Why don't we remember our dreams? Why we don't remember past lives and early childhood.

It happens that fame and fame come to the actors far from immediately. It often happens that the now famous stars of the screen achieve wide success only in their mature years, and therefore there is nothing surprising in the fact that we do not remember what they looked like in their youth. Let's look at what the popular actors and TV presenters of domestic television were like in their young years. It is worth noting that some of the pictures may surprise you.

Gosha Kutsenko. The future famous actor was born in Zaporozhye on May 20, 1967. In 1988 he moved to Moscow, where he entered the MIREA, and two years later - the Moscow Art Theater School.

He starred in the film “Mother Do not Cry”, which served as the starting point in his stellar career, at the age of 30. Now he has a lot of movie hits behind him, but in 2016 Kutsenko announced that he was ending his acting career and plans to take up directing.

Vladimir Gostyukhin. The future actor was born on March 10, 1946 in Sverdlovsk, but being carried away by the theater, he left for Moscow, where he graduated from State Institute theater arts. A. V. Lunacharsky in 1970.

Worked in the theater Soviet army, for six years - as a furniture maker-props, and later played in the same play in the same place.

There are not so few film roles behind him, but he is most likely known to you as Ivanovich from the series “Truckers”.

Alexey Maklakov. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to remember the earlier roles of “ensign Shmatko” from the series “Soldiers”, but he entered the theater back in 1980.

For some time he worked at Radio Uniton. Worked in the Tomsk Youth Theater. He played in the Novosibirsk theater "Red Torch". Later he worked on the film "What the dead man said" as a video editor.

In 1996, Alexei Maklakov moved to the capital and was enrolled in the group of the V. Mayakovsky Theater, it was in the capital that his successful film career began.

Fedor Bondarchuk. Everyone knows the image of a brutal film actor, producer and director.

He made his debut in 1986, with a small role (Tsarevich Fedor) in the historical drama of his father, Sergei Bondarchuk, "Boris Godunov", which he recalled: "Father was strict with me. He was and remains for me a fantastic, unshakable authority. It was a terrible responsibility. When I came back from filming, they literally squeezed the sweat out of me. The role was very difficult for me."

In 1987, as a student at VGIK, he took part in the filming of his teacher Yuri Ozerov's film "Stalingrad", which was released in 1990. In 1991, studies at VGIK were successfully completed.

Alisa Freindlich. The daughter of the famous Leningrad actor Bruno Freindlich, Alisa, played the main roles in the theaters named after Komissarzhevskaya and the Lensovet, acted in films, but there was still no role by which everyone could recognize her.

When Eldar Ryazanov invited her to play Lyudmila Prokofievna Kalugina in "Office Romance", the actress was already 42 years old, while the picture was being shot - she turned 43.

But after the release of the film on the screens, there was not a single person left in the country who would not know who Alisa Freindlich was.

Fedor Dobronravov. The future actor worked as a fitter and as an operator of a varnish filling machine at a furniture factory...

Subsequently, having already graduated from the theater institute, in the mornings he worked as a janitor, and in the evening he went on stage.

First successful work Fedor Viktorovich became the role of the father of the cadet Perepechko in the TV series "The Cadets", which he played at the age of 46, and the subsequent roles in "Liquidation", "Daddy's Daughters" and, of course, "Matchmakers" made him truly famous.

Alexander Baluev. After an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Shchukin school, he worked for a year as an assistant lighting engineer in the lower park of the lighting department at Mosfilm. In 1980, he successfully completed his studies and became an actor in the Theater of the Soviet Army.

He played a lot in the theater. Widespread popularity came to Baluev after the release of the film "Muslim", where he played the role of the older brother of the main character of the film.

Since the late 90s, he has repeatedly starred in Hollywood films, where he was usually invited to play minor or episodic roles of Russian officers.

Evgeny Dyatlov. For a long time, Evgeny had to be content with supporting and even third roles in popular films and TV series, traveling around the country with concerts, playing at the Youth Theater on the Fontanka, and hosting programs on St. Petersburg television.

Real fame came to Dyatlov only after participating in the Two Stars project. Now Dyatlov is an indispensable participant in all the concerts of the First Russian TV Channel and plays roles that he could only dream of before - Shervinsky in the film adaptation of The White Guard, Commander Novikov in the film based on the novel by Vasily Grossman and Valery Chkalov in the TV movie "Wings".

Alexey Guskov. After graduation high school entered the Moscow Higher Technical School named after N. E. Bauman (MVTU named after N. E. Bauman). He studied at this school for almost five years, but in 1979 he left there and entered the acting department of the Moscow Art Theater School.

taught for four years acting skills at the Moscow Art Theater School. Played a lot.

In 2000, he starred in one of his most famous and striking roles - smuggler officer Nikita Goloshchekin in Alexander Mitta's television series "Border. Taiga Romance". He was also one of the producers of this picture.

Ivan Okhlobystin. After graduation, he entered VGIK at the directing department. He studied on the same course with many future figures of Russian cinema.

In early 2001, after the release of "Down House" with his participation, it turned out that Okhlobystin had been ordained a priest. Until 2005, Father John served in the church of St. Nicholas in Zayaitsky, located on the Raushskaya embankment of the Moscow River.

November 26, 2009 at news feeds there was a message that Okhlobystin asked the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill to release him from service due to "internal contradictions". Well, in recent years seven everyone knows him as Dr. Bykov from the television series "Interns".

Leonid Yakubovich. Young Leonid did not think about becoming a celebrity, during his studies he played in the KVN institute team. He worked at the Likhachev Plant and in the ZIL commissioning department. Since 1979 he has been writing television scripts.

In 1991, Yakubovich came to the auditions of the new host of the "Field of Miracles" and successfully passed them, and to this day is the permanent host of the TV game. Since that year, he began to appear regularly in films.

Ludmila Artemieva. The actress, known to the audience for the TV series "Matchmakers", "Taxi Driver", "Who's the Boss", "Matchmakers" played her first starring role at the age of 40.

In 1986, Artemyeva graduated from the B. Schukin Theater School, and made her debut on the screens for the first time in 1986 in the school film "Very scary tale", until 2003 she played at the Lenkom Theater.

Alexander Kalyagin. The future actor graduated from the Moscow Medical School No. 14 in 1959 with a degree in obstetrician, for two years he worked as a paramedic in an ambulance. In 1965, Alexander Kalyagin graduated from the Shchukin school and was accepted into the troupe of the Taganka Theater.

Alexander Kalyagin has been acting in films since 1967, but the most famous role - Babs Baberley (Donna Rosa d'Alvadores) played in the 1975 film "Hello, I'm your aunt!".

Tatyana Vasilyeva. In 1969, the actress graduated from the Moscow Art Theater School and for the next 15 years she played on the stage of the Moscow Theater of Satire.

Only in 1992 she received the Nika Award in the nomination "Best Actress", and in 2012, at the age of 65, she was named the performer of the "female role" for her role in the television series "Closed School".

From June 4 to August 31, 2012 - presenter in the project "Between Us Girls" on Channel One. From April 1 to May 30, 2014 - presenter in the project "Your Business ..." on Channel One.

Mikhail Derzhavin. In 1954, Mikhail entered the Theater School. Shchukin, after which, since 1959, he worked at the Moscow Theater. Lenin Komsomol.

The actor made his film debut in 1956 in an episode of the film “Different Fates”, but now these roles and the roles of the next two decades will be remembered a little.

In the 80s and 90s, Derzhavin got really stellar roles, some of famous films- this is “Womanizer” and “My sailor”.

Sergei Garmash. The future actor dreamed of entering the nautical school after school, but he submitted documents to the Dnepropetrovsk theater, and after the army he went to Moscow to enter the theater school.

After studying, he was accepted into the troupe of the Moscow Sovremennik Theater, Garmash began to act most actively in the 90s, and in the 2000s his demand only increased.

Boris Shcherbakov. In 1968, Boris learned that in Moscow his favorite teacher would take a course at the Moscow Art Theater School, and four years later he graduated and in the same year became an actor at the Moscow Art Theater.

He acted a lot, but he began to show special activity in this field in the 90s.

In the 2000s, Shcherbakov starred in many TV series and TV projects.

Sergei Selin. Before becoming an actor, a young man from Voronezh managed to master the professions of a loader and a janitor.

Selin tried to enter the theater in Moscow, returned to Voronezh and, out of grief, entered the Institute of Technology as an engineer in the meat and dairy industry.

There he got a job as a loader in the dining room at the military department. He left there only when he finally decided to leave the institute and eventually become "Dukalis".

the first three or four years of life. Plus, we generally remember quite a bit about ourselves before the age of seven. “No, well, I still remember something,” you say, and you will be absolutely right. Another thing is that, upon reflection, it can be difficult to understand in question about real memories or about second-order memories based on photographs and stories of parents.

The phenomenon known as "childhood amnesia" has been a mystery to psychologists for over a century. In spite of great amount information that can be used and technological developments, scientists still cannot say for sure why this is happening. Although there are a number of popular theories that seem to them the most plausible.

The first reason is the development of the hippocampus

It might seem that the reason we don't remember ourselves in infancy is because babies and toddlers don't have full . But in fact, The Conversation adds, babies as young as 6 months old can form both short-term memories that last for minutes and long-term memories associated with events. recent weeks and even months.

In one study, 6-month-olds who learned how to push a lever to operate a toy train remembered how to perform the action for 2-3 weeks after they last saw the toy. And preschoolers, according to another study, are able to remember what happened several years ago. But here, experts explain, again the question remains open: are these autobiographical memories or memories obtained with the help of someone or something.

The truth is that memory capabilities in childhood are indeed not the same as in adulthood (in fact, memory continues to develop into adolescence). And this is one of the most popular explanations for "childhood amnesia." It is important to understand that memory is not only the formation, but also the maintenance and subsequent retrieval of memories. At the same time, the hippocampus, the region of the brain responsible for all of this, continues to evolve. at least up to seven years old.

It is also interesting that the typical border of "childhood amnesia" at 3-4 years, apparently, shifts with age. There is evidence that children and adolescents generally have earlier memories than adults. And this, in turn, suggests that the issue may be less about the formation of memories, but more about their preservation.

The second reason is language proficiency

Second important factor that plays a role in childhood memories is language. Between the ages of one and six, children mostly go through difficult process formation of speech to free (or even languages, if we are talking about bilinguals). Scientists believe that the assumption that the ability to speak affects the ability to remember (here we include the presence of the words “remember”, “remember” in the lexicon) is to some extent true. In other words, the level of language proficiency in a particular period partially affects how well a child will remember this or another event.

This allows us to speak, for example, a study conducted with the participation of babies delivered to the department emergency care. As a result, children over 26 months of age who could recount the event at the time remembered it five years later, while children under 26 months of age who could not speak remembered little or nothing at all. That is, preverbal memories are indeed more likely are lost if they are not translated into the language.

Reason three - cultural characteristics

Unlike the simple exchange of information, memories revolve around social function sharing experience with others. Thus, family histories maintain the availability of memory over time, as well as increase the coherence of the narrative, including the chronology of events, their theme, and.

Maori, the natives of New Zealand, have the earliest childhood memories - they remember themselves as early as the age of 2.5 years. Researchers believe this is due to the logic of Maori mothers' storytelling and the tradition of telling family stories from an early age. Data analysis on the topic also shows that adults in cultures that value autonomy ( North America, Western Europe) tend to report earlier childhood memories than adults in cultures that value wholeness and connectedness (Asia, Africa).

Memories from deep childhood are inaccessible to people, as well as the memory of the moment of their birth. What is it connected with? Why don't we remember how we were born? After all, some vivid impressions seem to be imprinted in the subconscious and then remain there forever, and such a mentally and physically important point, like a birth, is simply erased from the "subcortex". Numerous theories from psychology, human physiology, as well as ideas drawn from religion, will help to understand such a mysterious phenomenon.

mystical theories

World beliefs in the secrets of the universe and offer their own idea of ​​why a person does not remember how he was born. It's all about the soul - it is in it that all the information about the days lived, emotions, successes and failures, which human brain like his physical body, cannot receive and, accordingly, decrypt. On the 10th day of the existence of the embryo, the soul inhabits it, but only for a while, and 30-40 days before the moment of birth, it is completely introduced into the mortal body. Why don't we remember how we were born? Because the body cannot perceive the information that the soul possesses. The energy clot seems to protect all data from the brain, thereby preventing the possibility of unraveling the mystery of the creation of man. The soul is immortal, the body is just a shell.

Scientific explanations

Why don't we remember how we were born? From the point of view of science this phenomenon explained severe stress accompanying the birth process. Pain, change in body parts, progression birth canal- all this is a difficult transition for a child from a warm, reliable mother's womb to an unfamiliar world.

Memory formation is directly related to growth human body. The subconscious of an adult person captures moments from life and stores them, but in children everything happens a little differently. Emotions and experiences, as well as the moments associated with them, are stored in the "subcortex", but at the same time, the memories preceding them are erased, since the children's brain, due to its insufficient development, is simply not able to store an abundance of information. That's why we don't remember our childhood and how we were born. From about six months to a year and a half, a child develops a memory: long-term and short-term. At this age, he begins to recognize his parents and close circle, finds objects on request, orients himself in his house.

So why don't we remember how we were born? Another interpretation of the absence of early childhood memories is explained by the fact that the baby cannot yet associate certain events with words, since he cannot speak and does not yet know about the existence of the words themselves. The absence of memories of childhood in psychology is called infantile amnesia.

According to many scientists, the problem with children's memory is, rather, not that they do not know how to create memories, but that the child's subconscious saves everything he has experienced in. This explains why a person does not remember the moment of his birth, and why that some even the brightest moments of life are erased over time.

According to Freud

The world celebrity, thanks to which significant advances in medicine and psychology were made, created his own interpretation of why we remember childhood so badly. Accordingly, a person blocks information about life events when the age has not yet reached three to five years, due to sexual attachment to one of the parents of the opposite sex to the child, and aggression towards the other. For example, a boy in early age has a strong unconscious connection with his mother, while being jealous of her father and, as a result, hates him. Therefore, at a more conscious age, memories are blocked by the subconscious as negative and unnatural. However, the theory of Sigmund Freud did not gain recognition in scientific circles, it remained just a one-sided view of the Austrian psychologist on the lack of memories of childhood.

Hark Hawn's theory

Why a person does not remember his birth, according to the research of this doctor, is directly related to the following: the child does not yet identify himself as a separate person. Therefore, memory cannot be preserved, since children do not know what exactly is happening around them. personal experience, emotions and feelings, and what - the results of life strangers. For small child everything is one.

Why do children determine where mom and dad are if they still don’t know how to speak and don’t remember moments from childhood well

The child easily navigates in his home and does not get confused when he is asked to show which of his parents is mom and who is dad, thanks to semantic memory. It is there that the memories of the world around him, important for the survival of a person, are stored. Due to the information contained in the long-term "storage", the child quickly finds where his favorite treat is, in which of the rooms he will be fed and watered, who his mother or father is. Why don't we remember how we were born? This moment can be explained by the fact that the subconscious given event interprets from life as an unnecessary and dangerous phenomenon for the psyche, keeping it in the short term, and not in

Research by Canadian psychologists on the phenomenon of infantile amnesia

Participation in a survey conducted by doctors from Toronto, took 140 children, whose age ranged from three to thirteen years. The essence of the experiment was that all participants were asked to talk about the three earliest memories. The results of the study proved that younger children remember moments from early childhood more clearly, and those older than 7-8 years old cannot remember the details of experiences life situations that have been discussed previously.

Paul Frankland. Exploring the hippocampus

The hippocampus is part of the brain. Its main function is the transportation and "archiving" of human memories. Canadian scientist P. Frankland became interested in his activities and role in preserving the memory of what is happening around. Having examined this "archiver" of the brain in more detail, the scientist came to the conclusion that why we do not remember how we were born, as well as what our childhood was like up to 2-3 years old, is interpreted as follows: every person is born with an underdeveloped hippocampus , which prevents the normal storage of the received information. In order for the hippocampus to begin to function normally, it takes years - a person grows, and he develops. Up to this point, childhood memories are scattered all over the nooks and crannies of the cerebral cortex.

Even when the hippocampus begins to work, it is not able to collect all the information from the back streets of memory and build a kind of bridge to it. Therefore, there are so many people who do not remember their childhood before the age of three, and so few who remember themselves younger than 2-3 years. This study explains why we don't remember how we were born and raised until we reach a conscious age.

The influence of the environment on the preservation of a child's memory

Scientists have found that, in addition to educational factors and genetic inheritance, memories of childhood are influenced by the place where a person lives. During the experiment, which involved children from Canada and China from 8 to 14 years old, a four-minute survey was conducted about their lives. As a result, the little inhabitants of the Celestial Empire were able to tell less than the Canadian guys in the allotted time.

What memories are most strongly imprinted in the children's subconscious?

Children are less receptive to moments in life associated with sounds; for them, those events in which they could see and feel something are more important. However, the fear and pain experienced by a person in younger age are often replaced over time by other, more positive memories. But it also happens that some individuals are better at remembering pain, suffering and sadness than happiness and joy.

It is worth noting that the child remembers more sounds than the outlines of objects. For example, hearing the voice of his mother, crying baby instantly calms down.

Are there ways to draw childhood memories from the depths of the subconscious?

Psychologists often resort to immersing their patients in a trance state in order to solve a particular problem, as they say, all our fears come from childhood. Getting into the past, a person during a hypnosis session, without knowing it, can talk about the most hidden, deepest memories. However, not everyone manages to look into the earliest moments of life - according to numerous experiments, the subconscious seems to be building an insurmountable wall that protects the experienced emotions from prying eyes.

Many esotericists also use hypnosis to help a person learn about their past lives, memories from childhood and even infancy. But this method of obtaining information is not scientifically confirmed, so the stories of some "lucky ones" who have known the moment of their birth often turn out to be fiction and a professional publicity stunt.

Most of us do not remember anything from the day we were born - the first steps, the first words and impressions until kindergarten. Our first memories tend to be fragmentary, few in number, and interspersed with significant chronological gaps. The absence of a sufficiently important stage of life in our memory for many decades distressed parents and puzzled psychologists, neurologists and linguists, including the father of psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud, who introduced the concept of "infantile amnesia" more than 100 years ago.

On the one hand, babies soak up new information like sponges. They make 700 new ones every second. nerve connections, therefore, children with enviable speed master the language and other skills necessary for survival in the human environment. Latest Research show that their development intellectual abilities starts before birth.

But even as adults, we forget information over time unless we make special efforts to save it. So one explanation for the lack of childhood memories is that childhood amnesia is just the result of a natural forgetting process that nearly all of us experience throughout our lives.

The answer to this assumption was found by the study of the 19th century German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, who was one of the first to conduct a series of experiments on himself to test the possibilities and limitations of human memory. In order to avoid associations with past memories and to study mechanical memory, he developed a method of meaningless syllables - memorizing rows of fictitious syllables of two consonants and one vowel.

Recalling learned words from memory, he introduced a "forgetting curve" that demonstrates rapid decline our ability to recall learned material: without additional training, our brain discards half of the new material within an hour, and by day 30 we are left with only 2-3% of the information received.

Most main conclusion in the studies of Ebbinghaus: forgetting information is quite natural. It was only necessary to compare the graphs to find out if infant memories fit into it. In the 1980s, scientists did some calculations and found that we store far less information about the period between birth and age six or seven than the memory curve would suggest. This means that the loss of these memories is different from our normal forgetting process.

Interestingly, however, some people have access to earlier memories than others: some may remember events from the age of two, while others may not remember any events from a life until the age of seven or eight. On average, fragmentary memories, "pictures", appear about from the age of 3.5 years. Even more interesting is the fact that the age at which the first memories relate differs among representatives different cultures and countries, reaching the most early value at two years old.

Could this explain gaps in memory? to install possible connection of this inconsistency and the phenomenon of “infantile oblivion,” psychologist Qi Wang of Cornell University has collected hundreds of memories from Chinese and American college students. According to stereotypes, American stories were longer, more intricate, and overtly self-centered. The Chinese stories, on the other hand, were shorter and more factual, and, on average, they belonged to a period six months later than those of the American students.

That more detailed, person-centered memories are much easier to retain and relive has been proven by numerous studies. A little selfishness helps our memory work, as the formation of our point of view fills events with a special meaning.

"There's a difference between saying 'There were tigers at the zoo' and 'I saw tigers at the zoo and although they were scary, I had a great time'"-says Robin Fivush, a psychologist at Emory University.

So what's the deal? After all, children absorb information like a sponge, forming 700 neural connections per second and learning the language at a speed that any polyglot would envy.

Many believe that the answer lies in the work of Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist who lived in the 19th century. For the first time, he conducted a series of experiments on himself that allowed him to know the limits of human memory.

To do this, he made up rows of meaningless syllables (“bov”, “gis”, “loch” and the like) and memorized them, and then checked how much information was stored in memory. As the Forgetting Curve, also developed by Ebbinghaus, confirms, we forget what we have learned very quickly. Without repetition, our brain forgets half of it within the first hour. new information. By the 30th day, only 2–3% of the received data is retained.

Researching forgetting curves in the 1980s, scientists found David C. Rubin. Autobiographical memory. that we have far fewer memories from birth to 6 or 7 years of age than one might think. At the same time, some remember individual events that occurred when they were only 2 years old, while others have no memories of events before the age of 7–8 at all. On average, fragmentary memories appear only after three and a half years.

It is especially interesting that in different countries there are discrepancies in how memories are stored.

Role of culture

Psychologist Qi Wang from Cornell University conducted a study Qi Wang. Culture effects on adults’ earliest childhood recollection and self-description ., in which she recorded childhood memories of Chinese and American students. As might be expected from national stereotypes, the stories of Americans were longer and more detailed, and also significantly more self-absorbed. The stories of the Chinese students, on the other hand, were brief and reproduced facts. In addition, their memories began, on average, six months later.

Other studies confirm the difference Qi Wang. The Emergence of Cultural Self-Constructs.. People whose memories are more focused on self easier to remember.

“Between those memories ‘There were tigers in the zoo’ and ‘I saw tigers in the zoo, they were scary, but it was still very interesting’ big difference, psychologists say. The appearance of a child's interest in himself, the emergence of his own point of view helps to better remember what is happening, because this is what largely affects the perception of various events.

Then Ki Wang conducted another experiment, this time interviewing American and Chinese mothers. Qi Wang, Stacey N. Doan, Qingfang Song. Talking about Internal States in Mother-Child Reminiscing Influences Children’s Self-Representations: A Cross-Cultural Study .. The results are the same.

"AT Eastern culture childhood memories are not given such importance, says Wang. - When I lived in China, no one even asked me about it. If society inspires that these memories are important, they are more deposited in the memory.

Interestingly, the earliest memories were recorded among the indigenous population of New Zealand - the Maori. S. MacDonald, K. Uesiliana, H. Hayne. Cross-cultural and gender differences in childhood amnesia.
. Their culture puts a lot of emphasis on childhood memories, and many Maori remember events that happened when they were only two and a half years old.

The role of the hippocampus

Some psychologists believe that the ability to remember comes to us only after we master the language. However, it has been proven that in children who are deaf from birth, the first memories belong to the same period as in the rest.

This led to the emergence of the theory that we do not remember the first years of life simply because at this time our brain does not yet have the necessary “equipment”. As you know, the hippocampus is responsible for our ability to remember. At a very early age, he is still underdeveloped. This has been seen not only among humans, but also among rats and monkeys. Sheena A. Josselyn, Paul W. Frankland. Infantile amnesia: A neurogenic hypothesis..

However, some events from childhood affect us even when we do not remember them. Stella Li, Bridget L. Callaghan, Rick Richardson. Infantile amnesia: forgotten but not gone., so some psychologists believe that the memory of these events is still stored, but it is not available to us. So far, scientists have not yet been able to prove this experimentally.

imaginary events

Many of our childhood memories are often not real. We hear from relatives about some situation, think of the details, and over time it begins to seem like our own memory.

And even if we do remember this or that event, this memory can change under the influence of the stories of others.

So maybe main question not why we don't remember our own early childhood but whether we can trust even one memory at all.