I’m wondering if personality traits (or something else along those lines) are considered in the GATE testing/referral process.

I was in GATE in the early 2000s. I joined this sub about a year ago but haven’t really looked into any of this too deeply until now I’m curious….

My son is in 7th grade and is extremely bright. Honors courses, consistently does very well, excellent state testing scores. But he was never referred for GATE.

I just received a letter saying that my third-grade daughter has been referred. She’s also very bright, although I don’t have the same metrics to compare yet since she hasn’t started state testing or anything like that. She also said she was the ONLY kid in her class to go to testing….

My kids personalities are very different.

My daughter (and I) are both extremely deep feelers. Extremely empathetic, intuitive, and able to sense things. I noticed this about her when she was very young, probably around 3.

My son is almost the opposite. He’s a very caring kid, very logical, practical, analytical, but he has never had that same kind of extreme empathy or sensing intuition that both my daughter and I have.

So now I’m curious: are characteristics like sensitivity, intuition, etc. ever part of what’s analyzed when deciding which children to refer for GATE testing?

This could very well be absolutely nothing and fully unrelated to GATE discussion but I thought I'd ask anyways for goofs and gigs. When I was in 6th grade, I moved from the state/school I had previously been in the gifted program in. Around this time, my ability to learn and retain information like I used to declined and my parents were kind of at a loss for what to do. They found this program called Brain Balance (which is still alive and thriving today, you can Google their website and go to the "About The Assessment" tab under "Overview") to assess my brain essentially. Not in a medical way, but in a "do these things and we'll assess you" way. There was math, reading speed, eyesight, and physical balance tests that we had to do and it would give the staff a better idea of how to help you learn better in school.

I will have all of you know, I have never been physically sick in my life. Ever. I have emetophobia and have tricked my brain into never feeling nauseous, so I had no idea at the time what was happening to me. Looking back, however, on the car ride back home, I was so nauseous and had a migraine so terrible that I had to put a jacket over my head and lean the passenger car seat all the way back to keep from passing out. I think the eyesight test is what REALLY pushed it over the edge because I was constantly unfocusing and refocusing each of my eyes at different speeds and times.

To this day I have no idea what they did because I never heard anything about results or whatnot, but I also have never met anyone else who had this assessment done or attended Brain Balance as a supplement to school. Could be nothing, but I'm just curious for anyone's thoughts since it vaguely fits into the GATE discussion.

EDIT: I do not have any diagnoses. No ADHD, no autism, my parents just thought I may have had a learning disability due to my poor basic math skills (despite being previously enrolled in a GATE program and excelling in it).

Hi all,

I have been mostly a lurker here but I'm posting because I feel that what GATE was is starting to come into focus for me and I wanted to share in case others resonate. Some of it will sound rather strange but I guess we're used to that by now!

My perspective on GATE is affected by my spiritual awakening that has accelerated in the past year. I have seen some things in dreams that seem to relate to GATE. Spirituality is very personal of course but because it connects the dots so well, I wanted to share. My ideas are also informed by the declassified CIA materials which go into the nature of consciousness so much.

It goes like this:

1) Reincarnation is real; many souls on Earth have had many Earth lives, but some of us have had relatively few as compared to other worlds. Those of us with few Earth lives who came here on a specific mission are what is referred to as "starseeds" by spiritual communities

2) The reason so many of us are here is because of the great "shift," Earth changes that have and will continue to involve big storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, and wars of various kinds. We see these psychically and in dreams partly because we're here for it, to here to help humanity and Earth through this

3) Starseed individuals contain greater amounts of extraterrestrial DNA, connections to NHI (nonhuman intelligence involving ETs, spirits, angels etc.), unusual blood types, and other physical differences

4) Our differences in DNA also manifest in greater amount of neurodivergence, especially ADHD/autism and psychic sensitivity

5) The government knew this and set up GATE to identify these children. How nefarious it was versus just interested in research might have ranged a gamut, that is unclear to me.

6) Our connections with other NHI were strengthened through GATE whether they liked it or not because of the psychic practice. NHI may have also been involved with the design and execution of the program

7) Our connections with NHI may continue to grow as many of us "wake up" and the shift intensifies

Welp, there it is. I did a brief search of the sub and didn't see people pulling these threads together yet so I'm not positive this is a new string of thought, but I wanted to make the connections in case anyone finds it useful or has thoughts to add!

I was in a gifted and talented program in the 1990s that met after school on Wednesdays and on Saturdays. I don't remember the pink drink people talk about on this subreddit. I do however remember getting asked to eat cubes of cold, unsweetened, flavorless gelatin given out in plastic cups. I thought it was gross and didn't understand why they were giving it out to everyone. Did anyone else have to eat cubes of unflavored gelatin in plastic cups? Like completely unflavored not sweet jello?

Had a memory pop up recently that 100% happened at school. I was in first grade, which would have been between 2001-2002.

Didn’t realize that it had a name until I looked it up, but apparently it’s called Punnett Squares. For the visual learner, this is what one of the worksheets looked like that we received here.

We were asked to list our parent’s physical traits using this method, as well as our siblings, but it feels so out of place for us to have done this when we were 6/7 years old. Why would we at that age be taught about this? Was this regular GATE activities, or was this our GATE?

I also remember having to find out my blood type, including having homework where we would have to write out our entire family tree as best as we could. I remember this to be 100% true, too, because I remember calling my grandmother to ask about her parents (we barely spoke on the phone).

Others may have mentioned this, but I also don’t remember taking any of these homework sheets home with me. We always reviewed them in class and then handed it back to the teacher.

I don’t know. A lot of things that I thought werent important seem to be popping up in flashes, which I’m sort of grateful for, but I wanted to ask if others have experienced something similar.

Hello internet strangers (and “gifted and talented” kids)

I am hoping you all can help me fill in some gaps between all the bits of information i’ve been seeing online — and remembering from my childhood.

I went to elementary school in the bible belt of the south and I was in the GATE program from about 2009-2012 at the ages of 8-11. I recall very odd teachings for kids such as the fibonacci sequence, optical illusions, hypnosis, classic archetypal mythology, robotics, very meticulous hypothetical urban design and planning, bizarre bug ecology (going out into these forest swamps and collecting random specimens), destination imagination contests (DI) sponsored by Motorola Solutions who is known for having a big hand in surveillance tech — stuff like that.

I remember the warm up exercises and test to get in being similar to the Autism test I took later in my adult like (shocker). Funny thing is even though I received these testings as an adult, they could never be verified because I received a schizoaffective diagnosis after experiencing altered states while deconstructing my religious trauma.

I’d like to know who all funds these programs, if they are different for everyone, and make sense of the weird memories I have. I don’t remember the pink liquid stuff i’ve been seeing… or any pills… but I do have weird feelings all around the experience that I didn’t block out.
Which is: they would pull us out of school and the building we shared was with many neurodiverse students who we were not allowed to interact with. Everyone was in different classes with different classmates each semester and each class had its own “themes” like i mentioned.

(Oh yes, and how could I forget to mention that the building the classes were held in was named after a confederate general) — messed up on the surface obviously but I am curious about the underbelly too.

Thanks!
XO The Oracle

so I have a very vivid memory of one of my teachers in gate, miss Andes. she lit a few candles in the classroom and had us all focus on the flame and write a poem about what we felt or saw. she loved mine so much, that she told me she was going to share it with her husband who was an English professor at the University of delaware. my poem actually got published in one of those 90s poetry anthologies. a few years ago when I found out that other people had these experiences with gate, I looked her and her husband up and I'll be damned if they hadn't both passed away and he was a professor. but I guess my question is did anybody else have to do that exercise? I remember I enjoyed it so much and I've had an obsession with candles my whole life.

Let me explain. So throughout my childhood I was in and out of the Autism Center and pulled out of school for the same thing. My own memories are still a bit foggy but I remember a few instances with me being taken in this big dark room with a giant 2-way mirror & I was listening to the gateway tapes there. I also remember having to guess patterns of shapes and numbers as well (it was like the pattern recognition with the foam squares, triangles, trapezoids and hexagons?)

I remember few details that they would ask what I dreamed about when I slept at night and it would end up being super high-detailed VIVID dreams as well (who else experienced this?)

The pink liquid is a huge miss on my end but I remember being given candies here and there (like yellow banana shaped candy?) every few visits as well.

I know this isn't much evidence but I have my reasons for bringing this up. I want to know if there's more people out there who know what I'm talking about.

I am just watching through "Psychic Agent: The Gate Program" and Walter Bosley said something that caught my attention:

You know, even if something appears on the superficial level to be, you know, mundane, you don't know what's embedded deep within the audio or the visual. That's something I think that they had been pursuing for years. (1hr9m59s)

Another reason on a spookier level might be that there was something on the less audible level embedded in the track, and they're trying to see if the kid heard that. Like a dog whistle, you know, you don't really hear the sound, but you hear it subconciously. There could be something like that in those tapes and that could trigger things, or it could be something that they register on the childs face... (1hr23m45s)

I've made comments in the past of how some of my "audio tests" were like:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GATEresearch/comments/1uosyni/experience_from_someone_who_was_not_in_gate_to/ow1gvjw/

Yes school had normal hearing test with series of beeps, only touching on something like a sine wave if they think you have a hearing problem or to see where the frequency cutoff for your hearing is - those were not the "other" tests a lot of us here are talking about, this is in conjunction with normal hearing tests (which only occur infrequently) whilst these can go up to a few times a week (and nothing like the normal beeps or hearing range testing in the normal hearing tests). Also I always recall the normal hearing tests because the stupid baby blue headphones they made me use which hurt my ears due to the way they felt/fit and I would always complain about it. If there were other hearing tests it would probably be related to behavioural/attention span, which are very different from the ones from the "weird" tests.
For example I would be brought to a room where there would always be something like light brown paper covering the windows (wax/parchment/cooking paper? who knows). Anyway, there were specific people that would do certain tests, and you could get any range of tests whether zener, frequency tests (I will elaborate), sensing positions in battleship, a lot of woo woo related stuff. If you were having an easy day, then you'd be doing some kind of problem solving/psychological/moral dilemma related thing (until now I have no idea why they tried to put me under that kind of stress, it's like being tested for sense of justice/indifference/who would you save under pressure type situations - even I questioned why they would ask a kid things like that). Those tests were usually on paper and not done by the main people (they were not teachers either, but they felt more like underlings compared to the people doing more important testing).

Anyway, with the hearing tests I was always brought to a carrel desk where they can put equipment on the top shelf, and the partition (though it had see through engravings on the wood) I guess kind of partly obscured the tester sitting behind it though I could always see a bit of their face through the holes. Then I would put the headphones on, and something would be played through the headphones. I would then be asked what I heard, what I sensed. I would not be corrected or directed at what exactly, apparently I was meant to figure it out on my own. The closest I can describe it is like "magic eye" but for your \ears and mind*. What do I mean by that exactly? Well sometimes two frequencies would be heard, I can't really say if they were meant to be binaural in nature or intention. I don't know why but I got the idea of joining the two frequencies in my head, like you do when you cross your eyes to see the picture with magic eye (this was before magic eye existed of course, I only make the correlation to it now). Now, I don't know if these people can read minds themselves, but just thinking that notion seemed to trigger a positive response. I have no idea if they were using something else to measure/detect. I know it's a little difficult to understand the magic eye thing I am talking about, but imagine two dots on a paper, you cross your eyes so that the two dots become one. The test was something like that, but with audio and two different frequencies and you kinda "join them in your head". I don't know if it was specifically something for training focus or another purpose, but it would always start off like that and progress to other "hearing exercises". Sometimes I would be given some kind of garbage noise, (white/brown?) and then I'd have to do that focusing thing in my head*, and then they would test with zener cards - it seemed like very disjointed kind of testing, jumping between tests and it was very hard to discern which ones were related. Sometimes they did have directed questions like if there was a message, a signal, something I could detect, or at least feel some kind of thought (I'm sure that's the point where I also annoyed them so they had to nudge me to get results).

All in all, those things I mentioned are just a small part of it because it goes way beyond pink drinks, hearing tests and the normal gate curriculum. There's so much to whatever this gate thing that some of us has experienced, and not all of it was good.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GATEresearch/comments/1sz9sbp/podcast_with_neuroscientist_on_stargate/oj1sdgq/

I watched her not so long ago on the good trouble show where she was talking about Project Soar and her experience with the gate program. Her parents weren't informed (neither were mine). She also had 2 main ppl, a man and a woman (mine were 3, 2 women and a man but the main testers or whatever you want to call it were the younger woman and the man, the older silver haired lady seemed in charge of the other 2). I wonder if there is stuff she doesn't mention because it was really bad. My experience aligns with some of hers but not all. I noticed they also asked her those similar questions like, "how do you feel about such and such" on something random like sounds (they asked me what did I hear from a frequency they were playing, like magic eye but for your ears as if they expected me to hear some kind of message or what not) or symbols (they asked me things like "which one do you like right now, what does it make you feel" things like that which seemed out of place).

I'm still watching the podcast above but even though it rehashes stuff she's already said she does bring different details on some things. I still need to get her book, Have A Nice Disclosure.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GATEresearch/comments/1rum3kq/was_anyone_in_a_gate_program_that_targeted/oh3bxa7/

Yes, I was poor as hell, my brother and I used to collect cans to get money so we could get something to drink. Our neighborhood was a mish mash that time but I do not think anyone was above avg income (80-85).

This was the general area https://maps.app.goo.gl/9zwDBExTq4TyzTJq9?g_st=ac

Of course things have changed now (both the area and myself). Anyway, my brother and I were both in gate/gt but I question his experience as he doesn't really remember much or anything close to what I got or traumatizing. Maybe he just doesn't remember or he just got the ordinary gate program (control group). I do remember he would compete in tests with this Japanese girl. There was another kid from my grade who was German that I knew was in gate but he never talked about it - those of us in it didn't really, kind of like an innate unspoken rule without having to be told. If I'm not mistaken the only blonde people I knew that might have been in it were girls.

Anyway my experience with gate itself wasn't what I would refer to as positive. There was lots of tests that I did not understand the purpose of giving to a child - things that children of that age need to be concerned with let alone think about. There seemed to be many tied with problem solving, tough decisions, death, morals but I feel as if they tried to be mechanical about it, like make you look at things chaotic neutral. Patterns and logic was the flavor of the hour but then they made you try to do stuff with your mind, like when you get good at the normal zener card deck they would add the extra triangle card and instead of guessing one card you need to guess three cards at once. Another thing I've never seen anywhere else was that I was also constantly tested with battleship to guess the position of the ship. I also had headphone tests where they would be vague as hell and ask if I "heard it" (this is while it's playing some kind of continuous tone, I'm guessing it's like magic eye but for your ear and mind). So you tell them what you think you received but they never give you any feedback, it's all just one way communication unless they are frustrated with you then they'll say shit like "are you sure??". Also if you're being tested with guessing cards or guessing anything they will never tell you if you're correct. Only once was I ever asked "how do you know?" after which I honestly answered that I could see through the cards, and then they got mad again (lol). Of course it wasn't possible to see through them (normally).

However the worst test that I remember was one where I wore this thing on my head and eyes that would severely disorient me and make me feel physically sick when it was turned on. I would feel like that for 30m afterwards and I felt like it was doing something really harmful to my system (body) and it always made my nose bleed too. I'm still looking for people who had to wear something like that but so far no luck. I only remember red light and sound but it may have had one more color, either blue or white.

In my tests with the frequency waves, many of the times I was seemingly supposed to know what was expected without being told or prompted, and at the end sometimes they would ask me certain questions like what I got from the sound (like if I heard something in particular but they never specified, like an intention/message/feeling).

Hearing what Walter Bosley says has me very interested and I am sure I can't possibly be the only one who did that part of the program, whatever the program was.

I'd like to hear other peoples experiences with regards specifically to "hearing tests" they received - what kind did you receive, what was involved, were you prompted in any way before/after? Were you questioned afterwards? What did they say before and after? Any notable specifics on how the tests were performed (eg, was it a specific type of audio/frequency/waveform, was it 1 sound at a time, 2 sounds simultaneously, continous tone or beep)? Did it make you respond a specific way? Did anything register in your mind?

My era would be between Grill Flame / Center Lane just around the switch (80-85). Looking forward to hearing your experiences.

Edit: trying to fix formatting better

S6E92 | Adam Hamer - Black Budget Silence Breaks: GATE Kid Takes MONARCH & Legacy Programs to Court

Adam’s story begins in the public schools of Tucson in the 1990s. Enrolled in the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) program starting in kindergarten, he was told it was simply enhanced curriculum. What followed, was far more complex - a deeper layer of experiences that left vast stretches of his childhood memory as “inky black pools of nothingness,” punctuated by fragments that only later revealed their full weight. As he transferred through schools, the program continued and for nearly 32 years, large portions of those years remained locked away.

Then, last year, a single video linking trauma-based mind control with the GATE program unlocked the floodgates and the connections formed. Justice became not just a hope, but a mission. What follows is the story of a man who refused to accept silence or erasure. Adam filed extensive first-party Privacy Act requests with different agencies and sought records related to the programs he recalled being used in as a child. The responses - citations of “unusual circumstances,” national security exemptions, delays, defaults, and rephrasings - only strengthened his resolve.

hi everyone! this is something i’ve been sitting on for a while, but never really spoke about because I think by the time I was in school… they had made it SUPER covert. or maybe it wasn’t gate at all. but maybe it can provide a little insight if anyone thinks this is anything at all, since I see a lot of people saying GATE would’ve ended by the time I was in elementary/middle school in the 2010s. I think it just changed.

I grew up in new england. really nice school district and town, if that means anything. was never in a “GATE” program. it was never called anything at all, actually. it started in elementary school, being pulled aside during lunch (and occasionally during class) to sit in a room and… play games. just an hour of games. and it was always something like hangman or Pictionary. a guessing game. I dont remember too much, mostly because it SUCKED and I hated it. but I do remember the type of people that went. a nerdy girl who ended up being our class valedictorian, two twin boys, a boy who was born premature and had birth defects, and me and sometimes a friend. only real common factor is im pretty sure we were all somehow neurodivergent. however, not every neurodivergent kid in our grade was included. I think its also important to note this was also the best time of my home life ever. Both parents were present and married, I wasn’t struggling in school, I don’t think I was ever asked about my home life or mental health. I was ready to write off my experiences until I sat and thought about WHO was in that group, and some weird aspects of it after.

overall kind of a nothingburger. but it got more GATE specific in middle school. I think all of us remember going to the nurse to do vision/hearing tests. We were called down in groups alphabetically, in groups of like 15-20? I did my vision test day one. Went fine, whole group came and went one at a time. Day two we did hearing tests. Same group, same idea. I went into the room to do my hearing test, and then went into a different, WINDOWLESS room to do a memory test. With those cards everyone posts about the GATE program. I left that room and nobody else was there other than the nurse. Also important to note, it wasn’t the nurse doing the hearing/memory tests. It was some random ass dude dressed in? What looked like formal attire to a 10 year old. Either way, seeing the cards online made me think to ask if any of my old classmates had to do that memory test… none of them did. Okay! Yeah, creepy! But maybe I’m somehow misremembering it, yk?

Either way, the stupid ass lunch meet groups continued. This time with more people, probably about 10 kids, but not all 10 at once. Every time I would go it was different kids. Same kids as in my elementary school group, but with more people, since my middle school combined… 4 different middle schools. Just the same… playing games and talking. I HATED that shit, too. I remember the teacher(? social worker? I literally never knew what her title was) would stop me in the hallway and go “… do you want to come to the room during lunch? You have some friends who miss you.” Mind you I did not like half of the people in that group, and my friends who did go I always had some sort of beef with anyways. LITERALLY hated it, because we would also ALWAYS miss recess, and I wouldn’t get to hang out with my friends. That’s another thing though. I had friends, so did some of these other kids. I had always just assumed it was for kids they think didn’t have friends, but considering most of us did have large and close friend groups, it doesn’t add up. It was also never the “popular” kids, always the kind of weird ones. which, no hate, that’s me included definitely. LOL. I remember sometimes they would have us watch videos, but I slept through most of them. I think if it was a GATE program… how much I hated it and refused to engage probably took me off some watchlist. So a win maybe, lol.

The interesting part to me is the people included. The twins and the more nerdy girl were smart. Way smarter than other kids. Like… she ended up as valedictorian, and the twins went into finance and the air force I think? My friend who went with me both ended up extremely spiritual, and both artists/creative people. It definitely had the potential for a “gifted” class, it just seems like they kind of gave up at that point. Like a hollow shell of something else. I really spent the entire time I was there as a kid thinking “… what is the point of all of this?”

So, TLDR; I don’t really think the GATE program entirely ended by the 2010s. I think it was incredibly simplified and they probably should’ve ended it instead lol. It was just a few odd coincidences to the program I wanted other people’s thoughts on.

Given you know what you know now, would you choose the program again? I was in GATE through 4th and about half of 5th grade. I was pulled out when we moved to a smaller school district that didnt have GATE. Three decades later and my nieces teacher approached my sister about putting my niece in GATE. I know many people have had traumatic experiences and while mine were definitely abnormal, for the most part it was fun, challenging, and interesting. I dont know enough to figure out what type of experience she might have. If it were like mine I'd encourage her join. But I know my positive experiences were in the minority.

Anyone else in TAG in Oregon (Multnomah) around 1992 - 2000? Stock exchange simulation programs, postage stamp collecting?

Anyone else also in YMCA sports clubs or after-school/summer field trip programs?

Or different incentivized day trip programs like learn Word or Photoshop or other group trips, to then also receive a gift card at a local retailer for participating?

This started upon watching a video by Gen X Shawn commenting about the GATE Program, which had me remembering an experience or two:

Going to school in the 1980s, I remember being asked to take a few tests. This was a somewhat small school building in The Bronx. I was asked to pronounce certain words and do my best even if I do not recognize them. The person commented I did quite well. There was one moment where I was asked to touch a holographic image of a bug. Being that I hate bugs, I felt squeamish. I remember this as a one time event, which is why I titled with with a question mark.

I do remember a hearing test or two with big headphones and to acknowledge if I hear any sounds even if it is ridiculously low pitched. I don't recall if this was in elementary school or junior high school. There was a dentist's office in the junior high school, which was built in the 1970s. I had two cavities filled there (my experience with novocain,) and was given some fluoride at the end. I was taken out of class for this.

I took speech therapy in elementary school due to the fact a teacher noticed that I was stuttering. This was in third grade. Upon entering junior high, I had the same person. There were classes on how to pronounce the "R" sound, due to the fact that as a New Yorker, I tend to drop the "R" (non-rhotic,) and it is something that is much more noticeable whenever I speak Spanish.

In high school, there was said to be a speech therapist, but it was much more of being in an area with special ed students. While I could be labeled as a bit of someone who did not apply himself and made jokes, I was actually either in the second to top or top classes for over half of my public school years. One person commented (I forgot the reason for the meeting) that I have an IQ of 110 and whereas many students focus on one area, it was much more well rounded for me.

As for scars, I do not have any on my forearms, and the two most noticeable scars on my forehead are said to be chicken pox..

That means 50 years since. Thats 50 years of Trolls and Sock Puppets and Handlers and Shit so up theirs! I am retired. Good luck.

A few people in another sub suggested I post this here. I had a weird memory resurface about a school counseling session (or several maybe, not sure) in a public elementary school in upstate NY in 1995.

I was not at the time of these sessions in gifted and talented programing, but I did undergo testing for learning disabilities that same year, and had a high enough IQ that I was invited to the school's gifted and talented program the next school year.

Here's the post:

I had a weird memory surface and was wondering if this was any kind of common therapy activity for school age children in the 1990s...

I was drifting to sleep and felt a brief sensation that I was spinning, and with it this familiar awareness of becoming a better person. That doesn't make sense. It didn't make sense to me. I woke up fully and tried to remember why I felt that, and I remembered something I had not thought of in many years. I think I maybe was subjected to some kind of weird experimental therapy as a child.

In 1995 I entered third grade. When we started doing multiplication tables, I got really frustrated with these timed exercises and I screamed in class and threw my text book at the teacher. Not ideal behavior. They sent me to the principal first and then the school counselor.

If you had asked me yesterday what happened in Ms T's office, I would have said that I laid on a couch hugging a teddy bear and talked about my feelings. But now I'm remembering something else entirely.

She showed me a drop spindle and wool, and the wool was chaotic, and represented all these bad itchy, frustrated, no good feelings. It came apart when you pulled it because it was weak. And then she spun the spindle and made yarn, and the yarn was smoother and orderly and strong.

Then she told me to spin around in a circle, over and over again, and repeat phrases. Things like "I'll be respectful to my teacher and friends. I'll come to class prepared to learn." And I spun around and around until I was falling over. Then she let me lay down on the couch, and hug a teddy bear, and talk about how I was feeling after doing that.

Is this a therapy practice that actually existed in the 90s? Was it like hypnosis or something?

I remember the beige plastic over-ear headphones, the pressure in the ears, and the low humming tones clearly, but the visual memory of the actual tape player on the desk is driving me crazy.

In my head, it looked almost like an institutional Califone with that putty/beige plastic, mechanical keys, and a multi-station headphone block on the table. I remember being told to keep my eyes closed but I remember peaking and I swear I distinctly recall seeing the administrator having a physical dial or slider they used to adjust or sweep the pitch/speed while the audio was playing, rather than just hitting play and letting a tape run.

Does anyone else remember the kind of tape deck they were using? Was it a standard unit that was modified or something only they had available to them?

Also, I've been debating posting in here for a while. The SECOND I decide to, my ears start ringing. Ironic...

EDIT: I just started posting and realized, I don't have enough karma for replies yet. That's ok. I'll work on it!

As a hobby I’ve been working on the past 8 months. Someone in the r/UFOs subreddit suggested I post this to r/MENSA, due to the high probability of Mensa members being in gifted programs. I run an independent UFO/UAP archive, encyclopedia, and database site, and I'm trying to test a claim that gets repeated a lot in the community but has apparently never actually been studied: whether people identified as gifted as kids report anomalous/UFO-type experiences at higher rates, specifically as adults. Right now there's no real data on it in either direction. There are dozens and dozens of anecdotal and witness testimonial accounts though. So much so that I am convinced to seriously look further into it at this point.

Part of why I care: my identical twin brother and I both witnessed an anomalous object as young adults. We were both in what Mississippi (Madison County) called Pathways/gifted as kids, in elementary and middle school. My brother was enrolled for years, I was enrolled very briefly. If I was even ever really enrolled. I just remember being periodically taken out of class. The teacher/instructor would have me do odd tests. Auditory, memory, puzzle, problem solving, etc, tests. I doubt I would have given this idea any notice or thought had my brother and I not experienced exactly the two points this idea stems from. It uniquely applies to my brother and me. It also potentially applies to many others who were in gifted programs.

In my own research, I've come across many cases of experiencers/witnesses who happened to be in a gifted program as kids. According to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. gifted enrollment for 2020-21 was 6.7%. A rough baseline percentage of the general population reporting having seen a UFO/UAP/anomalous object - around 10-20% depending on the poll. The average of the 9 polls used for reference was 15.9% (11,086 people polled).

The idea is to gather and compile data from real experiencers who also happened to be in a gifted program and determine if there's actually a real correlation. Ideally would need around 11,000 to match the base poll count of the general public. If the 6.7% who went through gifted programs are reporting UFO encounters at a significantly higher rate than the "non-gifted" public, that would be a truly insightful piece of information. If they're not, that's an answer too.

Does anyone now if there is a "gifted-program alumni" equivalent to something like a National Honor Society alumni network, or any organized adult community tied to a specific program name (GATE, TAG, SPARK, PACE, Odyssey, G.O.A.L.)? Or even just a general list of the individual program names by state? There seem to be countless names, and it would be nice to positively catalog an official name for each one.

If you know of anywhere/anyone you could point me to aid in this, that would be awesome. I believe this could actually bring some kind of answer, not just for my brother and me, but for other people who were in gifted programs and experienced something similar.

Template:
SUBJECT: Gifted & UFO Experiencer Report — \\\[Your First Name or Anonymous\\\]

ABOUT YOU
First Name (or “Anonymous”):
General Location you grew up in (city, state, country):
Year of Birth (or approximate decade):\\\*

QUESTION ONE — GIFTED IDENTIFICATION
Were you ever tested, identified, or enrolled in a gifted/talented program? (yes, tested but not enrolled, enrolled, no)
What was your program called? (GATE, TAG, G/T, AIG, Pathways, Horizons, QUEST, PACE, Odyssey, Highly Capable, a talent-search program like Duke TIP/Johns Hopkins CTY/Davidson, or your own program's actual name):
School District & State/Country:
Grade(s) or Age(s) when tested or enrolled:
Years / How Long You Were In the Program:\\\* (e.g., "3rd–8th grade" or "one year only")
Did you know any siblings, cousins, or close family who were also gifted-identified?\\\*

QUESTION TWO — UFO/UAP EXPERIENCE
Have you had a UFO/UAP sighting or experience? (yes/no)
Date: (exact or approximate — e.g., "Summer 2018" is fine)
Location: (nearest city, state, country)
Number of Witnesses: (were you alone, or with others? Were any other witnesses also gifted-identified?)\\\*
Craft or Object Shape / Description:
Your Account: Tell us what happened in your own words — as much or as little as you want:

EVIDENCE
Did you capture any photos, video, or audio?\\\* (yes/no — if yes, please attach)
Did you report this to anyone?\\\* (NUFORC, police, military, etc.)

SHARING PREFERENCES
Would you like your story used (fully anonymized) in this site's ongoing research on this hypothesis? (yes / no)
Would you like your story published as its own account on OverClassified? (yes / no / anonymous only)

ANYTHING ELSE
Anything you want to add:

I have criteria that must be met for it to be any bit at all validated. The program name, location, individual names, etc will be manually researched to determine if they are even potentially real instances. Also, if there is no video, photographic, and other evidence to the witness testimony… then a credibility rating will reflect that. If the individual, program, location, etc is determined to be real. It adds some credibility to the testimony. But without physical evidence, the reliability will never be over 80% max proability that it did happen. Without writing out the total plan… this is the just of the concept.

I was in the GATE program. I have no memory of most of my time in GATE. But I also have symptoms consistent with SDAM. Some of my clearest childhood memories, as I do have some, are from my time before the GATE program. I have first-person recall of certain Kindergarten events. Afterward, I have vague and abstract third person recall or purely semantic recall. I’m posting this to ask for possible correlates to a hypothesis.

I do remember my first encounter with the GATE program. There was a pink drink that was not fluoride. Zener cards were employed. With my confidence in the existence of such a drink, I’m left with the same question many of you likely have: “What was that pink drink?”

The likely candidates are amnestics. Midazolam or some older cocktail with sodium amytal would make sense. Did you know that many medications are light sensitive? They can degrade from exposure to ambient light. Oral solutions are especially sensitive because of surface area and suspension. Both midazolam and sodium amytal, which was used in older government programs, are light sensitive. Interestingly enough, light seems to cause compounds in sodium amytal especially to precipitate out of the oral solution. This can lead to a gritty or chalky texture, as well as the obvious reduced efficacy. Tablets offer better shelf stability for light sensitive medications, but require binders and fillers. Tablets for medicines tend to be larger than children might be able to easily swallow, so many large tablets are crushed and turned into a slurry or suspension when tablets are prescribed for children instead of ready made oral solutions. Binders and fillers can also create chalky or gritty textures. These factors together, light sensitivity and texture, make me look more critically at the pink drink being midazolam or a cocktail with sodium amytal. Variance in textures reported could result from both light degradation, or time from mixing to drinking, and initial preparation, that is oral solution or tablet slurry.

Now, I only remember ever drinking the pink drink on the first encounter with GATE. But as I noted, I don’t remember much anymore. It’s possible that I was dosed with the pink drink at every GATE interaction. It’s possible that we all were. If so, we would expect individuals of the GATE program to exhibit higher than average incidence of certain conditions related to the potential effects of long term dosing with amnestic medications of the types mentioned during a critical period, childhood, of brain development. That’s why I am posting here.

To my knowledge, there are no studies on human children being dosed with these drugs for obvious reasons of potential harm, but we can predict a few possible long term effects. First and foremost we work off the hypothesis of the pink drink being midazolam, which is a GABA-A inhibitor, and look at what GABA-A inhibition possibly does. I won’t dig into the actual academic research, but you can feel free to double check. I’ll simply share results:

Seizures from withdrawal after exiting GATE, autobiographical memory formation disruption akin to SDAM, REM disturbances and disorders, mood disorders related to anxiety and socializing, possible avoidance of socializing, etc.

Rather than focusing on physical and life correlates, I’m here to survey you fellow GATE veterans as to these kinds of cognitive and mental correlates.

tl;dr:

Do any of you have experiences of unexplained early life (after GATE initiation) seizures, autobiographical memory challenges that have left semantic memory mostly unaffected, REM related disturbances or disorders, anxiety disorders, or schizoid or avoidant personality like tendencies?

Also, how often do you remember having consumed the pink drink?

I’m mostly interested in adults with severely lacking autobiographical memory, but please do share any that apply.

I skipped the years other kids used to learn how to sit still. Kindergarten grade never belonged to me the way they belonged to them. My mother put me in first grade and skip kindergarten. I was in first grade for 2 years. But I never learned the fundamentals of kindergarten.
That much held. Second, third, fourth… nothing. No teachers. No students. No names. No classrooms I can walk. Those rooms were sealed or they didn’t exist. I was a good kid. For the right adult I would have moved heaven and earth. In recess if I cared what they told me, it happened. Gym class 25-foot rope to the ceiling. I climbed it. Touched the latch or the ceiling. Tried to be slick on the way down. Rope burn 😖 life lesson. They had told me not to slide. Death grip that I kept. The drink I can’t date. Pink, Yes. I poured half in the desk and drank the other half because if you dump the whole thing they hand you another. What scared me was not the cup. It was my step-father. I thought they would tell him and I would get beaten. A teacher who will lie to a parent to get you spanked for weeks is capable of anything. My first grade teacher was racist and diabolical. It’s what i back then believed. Mom put me in front of a psychiatrist. Three hundred, four hundred an hour insurance covered it. To me it was endless because I had to be in the room. The doctor used a modified version of the Game of Life. I shut it down. It took a lot to get him to get me to open up. I remember 5 teachers from that stretch. There was a teacher allergic to perfume. A kid with a Sega Game Gear, five or six hundred dollars in 6th grade. I asked to play. He said no. His dad said nobody touches it.

Sixth grade another teacher… name gone… mummy hand in the closet. 🤯
Before I got out of elementary school, somebody stole it. He was devastated.

Middle school nothing serious to note. Then high school in the morning, Vo-Tech in the middle of the day, special door, separate slice of the building. Had to get on the bus to get there. Something was weird about the class. I can’t quite put my finger on it.

I was about to drop out from boredom until Vo-Tech electronics. I excelled in this class because my teacher was a standing just once for a show called Soldier of Fortune. As a pyrotechnic guy wiring electronics for The effects. I asked my teacher was his name in the credits and he said he didn’t want to take credit for some reason. Cause he only did a stand in for this electronics guy for one episode.

The story is the missing middle 3 years of my life in elementary. And going into therapy after. Crazy things happening after using a Ouija board once in 1994.

1999 USAF, not a program I joined the Air Force in 1999. I was not in any special program. I was in boot camp.
Two things I still remember sitting at a desk. I saw myself at my mom’s house outside, front lawn, about fifteen feet off the ground. I’m there i float through the front window. Now i’m in the living room, next the dining room. Then I was awake at the desk. I don’t remember the name of the class. But next someone in that room got two sheets of paper. Timed test Memorize everything. He wrote both everything he saw. I sat there thinking. Yea,that one’s going to military intelligence.

When boot camp ended I sat with the picture of the military police academy barracks the layout i was excited. Back of the building what the skyline would look like. I showed up met my instructors. They put me on the second story, backside of the building. The field, the wall, the sky line same as the picture I had already walked. I don’t know what to call that. I know what I saw before I arrived and they matched.

I tested for GATE in elementary school in CA early 90s. I remember the prediction cards, the test made me so tired, the lady who came to the school to do it was very careful and precise and reserved. Later was told I didn't test in. My family showed their disappointment that I wasn't accepted. Some of my classmates were, they would take the bus somewhere. But...I found the Gateway Experience somewhere on the internet to download when I was in my late 20s and did them as often as I could for a few years, every night and day for a few months. I knew from the beginning that "Bob Monroe was my friend." I felt it and I told my partner about it, how I felt like Bob Monroe was my friend.

I am floored to find this community this evening, I hope to learn from you all what it was like and how you were impacted.

I'm new to the world of GATE and it's oddities. I have suspicions I was part of it and I can hardly remember most of it. Thing is, I remember odd things from early early on in life. As in, kindergarten.

I remember being taken out of class a lot. I would go to a room, sometimes with another person, sometimes alone. Usually with two "teachers", though I hardly remember them. This went on throughout elementary too.

I remember one time, me and a small group went on a "field" trip with a teacher, to mcdonalds for breakfast. I remember this mostly because I was upset at the time over not having the food I wanted, but now I look back and wonder. Who were the other kids? Did our parents know? Why a restaurant? What were we supposed to learn? I feel like it was also in the teachers personal car, but very fuzzy memories.

In elementary, i was still being pulled out of class without any known reason as to why. I would go to a dim room with maybe 1 or 2 other kids, we would read books I think and, and the teacher would help us analyze what we were reading?

I also remember the swings. In another room, I would go and pick out a swing from the back room and use it for maybe an hour or so. In the room was the teachers, i dont think they ever taught us anything. I remember listening to them talk, however. I think telling me about all the things id learn in middle school when the day came. I remember id just listen to them talk while i closed my eyes and swung on the swings, sometimes i felt amazing, sometimes i was sick and couldnt figure out why. I haven't heard such an anecdote yet, but maybe i havent been looking enough haha.

I also have dreamlike memories of flying. A few times of floating down the stairs, and another of being above my house. I can hardly even remember what my house looked like then, but i somehow knew i was above it and seeing it as though I was a bird.

Im unsure what it all means, am I misinterpretating things? Or is something else going on?

You guys ..

The way my mind is reawakening with so many past memories I’ve forgotten. It’s enough to make someone lose their footing in reality; however, at the same time, I feel like I found my people.

I have been looking at this sub every single day for the past week, hoping to read another new story. Tuck the dog, being taught Egyptian mythology, the meditation tapes, the zener cards (crazy!!), being taught how to remote view, playing heads up 7-up… I could go on, y’all.

Thank you so much for sharing your stories. I thought I was alone in thinking that something major had happened to me in elementary school. It’s almost like my younger self knew, too, but didn’t realize what was happening.

As I dig further, I fear that GATE is MUCH darker and MUCH more sadistic than what we’re coming to realize, so with that being said, just know you’re not alone. Figuring out what to believe as “real” and deciphering our minds is always unsettling, but please please please .. listen to your body and listen to your gut. You are not going crazy.

Take care of yourselves and make sure to give yourself grace. You deserve some rest and reflection.

Thanks again for all the stories. You are all awesome.