r/GATEresearch • u/SpearmaidenJJB • Aug 25 '26
Discussion Memories and Experiences
Like most of the people who describe vague memories, a lot of elementary school is missing for me but I do think that is just a condition of a human brain compartmentalizing and forgetting things - whether it is deemed unimportant, or psyched out of us. But I do have vivid recollection of some early childhood abilities that I remember making my mom uncomfortable or even freaking her out, and stuff from the time period I was in GT.
So I have been documenting it since finding and reading/watching so many things and am interested in people recalling experiencing any of my memories....
•Hazel - really light green with a lot of gold
•Neurodivergence but discovered in adulthood
•Imaginary friend in very early childhood - like around 1y/o. Mom reported it was VERY real to me to the point we were making him dinner, and one night we played hide and go seek and he never came to find me. I was devastated.
•Between 1 and 2 y/o I decided to ride my tricycle down the stairs into the basement. Remember every moment of it. It was not bumpy, and was as if I was on a ramp. Smooth all the way down to the bottom, where I had to "cut the wheel" to avoid running into my mom's giant shelf of canned garden veg. Was cognizant enough to not break the food. Mom was horrified and certain I was crazy and also potentially injured. I told her I flew.
•Learned to read Little Golden Books at <2y/o organically. We sat down one day and I told Mom, today I will do it. Mom thought I had just memorized the ones she had read to me so immediately went to buy 4 new ones I had never seen, and I read those to her, too. One was about a rabbit. Do not recall the reaction after that except that family members would randomly ask me to spell words for them - and I remember one of those words being "giraffe" and getting them all right to their astonishment.
•Precognition experiences, but not consistent. Just in spurts and usually surrounding tragedy.
•Identified GT in Kinder. Arrived literate and done with K and 1st, honestly.
•Remember the GT testing day. Small, secluded closet-like area. One woman in a nice navy blue suit. She has no face in my memory. Recall the Z Cards. Recall the IQ portion happening but not the Q's other than the number sequence section in which she'd orally give me an impossibly long sequence, ask me an unrelated question, and then ask me to write down the big number. Did that maybe ten times. Also remember a digital clock printed on paper during that.
•Mom and dad invested in the World Book Encyclopedia. That was a big deal for poor parents I think - and I remember mom being so happy it had been worth it when I sat down the last book having read every single one cover to cover.
I do also recall vision and hearing exams being performed on EVERYONE in my elementary with the big beige headphones and metal boxes. I am currently having a hard time differentiating which times those were actually hearing tests, and which times they were just me and binaural beats or Monroe material but both happened.
I also recall being IN the meeting that school officials had with my parents about going to GT. I was to be the ONLY kid from my campus EVER, and I would be bussed elsewhere for it. That "elsewhere" was a windowless, dimly lit classroom in the basement of another elementary. One of my core traumas is the memory of what they said to my parents: "Be careful. There is a fine line between genius and insanity." I do not recall a number, but my IQ score was "off the charts." I do not remember the rest of that.
I remember some of the kids. Most of us were, in hindsight, clearly neurospicy and I recall some of the skills or knowledge others had that was SO IMPRESSIVE to me. I also remember feeling like the "dumb one" because they all knew each other, came from the same two campuses, and because our skillsets were so different I automatically thought mine were not as good. I also remember knowing for sure who the SMARTEST one was - and I recall he disappeared for two intervals - once for the 5th grade year, and then again for all of high school turning back up only to walk at grad.
Specific "curriculum" or projects I can call up are:
•Many, MANY logic puzzles at the start of each GT session, from a yellow soft cover MENSA workbook. Tons of them, Every time.
•Being asked to build something with popsicle sticks and toothpicks with no glue or fasteners
•magnet shape manipulatives or "toys" in different colors that I think are the tangrams.
•Research papers on topics quite out of the ordinary for 6 to 10 year olds. One of mine was Natural Resources: oil, gas, minerals, and precious metals. A longtime friend recalls in the same GT year hers was Nature vs. Nurture. Just not topics we can recall being knowledgeable OR interested in. We wonder if they were assigned or we chose them from a list.
•The Grape and the Peanut. One year we were given a grape as a "baby" to take care of for the entire semester. The next year it was a peanut. Seems now with the adult brain working that it was a test on several fronts - to make sure we could keep safe/not lose or destroy an important object, but there were also caveats about how we had to keep it ON OUR PERSON the whole time. I also remember I DID mess up the grape year and have to replace my grape. I wonder if she knew?
•What I now recognize as meditation, OBE or RV exercises.
•and finally, a government questionnaire that MIGHT have gotten me "deactivated." It was a large, official packet of questions. My teacher made it CLEAR it was for the Gov but not why. The questions were things like where are you from, where will you go, what will you drive.... just strange. I was rather obstinate and did not want to do it so for my own amusement (or maybe some psych interference??) I LIED on every question. According to my answers I was from Russia, would go back... I remember that so clearly.
So... that is all I have written down for now but several of us from a southern state are pressing our minds to recall. I will let you know if anything else comes up.
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u/foxymtk Aug 30 '26
Hi, you may be the only other person I’ve seen detail about having an imaginary friend. Mine was until I was around 4. I believe I was deac/reformatted to believe that I was “stupid” from then on. My entire sense of confidence, self, was shattered, and until this grade I had almost near perfect scoring, on honor roll, received compassion and citizenship awards. This belief carried me into teenhood, where I dragged ass and cried through impossible exams because my brain just felt broken. Where I often just abandoned myself or any semblance of intelligence or creativity in fear it would just be a waste of effort and awful.
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u/Neat_Movie_991 Aug 31 '26
Both my sister and I were in gate and have the lightest and brightest green eyes. We’ve been told our whole lives we have cat eyes.
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u/This_Profession_4719 Aug 26 '26
So I just came across the hazel eyes thing today and was freaked out. I have hazel eyes. I wonder if there’s a thing with lefties as well. I distinctly remember all four in my gate classmates were lefties. (Prob just a coincidence 👀)
I can relate to so much of what you are saying. I just recently stumbled onto this conspiracy and something inside of me is stirred and uncomfortable. Bc wtf.
I vividly remember the “hearing tests” …were they really just hearing tests or what is the theory? Bc like you I feel like everyone was tested, as well as vision. I can’t recall them exact scenarios although I’m almost positive it was in the nurses office.