the implausible stories happened much more often with people above the age of 25. A possible explanation is that at that age, we've heard stories from our parents or seen pictures of ourselves when we were little, and seeing those images create false memories of things we remember but don't actually remember. 

I don't know about you guys, but this is far too trippy for me to take in. I think I'm better off just assuming every thing I remember as a kid actually happened as opposed to questioning which parts of my childhood did and didn't happen.

Out of curiosity, what's your earliest memory, and has this study convinced you it didn't happen?