An unlikely tale

I claim to remember the day I was born, a possibility reinforced by the testimony of my mother.

I have a blurry memory, like a slow video replay, which I discovered in my head at a young age, and after watching it play through many times I mentioned it to Mum, and her response surprised me.

This memory gives me the impression of lying on my back, and there is a high white panel rising up beside me, to the right, but then it seems to move aside in a gradual motion that I could now interpret as perhaps a door that was open being pushed closed. Then a high wide blue blurred shape appears beside me, looming over me, and at the top of the blue there is a fleshy blob framed in black, which approaches, moves down, very close to me, but never resolves itself into focus. And then another big blob moves in from the left, a bright pink one this time, with another roundish hazy blob on top, that moves in on me too, then rises up, and then the silent images stop.

This scene replays within my mind any time I want it to. I have, of course, just watched it again right now. And when I first told Mum about it, as a young boy, I do remember that she seemed puzzled, and frowned, then said, 'Goodness, that sounds like the day you were born.'

I was born at home and my mum explained how on my first day of life I was in a cot tucked in behind a white door to my right, and there was a big fat dark-haired midwife in blue and my mother was in a bright pink nightdress, resting on the bed over to the left of the cot. And on the day after my birth my cot was moved over to beside the window, with its green curtains - a quite different landscape altogether.

'As a baby, you were never right beside a door on your right ever again,' said Mum, 'and these colours and positions exactly match the few hours after you were born.'

And so she implanted my suspicion that I may remember the day I was born.

I don't know if it's true or not. I don't know if anything is true or not, but I have heard tales of other people who claim to remember their birth, or just after it, but then lots of other people are deluded nuts.