When Do Stories Begin?

Before we can learn to think and plan outcomes, we have to learn to tell ourselves stories. When does that start?

At first a newborn must be overwhelmed by sensations flooding in. The action unfolding in front of him or her must be overload. Can’t think; can’t plan; can hardly observe. But it does get stored. Patterns emerge and are responded to. So some processing is getting done.

Was your first story hearing your mother and imagining her face before you turned toward the sound with a smile – a picture story triggered by a sound?

Or did you tell yourself your first story when the infant you went to sleep and the overload of impressions from the day came tumbling back out in dreams, perhaps as they got sorted into permanent memory from wherever they got cached short term?

For some reason I awoke wondering about the stories we tell ourselves and when they began.

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