ACTOR AND APPARENT scientist Nicolas Cage believes he has memories from more than 59 years ago. And for a 59-year-old, that’s quite the feat.
While answering a question about his earliest memory from Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, Cage gave quite the answer, according to People—one that is worth a bit of dissecting.
“Let me think,” Cage said. “Listen, I know this sounds really far out and I don’t know if it’s real or not but sometimes I think I can go all the way back to in utero and feeling like I could see faces in the dark or something.”
He continued:
“I know that sounds powerfully abstract, but that somehow seems like it maybe happened. Now that I am no longer in utero, I would have to imagine it was perhaps vocal vibrations resonating through to me at that stage. That’s going way back. I don’t know. That comes to mind … I don’t even know if I remember being in utero, but that thought has crossed my mind.”
And indeed, science says that a thought crossing Cage’s mind is all it could be—not actually the ability to remember seeing “faces in the dark” from his time in the womb.
Testing of fetuses in the womb does show the ability for the tiny baby to start having memory recall around week 30 of gestation, even if the recall lasts only hours at first. That ability continues to grow the older the baby gets, with long-term memories capable most commonly around age 3, but sometimes as early as age 2.
Data from a variety of studies over the past couple of decades show that a fetus has the ability for an incredibly short memory—sometimes as long as 24 hours—at week 30, but by week 34, the fetus can remember for multiple weeks. Studies often use the same principle, having a mother repeat a nursery rhyme. Researchers can monitor the fetus’s heart rate to determine its familiarity with the spoken words of the rhyme, whether spoken by the mother or a stranger.
As the brain continues to develop, the memory comes right along with it. While we can remember things for hours or days at a time, we don’t form long-lasting memories. The first time we’re able to do that is, at the soonest, age 2, although more commonly, that happens by age 3.
Our brains continue to grow—and our ability to remember improves—through adolescence. As presented by the Australian Brain Alliance, our brains focus on neuron connections in the first months of our lives. Over the next few years, some connections strengthen, and others get removed. When the body hits puberty, the prefrontal cortex does this all again, forming new connections and then reorganizing those during adolescence.
“This pruning makes the existing connections more efficient,” the researchers say, “so it’s essential to cognitive processes such as memory.”
That’s why the ability to remember events starts around age 2 and our memory and recall continues to grow. Around ages 10 to 12, our long-term memory takes another leap forward and then fully forms at age 21, which explains why a 10-year-old doesn’t remember much about being age 5, but a 50-year-old still has vivid memories of age 18.
Still, none of that explains a 59-year-old, such as Cage, remembering “vocal vibrations” and “dark faces” from being in his mom’s womb. Cool story, though.
Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.
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