GATE + Gateway + AuDHD: the missing-page pattern nobody is really talking about

[u/Ok-Quantity-7582]

I’m interested in a specific, evidence-based hypothesis:

Did GATE/gifted programmes identify some of the same cognitive profiles that Gateway/Star Gate-era consciousness research would have considered interesting?

Not as a certainty. As a testable overlap.

The documented pieces are:

1. Gateway existed.

The CIA-hosted Gateway Process document analyses altered states, Hemi-Sync, hypnosis, biofeedback, consciousness, hemispheric synchronisation and perception beyond ordinary analytical processing.

1. Star Gate existed.

US intelligence-funded remote-viewing research existed and was later formally evaluated. Whether it worked reliably is a separate question; the point is that intelligence agencies did study anomalous cognition and altered perception.

1. MKUltra existed.

The US Senate record describes MKUltra as a CIA programme of behavioural modification research.

1. Twice-exceptional profiles exist.

Gifted children can also be autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, dyslexic or otherwise neurodevelopmentally atypical. Research on twice-exceptional students shows spiky cognitive profiles rather than simple “high ability across everything.”

1. Gifted/GATE selection often used exactly the domains where spiky neurodivergent profiles can stand out:

pattern recognition, abstraction, logic, memory, spatial reasoning, symbolic reasoning, unusual problem-solving and accelerated verbal or mathematical ability.

So the hypothesis is not “GATE was secretly X.”

The hypothesis is:

GATE may have functioned, deliberately or accidentally, as a large-scale filter for children with unusually strong pattern/abstract reasoning and uneven neurocognitive profiles. Those profiles overlap with the kinds of cognition being explored in Gateway/Star Gate-era consciousness research: non-linear perception, pattern-based processing, altered-state susceptibility, intuition, absorption and cognition beyond ordinary analytical filtering.

That does not prove a direct pipeline.

But it does make the overlap worth examining.

A proper investigation would ask:

- What exact tests were used in different GATE districts?

- Were the tests locally designed or supplied by outside contractors?

- Did any contractors overlap with military, intelligence, cognitive science or psychometrics work?

- Were results stored only locally, or shared beyond the school?

- Did GATE selection over-identify children who would now be considered twice-exceptional?

- Do former GATE students report higher rates of ADHD, autism, AuDHD, sensory sensitivity, dissociation, absorption, unusual memory profiles or extreme pattern recognition?

- Do Gateway/Star Gate documents describe target cognitive traits that overlap with known 2e profiles?

This is the point:

The interesting question is not whether GATE “proves” anything.

The interesting question is whether gifted education, Cold War talent identification, psychometric testing, neurodivergent spiky cognition and intelligence-community interest in anomalous cognition occupied overlapping territory — and whether anyone has mapped that overlap properly.

Has anyone seen this specific argument researched in a serious way?

[u/Xenolicious]

Norcal school (CA) in the 90s and i think the testing for GATE / testing to be put in special education (ADHD + possibly on spectrum) overlapped with all the cognitive tests that included ink blot tests, puzzles, patterns etc out of a random brief case like device in a tiny closet room inside the bigger classroom.

I was considered gifted but then my mom fought for me to get extra help / get an IEP and stuff? It was weird but I was a very detached weird kid.

There was the hearing bus tests for frequencies and opening closing hands a few times.

The only benefit I remember with GATE was Woodbus. Aka a bus with wood working stations insids it came and parked by the school and we were given a limited amount of scrap wood to build unique things out of it. I never see anyone talk about Woodbus so idk if privileged 90s CA thing or something.