# When did you become self-aware? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 17, 2015, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037 "2015-01-17T01:31:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/21 "2015-02-09T20:28:00Z")
I have no idea what you people are talking about and now I’m worried. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/22 "2015-02-09T20:56:36Z")
I was 8 years old, in 3rd grade. For just a few years I went to a new school that was so close to home, I used to come home for lunch. I was sitting at the kitchen table, and my mother gave me a bowl of home-made vegetable beef soup. As I was eating it, there was a small bone in it, the same size as the little chunks of beef. I removed the bone from my mouth and put it on the table and continued eating. My mother said, “Oh, you don’t like the beef?” I sensed that her feelings were hurt, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her there was a bone in the soup. I suddenly got this very bizarre feeling, like I was looking at myself from the outside. I had absolute certainty that the situation was unique, never replicated before or since. In the entire history of humanity, nobody had ever removed a small bone from his soup, and his mother misinterpreting the bone for beef. And I mentally sat back and saw the span of my entire life, and that moment never repeating. And now, 61 years later, it hasn’t and never will. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/23 "2015-02-09T22:20:47Z")
Too young to remember. When I was four we had hearing tests at preschool and I discovered that most people _didn’t_ hear a ringing in their ears all of the time. Learning that the ringing I always heard wasn’t common was surprising, but I already knew then that people didn’t experience the same things so that part wasn’t a shock. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/24 "2015-02-10T01:17:22Z")
> [@GrumpyBunny](#): > > I recall being about 4 and thinking “I’m…me.” As in, I’m a human being involved in this thing called life. Which I think was pretty profound for a four-year-old. Exactly my experience. I remember it clearly to this day. (Or, perhaps more truly, I have the memories of it, whether or not they’re accurate.) The thing I most remember was the sense of newness. “What’s around that corner? Where does this path lead?” I was aware of myself, in the context of an unexplored world. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/25 "2015-02-10T02:57:50Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Exactly my experience. I remember it clearly to this day. > > (Or, perhaps more truly, I have the memories of it, whether or not they’re accurate.) > > The thing I most remember was the sense of newness. “What’s around that corner? Where does this path lead?” I was aware of myself, in the context of an unexplored world. As a child, there was a neighborhood pool near my parents’ house. Near the pool was a trail that led into the woods. I wondered for a long time what was down it, but at first I wasn’t old enough to go down it alone, and my parents basically weren’t interested in finding out. Then later, life sort of happened and I forgot about the trail. Someday I’m going to go back and go down that trail. ---
**Author:** ![seadoggie01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@seadoggie01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seadoggie01)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/26 "2015-02-10T03:03:43Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I’m hoping it’ll be any day now. I’m with you… I don’t think I even understand this conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/27 "2015-02-10T04:16:38Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > As a child, there was a neighborhood pool near my parents’ house. Near the pool was a trail that led into the woods. I wondered for a long time what was down it, but at first I wasn’t old enough to go down it alone, and my parents basically weren’t interested in finding out. Then later, life sort of happened and I forgot about the trail. Someday I’m going to go back and go down that trail. Grin! I’ve actually done stuff like that! You never know what you’ll find! It’s like the poem about the road less taken: this is the road never-yet-taken. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/28 "2015-02-10T13:59:42Z")
I may have been 2 or 3, because I remember lying in a crib looking at the ceiling. This was when I identified the conscious part of me as the real me. I also remember theorizing that my “soul” was older than my physical self. I may have believed I’d had previous existences. What is also fascinating is that I was aware that this was mature thinking, which furthered the theory that my soul was old and fully developed. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/29 "2015-02-10T19:03:49Z")
{Nelson Muntz} “Stop observing yourself! Stop observing yourself!” {/NM} ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/30 "2015-02-10T19:15:26Z")
I don’t have any memory of realizing my own consciousness. The closest I can come is a realization around 12-13 that I might say “I have to do homework tonight” or “I could never be a serial killer” but that it really was just a choice. What I really meant was “The negative consequences will outweigh any foregone opportunities.” My realization was that I could do anything I wanted, for better or worse. Do my homework? Give all my money to the poor? Go on a killing spree? It’s all a choice. ---
**Author:** ![NurseBernard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecae2f/32.png) [@NurseBernard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseBernard)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/31 "2015-02-10T21:25:22Z")
I used to get confused as to whether my thoughts were comprised of words that formed in my head, or if my thoughts existed independently of the words that let me understand what I was thinking… …as a kid I had a lot of time to worry about this kind of nonsense. I know a person who spent his childhood worrying about what he would wear as an adult. - Sweet thing to worry about. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_Hey_Paula)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/32 "2015-02-10T21:40:49Z")
> [@GrumpyBunny](#): > > I recall being about 4 and thinking “I’m…me.” As in, I’m a human being involved in this thing called life. Which I think was pretty profound for a four-year-old. I was about that age when I had the shocking realization that "Other people think of themselves as “I.” This blew me away. I mean, I knew that other people referred to themselves as I, but I thought I was the only one who was really I. Yeah I was a weird kid. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/33 "2015-02-10T21:52:16Z")
I’m pretty sure I always feel this way. I’m just a brain piloting this stupid meat robot. A meat robot that gropes around in the darkness to get the tiniest grasp of the reality around it by using its unbelievably primitive goo-filled sense organs. I can trigger the sense of exhilaration by thinking about mortality, though. Imagining nothingness (instead of somethingness) is the hard part. Must have been 7 or 8 when I first had that feeling. I remember that a super-religious friend tried to tell me that I had to protect my soul against demons and stuff in case I died. I didn’t believe him, but it did get me thinking about the eternal void of death. Eventually I realized it wasn’t a productive feeling and so avoided it. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2015, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/34 "2015-02-10T21:56:00Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I may have been 2 or 3, because I remember lying in a crib looking at the ceiling. This was when I identified the conscious part of me as the real me. I also remember theorizing that my “soul” was older than my physical self. I may have believed I’d had previous existences. > > What is also fascinating is that I was aware that this was mature thinking, which furthered the theory that my soul was old and fully developed. Grin! I took exactly the opposite lesson from it. Everything seemed absolutely new. I was sure that this was the first time for it all. (I don’t believe in souls at all, but I have managed to convince some neo-Pagan friends of mine, who do, that I possess a soul that is new to the earth, not reincarnated from any previous life.) ---
**Author:** ![LiveFree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5e9695/32.png) [@LiveFree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveFree)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/35 "2015-02-11T18:33:29Z")
I’ve been, what seems like self aware, most of my life. Almost too aware, which feels really weird. I wonder if what some are describing in themselves is actually a condition called Depersonalization or Derealization. It really stinks being this way. Here is a link. > **[Depersonalization-derealization disorder - Symptoms and causes](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depersonalization-derealization-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20352911)** > > Depersonalization-derealization disorder is when you feel that you're observing yourself from outside your body or that things around you aren't real. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/36 "2015-02-11T22:39:23Z")
2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th ---
**Author:** ![Mrdeals](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Mrdeals](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrdeals)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2015, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/37 "2015-02-11T22:42:20Z")
I was actually thinking about that the other day. I think it was when I was 4 an it was my great grandfathers 90th birthday. At that moment I just kind of “woke up.” ---
**Author:** ![Arabella\_Flynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@Arabella\_Flynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arabella_Flynn)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/38 "2015-02-12T10:03:58Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Too young to remember. > > When I was four we had hearing tests at preschool and I discovered that most people _didn’t_ hear a ringing in their ears all of the time. Learning that the ringing I always heard wasn’t common was surprising, but I already knew then that people didn’t experience the same things so that part wasn’t a shock. My experience was a lot like yours. I don’t recall when I first had the aha moment, but there are family stories – some amusing, some not so amusing – that suggest that by the time I was five, I had already figured out that not only did I think things that no one else could know, I also sometimes thought things that there was no way to explain to others even if I tried. Growing up and finding out about synaesthesia made most of those make a lot more sense. Oh, hey, songs don’t have ambient colors for you? Overcaffeination doesn’t smell like burnt neurons? That explains why you’re looking at me funny! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/39 "2015-02-12T13:10:24Z")
> [@Octarine](#): > > I was 9, in 4th grade, when I remember standing in my bathroom and staring at my reflection at the mirror. I thought, “I will always remember this moment.” It was this overwhelming sense of knowing that this, right now, was _my childhood_ - that one day I’d be an adult, that I’d grow older, that I wouldn’t really be _me_ anymore. I would change. That I couldn’t hold on to this, this moment, this feeling of being exactly _me_. And I still remember that. Adam Sandler’s comedy album [What The Hell Happened To Me?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Hell_Happened_to_Me) features a picture of a kid on the front cover, presumably Sandler himself. The first time I saw that picture and title together it made sense. If a human being show pictures of his toddler self to an alien, the alien might say much the same thing: _“what the hell happened to you?”_ The idea that there’s any kind of continuity between a very young child and the vastly different adult he becomes a few decades later is occasionally bizarre to contemplate. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037/40 "2015-02-12T13:12:48Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > August 29, 1997. > [@TBG](#): > > 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th Me, too. I blame Dyson. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-become-self-aware/710037.md?page=3)