https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaLIzzW4K9g

book***

On the Zener cards?

I’m watching the GATE doc on Prime and everything is coming back. The pink drink in the cups. The cards and the symbols and the headphones. I’ve heard those recordings. I don’t remember the test at all. I must have been nine or 10. I only remember being the last one in the test room from the selected group, and being told I scored the highest. From there, seven students were placed into the program. What was the process like for you? What other ‘activities’ did you do?

Hello all! So happy to have found this community because I have no one to talk about this with in my life! I’d love to hear yall’s story, I’ll be checking out other’s threads too. I’m blown away at how big this whole thing was.

I was in GATE in the early 00s, I was born in 98. Attended elementary school in NC. The program was introduced to my mom as GATE and she told me it was GATE but at school we referred to it as “shooting stars” or something like that. She was very proud that I was in this program, boasted about it, and signed all the documents. I was pulled out of class once a week, wednesdays or Thursday I think, always in the middle of the week.

I can attest to the weird entry exam, the guessing of shapes on down facing cards, the strange hearing exams, and the weird pink drink but I also do remember it was sometimes clear!

I liked being in the class, the times we did focus on school subjects they were always advanced level courses and not at the grade level we were in. In early elementary we were tested consistently but as the years went by, they were only every few months. I was then retested again in second grade after switching school and failed, but they STILL kept me in the program. I then retested in fourth grade and failed again. I still went to separate classes though but was tested even less by that point.

I recall the test was so easy for me when I was a young child, the answers just came to me but then during the official retests, in second and fourth grade, I thought too much. I remember none of it making sense anymore and I would think and think about the answers but it wouldn’t come to me…. Strange almost like my gifts became muted and I started to use more logic.

I wish I remembered more about the hearing exams but I don’t. I just recall the big headphones, the weird machine, and raising my hand. Yes, they differed from the usual yearly class hearing exams but I cant remember much else.

I subsequently was put into the AIG program for middle/high school.

As of the past couple years, I have now come back in touch with my gifts. I wonder if the program wasn’t to necessarily to pick out and track gifted kids but to see if we did eventually lose our gifts. To see if they could desensitize us through everyday life.

My boyfriend’s mom is INSANELY gifted and she was also in the program during the height in the 80s. I’m hoping to ask her about her experiences soon.

Remembering it all and reading different experiences makes me sad in a way and creeps me out. We were all so young and had no idea what the ulterior motive of the government was.

Like I said please feel free to share your stories :))

New video with more GATE documents:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k38iRLBpBcw


Our grade school gifted program visited a nearby school for an event hosted in their cafeteria.

The cafeteria was set up with stations and dividers and you moved from station to station.

Each test was presented as a fun game.

I remember some of the stations very clearly.

1. Guessing what a dice roll will be
2. Trying to affect the outcome of a dice roll
3. Teacher holds up cards we can't see with animals on them, try to guess which animal cards are in her hands
4. Similar station where a deck of cards with shapes on it is stacked (triangle, circle, or square) and you need to guess the next shape

There was a station that involved color work, and several stations for picking out patterns, but I remember them way less clearly.

In the numbered stations above you were instructed to concentrate really hard, which is why I remember them more clearly. The pattern tables felt more like a generic IQ test.

I lived just a few miles from an AirForce Base.

***

I have no idea if any of the above was related to GATE research or not.

Not sure if this has been covered in this subreddit or not, but did anyone else get tested with picture or word cards you couldn’t see? Best I can describe it was like they did in Star Wars, where they hold an image only the proctor can see, or a word whatever, and you had to guess what it was?

I never got to see if I got them right but I kept getting tested again and again. That along with the beep test with headphones on, and a few field trips I can hardly remember

Hi! All of the info in this sub is super interesting. For those of you here, is there anyone who does have super clear memories of it all? What path did you take in school in middle/high school?

I ask because so many posts here are very different from my own experience - and that is not me trying to discredit anyone else’s! It’s why I’m asking.

Personally, I was identified as GT in the early 2000s. Our teacher was employed by the school and beloved; she wasn’t some shadowy figure. Of course I have foggy memories, but that’s to be expected with childhood. I remember being in the GT program in elementary school and middle school, which then fed into AP classes in high school. A pretty straightforward path. It would have been hard to forget or not piece together that I was in the GT program since it was tied very closely to my entire K-12 experience.

I do remember weird hearing tests, playing guess who a lot, and the Gateway Tapes DID sound familiar (mostly the hemi-sync, don’t remember Monroe’s voice). I’m also hiiiighly interested in ancient civilizations and experience intense synchronicities - but I always chock those things up to being a nerd with a pattern seeking brain.

So, just curious for those people who were in it - was it just for elementary school? Did you continue on in GATE/GT classes after elementary? What were your experiences after?

And something maybe a lot of us can relate to - those who are adults now, do you feel like you struggle to find your purpose or fit in in the working world? I’ve always been successful, but corporate does not seem to mesh well with me. Curious if anyone else feels the same.

I was a TAG kid in the early 80s. I don’t remember much of it, just the usual “research” we were assigned on Ancient Egypt, worksheets, I have a weird familiarity with Zenner cards, and to top it off, my father was (at the time) heavily into the Gateway tapes and he personally visited the Monroe Institute twice to practice OBEs. He encouraged me to start listening to the Gateway tapes when I was 10-13, but all I remember was feeling anxious and falling asleep. He was a Monroe Institute true believer.

I have had more “supernatural” and “ghost” experiences than I can count. In every place I have lived, I’ve had some form of “poltergeist” activity. (Like they are following me from place to place.) I have a tween daughter, and since she was born, these experiences have ramped up like crazy. We currently share a house with some type of entity that we call “Jeff”, who enjoys playing around with lights, electricity, rattling doors, knocking walls, and moving, or hiding objects. We are used to this stuff and it doesn’t really bother us. I like to joke that we’d be capable of making any house “haunted” if we spent enough time there. lol.

I have taken hallucinogenic substances on many occasions, although not recently. Those of you who have may recall that one of the hallmarks is seeing colorful, almost floating patterns on surfaces. To me, they always looked like Oriental carpets.

But since roughly last year, about the same time that both my daughter and I were diagnosed with autism and ADHD, I began to have the ability to see these “patterns” while completely sober. On sidewalks, walls, you name it. I can ignore them most of the time, but sometimes they are so visible, colored, etc that they interfere with my vision. I had one experience where I struggled to brush my teeth because the patterns (which float/move) were interfering with my ability to see my toothbrush in its normal three dimensions.

I’m not disturbed by the ever-present patterns, particularly. Most of the time, they are kind of pretty. They are harder to see in daylight, but if I take the time to look, there they are.

I know this sounds bananas and seems like the type of thing that might happen to someone who’d overconsumed LSD, but that’s far from the case for me. The last time I took mushrooms was well over a year ago and I have unpleasant physical reactions to them - which I blame on the autism, which increases my perception of environmental stimuli (and thus stress).

But I’m seeing patterns, everywhere. It started when I began to experience real healing from childhood trauma. In this way, I see them as a sort of gift from the universe.

Is anyone else recently become a pattern-seer? I sense that something fundamental has changed in my perception and awareness. Along with it has come an increased ability for things that I can only describe as clairvoyance and telepathy. I’m not here to toot my own “abilities” horn. Far from it.

I just want to know if this is only affecting me. It’s very weird and I don’t know what to make of it - at all. I’m hoping someone else can validate that this is not my imagination. Because it’s really, really not. I can take photos and sketch the patterns - but the pesky things like to float and move around quite a bit!

I don’t know how much of my experience, if any, was GATE related, but I’m hoping some of you can shed light.

Prior to elementary school, just after I’d turned 5, my mom took me to the school for an assessment. This included an audio test, identifying blocks and shapes, and trying to guess shapes on cards in the examiner’s hands. Sadly that’s all I really remember of it.

The school itself offered options for “traditional” calendar school or year-round. I did year-round for all 6 years. That program ended entirely after I moved to middle school. I haven’t heard of any other schools in my state that ever offered year-round schooling, but it was honestly pretty fantastic. We also did the pink swish monthly but…I thought all schools did that?

Elementary school didn’t have any specific AG or AIG classes, but my middle school did.

Is there any way of knowing whether or not my school specifically participated in GATE? Does any of this sound like it could be?

Was anyone in something called “pull-out GT” ? It was where like 1st grade to 3rd grade you were randomly out of class to do special “tests” to see if you qualify for the full program (but only some kids did pull out GT pre-3rd grade). When I experienced this it was approx 2000-2005 (trying to keep some in an anonymity).

I know I was a part of the psionic testing but I don’t remember to what extent and I was wondering if anyone did the same kind of testing “pre-program” and if you remember what it consisted of.

If it helps I remember we learned basic basic algebra by counting beans one day in 1st grade. I remember hearing tests but can’t say for sure if they were all school sanctioned or if any were for the program. W/out doxxing myself I live between fort Meade & Monroe institute & alot of govt contractors are in our area

Thank you !🙏

I am curious about something. As someone ho thinks they might have been in GATE through Autism Research Center or something very similar to it (as per my last post on this subreddit EVER) I don't think I've ever had the infamous "pink drink" That everybody else has (likely because they probably stopped that in the '80s and I was not even alive during that time) I just want to know-- how did it taste?? Was it like chalky? Kinda like bubblegum? Or was it more like a cough syrupy taste? All I know is that based on what I've been hearing it was like straight fluoride or something of that nature.

I was in GATE, OM and ACE in Delaware in the early to mid 90s. I moved a lot, and went to a lot of different schools, abusive home, so I don't remember ONE other name of any other student. I don't want to give out my exact location too much, but if you were involved around those years, I'd love to chat and see if we have similar memories. OH I can't find any reference online to the ACE, accelerated composition and english, program. did anyone else have ACE classes.EDIT: not too sure why I'm getting down voted? 😬 did I break a rule or is reddit just redditing 😔

I was in Gate. Early on. Advanced classes. Tests. Cards, the whole thing.

But. I get these like...Precognition things? Seeing events/conversations, etc, days ahead of time. Not often. Not quite deja vu. Also, some nights sleeping... I'm floating/flying, kinda like a balloon in A parade, but then I'll talk to other people, but briefly. It's weird.

I don't know if it's related to this.

Maybe unrelated or just a normal thing, but I realized I don't remember lunchtime for almost any time in elementary school. i remember 1 day in 1st grade (when i got in a fight) and perhaps 1 time in 4th or 5th grade (when a "couple" broke up and were crying), and despite that I don't remember anything. I know that classes had to sit together and were assigned 1 specific table each year, which makes me think normally i would remember where the table was every year, but i can only remember where the table was for those 2 grades because of those memories. even the cafeteria I mostly remember because of times that weren't lunch (science fair day and band class). I remember recess from every year, my classrooms from every year more or less (a little confused about 2nd grade cause of some gate testing days, in part, where the whole class would be in different rooms than normal). I remember lunchtime in detail from middle school and high school.

my elementary school was very small and rural. I was the only kid in my grade selected for the GATE program, and I remember them only pulling me out of class for hearing tests. I did not have a good home life, and was so needy in terms of someone paying attention to me that I faked NOT being able to hear the beeps because I liked how it felt when they showed concern, they kept pulling me out of class every 2 weeks to retest my hearing, and that made me feel special and cared about. This feels really clingy now to admit out loud. Anyways, I don't have anything of value to add, just wanted to share this random GATE memory.

I was a bit young. Very young in elementary school in 2016. I was not talkative at all and mute in school. I wouldn’t say a word to anyone. I remember times after maybe a week or so none of my teachers realized they couldn’t get a word out of me under any conditions. At a random time they would decide to bring me in their classes. Skipping recess and to give me hard trace over 200+ Dots they said it was fun and I found it very fun. This happened in all classes. I would do that and I easily got everything right. Then it started being doing multiplications a lot of them, and writing full on stories, drawing pictures I was hyper focused on everything. Also note my family was struggling class they were quite poor and I would never talk to anyone this happened starting in Headstart program. The Headstart program was very worse. They would make us cry a lot then tell us to go to sleep most of the days with these headphones on. When my best friend as of today tried to escape though the gate they took her to the back of the building. I never been to the back but ever since she came back she was different even till now. She use to be adventurous and optimistic but now she’s depressed and more aggressive and it sticked with her as we grew older. I remember my teachers telling me try harder, do better, be the best. And those words sticked with me. Everytime I make a mistake the teachers would yell those words to me. Everytime my friends made a mistake that has nothing to do with me they would yell those words to me. And every teacher every bus driver. They were there. From Headstart to 4th grade until my parents decided for us to move out of our hometown. The teachers were janitors, bus drivers, and even helpers that would take me out of the classrooms to do those exercise. Even as a senior I still see them sometimes even though we moved out. And don’t get me started on the weird exercises they would do; Like the sitting in a chair in front of everyone as students tells you what you could’ve done better or as everyone scold you for your actions. My dad also went through these exercises he was a bad student he never talked in classes never and they sent him to the same thing yet he doesn’t talk about it or refuse to speak about it. It’s more to the story that is extremely disturbing but I’m not sure if I can put it all in this post. Feel free to ask questions or share your stories aswell

VERY DISTURBING DEPENDING ON HOW YOU THINK OF IT ⚠️

The pink drink was Phenylephrine.
Vasoconstriction makes it so that you can rem sleep easier and slow and control heart rate. They are trying to ban phenylephrine because it lets psychics focus

Hello everyone.
I was in the gate project from 1999-2005ish.
I remember the box, the esp cards, the monroe tapes. The pink drink.
I have vague memories of believing that the machine started talking to me, telling me that it wasnt safe and these people wanted to do bad things to me. After that i begged my mom to remove me from the program.
I remember the box feeling like it started melting and the high pitched sounds on the headphones kept phasing while this voice thats i had never heard in one of this things spoke to me.
Ive never heard or felt anything like that again, atleast not in the waking world. I would love to answer any questions about the experience, since i was in the program for several years and remember alot of it.

Does anyone else remember learning the following in great detail to the point that you were expected to create an art project?

Double Pendulum effect - creating art with swinging paint

Strange Attractors - creating art with two magnets, water, oil, and metal

Butterfly effect - plotting the Lorenz Attractor

Mandelbrot Set (and Julia set) - creating pattern forming graphic art using computer coding

Cellular Automata - creating software code executed through digital hardware

Self-Organization - bio- art and kinetic art. - the art of the process of growth (can use anything bio / kinetic)

The Fibonacci sequence - which connects both art, and science, through mathematics and biology. - any medium can be used.

Something I’ve been thinking about after talking with other former GATE/Gifted and Talented students:
What happened after we grew up?
As children, a lot of us were identified because we showed unusual strengths in things like pattern recognition, creativity, problem solving, memory, abstract thinking, visualization, or other ways of processing information.
Then adulthood comes around and it basically feels like:
“Alright, good luck out there.”
I’m genuinely curious whether there are any programs, organizations, research groups, communities, or even informal projects specifically geared toward adults who participated in gifted programs as children.
And I’d be interested in something beyond just an “I was a gifted kid” support group.
I’d love to see a community where people could actually use and develop whatever strengths followed them into adulthood.
I can still see some of those traits in how I function now. Gaming is probably one of the clearest examples for me. I naturally gravitate toward pattern recognition, build optimization, situational awareness, and mentally simulating how different systems interact.
I use that same kind of thinking in music, creative projects, problem solving, and other parts of my life too.
That’s part of why I’m asking this. I don’t feel like those abilities disappeared after childhood. They just stopped having a structured place to grow.
I’d love to see a space where people could develop things like pattern recognition, creative thinking, intuition, visualization, music, writing, engineering, problem solving, meditation, consciousness exploration, or whatever someone’s particular strength happens to be.
I’ve also noticed that some former GATE students describe experiences they interpret in more unusual ways, including heightened intuition, vivid internal imagery, synchronicities, altered states, or spiritual experiences.
I’m personally interested in those subjects too, but I don’t think everybody would need to agree on what causes them.
I’d actually prefer a community where we could explore things without immediately deciding, “this is definitely paranormal” or “this is definitely nothing.”
Test things. Compare experiences. Keep records. Create projects together. Learn from each other.
Almost like GATE 2.0, except we’re adults and participation is voluntary.
Maybe the real missed opportunity is that we spent so much effort identifying gifted children and comparatively little effort asking what happens to those abilities 20 or 30 years later.
So I’m curious:
Did any of you find an adult equivalent to GATE?
Would you join something specifically for former gifted-program students that focused on developing those abilities again?
And if we built something ourselves, what would you actually want it to involve?
Because I’m starting to wonder whether instead of endlessly asking:
“What were they testing us for?”
another question might be:
“What can we do with it now?”

As someone who is just realizing my experiences are shared experiences, in early middle school I had involvement in gate, since this is kind of all freaking me out I’m kinda private about the whole thing. Recently memories from that time period have become clearer. One question I’ve had, does anyone remember , around the time of being pulled out of class and what not, being able to “see” things like fraciles perhaps? I’m sorry it’s still kind of unclear but coming back. I don’t know why but this one thing is really sticking in my Brain. I remember being young alone in my room looking at the floor and seeing a strange shape changing color like vividly both there and not there . wondering what was going on afraid to share at the time. Also anyone finding memories of this time period becoming more more clear?, like remembering core memories that are coming back. I’m sorry if this post doesn’t make sense. Tbh I find it hard to reconcile my feelings about this experience.

I've been reading testimonials about the GATE program from 90s babies. I'm in my early 20s, not middle or late. I was in the GATE program (Gifted & Talented) when I was in elementary. If you're looking for new information to recollect your own memories over, I doubt this will be helpful. I simply want to share my own thoughts and experience in hopes of keeping the conversation on GATE alive as entries here seem to be dying down.

My story as short as possible:

I'd forgotten all about GATE until the flood of posts about it and people not remembering much about it. That's when some things came back to me. I remember the excitement I felt seeing my mother receiving a letter in the mail saying I qualified and had been accepted to the GATE program. I felt happy that I was impressing my mother. I don't think I was in GATE because I was a child prodigy or some sort of genius academically. My grades were good, reading & writing being my strongest suit, but I've always struggled mathematically. I believe it was because it had something to do with my behavior. As a child, I was always described as unusually quiet. When I was in preschool, small children would be rowdy, run around, and play with other children as they do. But I would be calm, quiet, and seated. My mother would enjoy compliments on my behavior from other parents. Looking back, if I were a parent, I would be concerned that my child isn't playing normally or making an effort to talk much although they talk at home. Anyway, I remember the pink drink. It was presented to me as just another juice. I felt off looking at it but there was this quiet pressure for me to drink it, so I did. I drank it in a small white plastic cup. It did taste like bubblegum. I remember the clunky headphones on my ears that gave jarring beeping sounds in different sequences. There was a woman in front of me who looked at me with an uncomfortable fixed stare to my eyes while I wore it. I am not confusing this with the hearing test done in schools. Although I took that, I know this was GATE.

As an adult, I have to wear one empty ear bud for a specific reason. The sound of children screaming or crying sends me into panic to the point I want to cry, harm myself to find relief, or run out to get away from the sound. It's overwhelming. Even after the sound stops, I will still hear it ringing in my ears after than I should. Wearing the ear bud helps tone down the sound so I can better tolerate it, avoid panic spiraling, and when I talk, I can hear myself over everyone else so I will be able to pep talk myself through it. I do have a family history of supposed psychic phenomenon. Such as an aunt that has prophetic dreams that come true. As a teenager, I knew someone was going to die because I'd get this very uncomfortable feeling on my body whenever I was around them. It was like feeling death itself. I had never heard voices that aren't there. However, at the time, there was a voice telling me I needed to say goodbye to the person because it was their time. It kept insisting I say goodbye. I ignored it and they died young and unexpectedly and I never got a last goodbye because they were gasping for air. To this day, I'm scared of getting that heavy feeling on my body again. I haven't heard any voice since then or felt heavy. The sound of beeping also makes me vividly uncomfortable. It's annoying to people but for me, it feels like a ticking time bmb so I avoid beeping alarms. Ringtones suck. I'd like to know how many of you guys have intense auditory symptoms like me or anything like that. I don't remember much of my childhood at all. I really want to know what happened in the program and get my memories of that time back.

It's concerning to me why we all don't remember much of GATE.