Were You Part Of The "Mentally Gifted Minds" Program In California Scools back in the 70's?

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On a somewhat related note...Does anyone else here get a literal headache from hearing repeated words?

Yep. Both my son (was in it in 2003-4 only) and I get really unhappy with repeated words. We always figured it was an autism thing. It's my daughter's favorite "torture her brother" point because it's a simple way to make him wilt (kids lol). Thing is, we both yip at her when she does it and I tell her very plainly to quit torturing the autistic people. She thought it was all in good fun until we really talked to her one day about how it disturbs us and has since discontinued it. Iow, that yep is a hell yes.

It's not as bad as strobing/flashing anything though. That really disturbs me into an almost non-functioning state. Always has (hence that eeg that found the double brainwaves). It literally IS a trigger for my second alter to arise. This Halloween is really gonna suck since I've been reintegrating. No idea how I'm going to respond to the strobes the neighbors love to put up every year now that I actually remember the flashing lights.

I was in California at that time growing up. I was Left handed an used to be beat with a ruler so that I would learn to use my RIGHT Hand. I remember it really causing a big stir. There were test after test, ink blot tests, memory tests, I was never shown my scores or what they meant. Most of the time I played dumb just so they would stop the testing.

Years later, I skipped 5th grade completely, skipped another year in Math after that, won school spelling bee and was offered to compete nationally, could do quadratic equations in my head faster than anyone could write it out, Represented our school in State science fair, solved Rubik cube in 50 seconds, wrote computer code as fun, taught Spanish kids how to speak English, as they taught me how to speak Spanish, was being pushed into Calculus in the 8th grade, it was boring and had no meaning to me, I passed on the offer, Self taught speed reading, self taught to see in the dark like Helen Keller, Studied Edgar Cayce and Tesla, the list goes on. I chose not to be used and opted out of the program. Played dumb so I could be left to just be a kid and grow up normally. And No, I didn't graduate High School. I saw no meaning to completing what I already knew would have no value in my life.

Years later/now, I discovered an energy vortex that lies within us all. I am currently trying to understand it so I can share with you all someday. To create a negative Black hole inside that attracts the positive energy around you and gathers it to be used at a later time. Psychic shields, blast, protection from invading mind control or probing, and a connection to another place in time where our ancestors still reside. A wormhole in your mind. A broken link that can be restored. A lost channel of which to keep contact.
I was invited to that place and have been there. Only through their protection and guidance did I make it back here. That was 20 years ago. Most gifts I purposely have forgotten. Those gifts tied me to here and slowed down the thinking process of greater things. I wanted to fly and be free, not observed and sucked into a meaningless life. When I couldn't stop counting numbers and objects is when I pulled the plug. I am afraid to open the doors again, and I wont try until I know it can be contained safely.

I'm late to the party, but this thread definitely resonated.

I started school in the mid-80s, and feel the program had pretty much died out by then. I remember the IQ testing (no, I was never told the score). I was pulled out once a week along with a few other kids. I only remember a few specific incidences, but probably about as much as I remember about 1st grade in general. It doesn't feel like an artificial memory hole. ESP testing, high speed images, and so on don't ring a bell.

I was also pulled out for speech and vision/coordination/something therapy. Hitting balls hanging from strings with a paddle, making non-straight lines on an Etch-A-Sketch, that sort of thing. My two closest friends, who were also in GATE, did this as well. It sounds like it may have been the left/right integration business another poster mentioned, or maybe we just all legitimately had bad eyesight (which we do). I asked my mom about it not long ago, and she had no idea what I was talking about.

By third grade, all the pull-out business stopped. We had some differentiated instruction in class. In third grade it was
"optional" and open to any student who was interested. I didn't want the extra work, but the teacher told me and a boy who had been in GATE that we didn't have a choice in the matter.

We did the SRA cards in regular classes - I remember them in 1st and 2nd grade, and again in 5th. I loved those things. I found a box at a garage sale and bought them for my kids. I only remember one of them, though. It was one of my earliest exposures to DOOM - an excerpt from the book When Worlds Collide, talking about picking 100 people to go on a spaceship before the collision. Seems a rather strange thing to include in a resource being used by little kids (this was in 1st or 2nd grade), but I suspect I was using cards intended for a higher grade level.

I found a copy of the book, but was not able to get myself to read enough to confirm this. Nor have I looked through my box of cards to see if it's included. Anyone else remember it?

I had special hearing tests as a young child - a screening in preschool which led to having to go get a test in a soundproof room in the big city (the results of which were, apparently, fine). I also remember a few screenings during the rest of school.

Lots of details that I'd assume were exactly what they seemed to be if it weren't for everyone else on this thread having similar experiences.

I don't have military family (other than the obligatory WWII vet grandfathers), but grew up in a heavily military town. Neither of the aforementioned GATE friends was from a military family, either. I get the sense that the local high school was protected from military recruitment - relatively few students joined the military, especially considering the proportion of students from military families. I never saw recruiters on campus (or anywhere else), and I was never approached by recruiters despite high test scores and all. It was never even brought up as a possible option.

I've had some paranormal experiences. Relatively minor, but enough to have an impact on my worldview. My two GATE friends and I had a strong interest in the paranormal and did psychic experiments with eachother, with some interesting results.

My mother took a class in speed reading when I was in my early teens. She went to teach me, and we found it was very close to what I was already doing, but I have no memory of being taught anything like it before then. It's gotten me through a few tests.

I was part of an independent study program for much of high school, and basically did what I wanted, taking classes that weren't officially offered, self-studying for AP tests because I couldn't stand the actual teacher, and so on. The teacher (of the independent study program, not the one I couldn't stand!) had a bunch of subversive books on the classroom shelves, eg. the Illuminati! trilogy. I suspect her of being involved in some OTO variant, which I'm sure sounds terribly paranoid, but it just fits.

I'm another underachieving procrastinator. Dropped out of college my first time through. I now have a respectable degree and career, but certainly not anything extraordinary.

I've had one dream about being able to breathe underwater. Best dream ever. I have a reoccurring dream about tsunamis, though only when I'm living on the coast. I was rather shocked when watching videos of the Japan tsunami, as they much more resembled my dream than the 100ft high wall of water they typically show in movies.

My husband is 9 years older, and his experiences with GATE are basically identical to what others from the 70s are describing, with the ESP testing and so forth. He did come from a military family, and was in the military himself. Oddly, I had to check and make sure that UserID 2459119 slightly above this was not him - it was posted not long after we were discussing this thread and I sent him the link, and the details in the first paragraph (though not the rest) sound like him.

Not sure if you were agreeing also or making a stab at some syntax or grammar error. Yes, most gifts were shut off on purpose. When you start to see future events and can read peoples thoughts through empathy, you find a way to shut it off and bury it. Those were not the things I wanted. I am after something different. An inner peace, quiet and stillness. I only want to hear my own thoughts, not those around me. I don't want to be angered knowing how someone really feels and listening to them lie to my face is the worst. I don't want to see how messed up the world is going to be, I can see it clearly already.
For now, I just want peace and quiet.

If you were actually agreeing with me, then I commend you for turning away from it all.

Strobe lights I'm fine with. I've always actually liked them for the most part. Although pseudo-mum was absolutely convinced that I should never go near them, or any sort of flickering light for that matter, and that absolutely horrible things would happen.

Considering that I've never had a seizure and have owned a strobe for ages, I'm just going to guess that she thought the blinking lights would either wake me up or turn me into an assassin..or something, lol. The problem with never being told the truth is that we only know what it wasn't (in this case seizures) which just leaves a whole world of possibilities for what things could be. I mean, do I connect dot a) banned from flashing lights to dot b)the war games program, or dot c) the fact the woman was psychotic, or dot d)other pointless and/or weird shit. Choices choices..

GATE and similar programs all start at the 3rd grade post testing (Naglieri) and continue on to 7th or 8th grade with differential learning and pull out. After that, the program becomes a lot less obvious. Like I said elsewhere on this thread, I didn't know that I was technically taking gifted classes all the way through my senior year until just this last year. These were considered to be optional but honestly, I remember thinking that those sounded far more cool than the normal ones. They were definitely my favorite classes in high school so not much of an option, lol.

It's interesting that you remember differences in education early on, too, though before the formal start of the programs. The education that I was getting when I was 5 was very different from your typical kindergarten. Did find out a new fun fact from my dad in regards to that time period and that was that I was actually living with my grandparents at the time. Odds are that my peculiar "kindergarten" experience was probably a DoD school that I was going to if what he says is true. It's quite likely that, as you were growing up in a heavy military town and that members of the base would have their children going to schools there, the DoD probably had more involvement in your school than say a school in a town that had no adjacent base. Get what I'm saying? DoD schools are supposedly some of the best in the nation, at least according to the few sources that I looked at.

I wasn't shoulder tapped by any military recruiters either. My grandfather was the sole source of the military push to make that absolutely clear again. The "general" theme and fast tracking came directly from him and I believe it was the same for drfalken007. Same story line/offers via a family member in the military. I always just figured that the military and other agencies probably didn't want anything to do with me because it had already been long noted that I had "issues with authority", lol (if you consider issues with authority being questioning authority).

In regards to When Worlds Collide, it's funny but I wrote something with that exact title about a year ago. The subject matter had nothing to do with the actual book though. I read the synopsis on the wiki and it sounds familiar. Definitely sounds like an attempt to apply ethics/philosophical thinking. The book sounds like the whole lifeboat case, which is a major ethics argument in Western Philosophy. If that is the case, then it is a pretty odd thing for a young kid to read both for the doom and the exposure to this concept. Grim really but not unfamiliar to me either.

Skittles--interesting that your pseudo-mom told you to avoid the flashing lights. To attempt to describe what I have felt when exposed to them, the closest thing would be that I feel like my mind has been put into a blender, extreme anxiety, and eventual dissolution. It's like a loss of utter control but not a seizure. My fiance has witnessed this effect on me long before we came across this thread and he said that the look in my eyes is absolute terror with no hope of escape, like I'm trapped in a small dark box with no hope of escaping. Lovely, eh? This Halloween is going to be interesting for me indeed. I'd simply send my daughter out with my son to monitor her trick or treating but part of me is curious to see if it does provoke a full flashback this time around. How's that for desperation? lol

Yes I was in agreement.
An inner peace, quiet and stillness.

You are truly enlightened. Your heart and mind are pure

Im not entirely sure how big or what the bigger picture is.But I get gut feelings about certain theories.

I've got theories regarding brain stem scarring and how the difference in thought process leads to a perspective that makes better people-managers. It's easier to play people against each other while simultaneously getting them to work together when you aren't caught up in dichotomous thinking.

That's just based on my own upbringing, patterns of thought and the little detail of my scarring which was done in a medical setting so always makes me wonder. But then I don't think my experience is exactly run of the mill, not even within the gifted community.

From what I've seen, the lack of getting caught up in dichotomous thinking and ability to kind of sit in a sort of no man's land is pretty consistent in the gifted. Whereas the first one could simply be the result of critical thinking, the sense of a no man's land is not as easily explained. It could be that we find ourselves outside (or above, at least, intellectually) the rest of society and that mentally sets us apart due to having the ability to note key differences in thinking and more. In other words, if we think in fundamentally different ways from the rest of society, the tendency could be to develop a sense of not necessarily belonging or, like I say, feeling like an alien stashed away among all the humans. It's like looking "out there" and being consistently and absolutely flabbergasted at what people do. Of course, it's never really very surprising what they do, sad to say, lol. :(



Going to beat that "degree of access" drum again. It's like my finding out the "new" fact of my existence included living with my grandparents outright. That fact was always omitted and it took a massive fight to be informed of it. So part of the lies on my end definitely add more access if we're looking at some governmental attempt to steer children in specific ways. I also think our families probably played a considerable role, too. Your and my families were clearly insane and pushed extraordinarily hard. That's going to influence our outcomes than someone whose family was simply supportive. In other words, could be a lot of reason why our experiences vary.

This might be veering into different territory here, but did anyone have teachers that taught about subliminals in advertising in elementary and middle school?

I always found it an odd subject to teach kids, especially pre 6th grade or so...anyhow, as far as I remember everyone was involved in this part of class. It was not as if myself or certain kids were singled out to learn this stuff...as far as I can remember.

It wasn't totally a fly by night thing either, there were multiple lessons and projects I am pretty sure...

OMG!! I can't even look at them. If I see a flashing avatar, (or anything else that flashes), I immediately get rid of it. It has a profound and negative effect on my brain.

Yep, I definitely learned about them from school. Don't recall the lessons but I also know other individuals that went to school in my area in the same time period that also learned about subliminal use in advertising. Definitely remember being told about it and myself and another classmate remember some of the weird subliminal message like tests. After talking to some of my son's friends, it would seem that they have discontinued teaching kids about that part about advertising. All of them knew nothing of the subject (or they took a nap in class lol).

I have so much to say, but I don't understand any of it. I've been reading this thread for about a year, off and on - and every time I come here I am overwhelmed with a fear/tingling that radiates from the pit of my stomach, outward in a circle, through my whole body.

I was in the MGM program in the 70's and 80's in California. I can identify with so so many things in this thread and its scaring the carp out of me!

I want to go back, in a while, and copy/paste and answer/confirm some of the similarities - but honestly, all I can do is cry right now.

I have to finish reading - but I will participate - because I too, want some answers.

I've been trying to find out what happened/ what was the purpose of the MGM program and I can't find anything but this thread.

interesting- thanks, this gives a much better background...I still wonder why they even started teaching it in the first place. I remember thinking: wow, this is interesting! my teachers are actually teaching me about mind control! lol

Hang in there. It is creepy scary in a lot of ways. At the same time, unknowns are scary and that's what we're really dealing with. I'm constantly bouncing between good or bad intentions, what it all means, why and so on. Some days, I appreciate what was done, others I really don't.

Tonight's thoughts--DARPA and their brain drain. Was formed in the same year as the gifted programs started. 6 year maximum employment time so they like to keep their staff rotating --> need a big pool to pull from. Anyways, look into it. I'm thinking good intentions for the gifted program but probably a failure in actually what they did. Hence the brain drain.

you read enuff stuff about this thread,
and the governement or other groups, working for or with the government/military had all sorts of kids and schools going threw many kinds of programs.

you can read about, how people thing there were super soldiers programs and other programs that did all sorts of things,
and then you can read hisotry about the 2 grate wars,ww1 and ww2,
and see all the things each government on all the side of the war did to try to win those wars.

there is no reason to think it stopped after ww2.

those of us born after ww2, most likly had a great deal done to us and as we find out year after year, the military/ governments have tryed to hide so much they have done to the very people they were in powered to save in the great wars.

at some point, [who knows when],
will we see a freedom of information, file about what this
thread is about?

what is your military willing to do to win the next war?
think about that.

Precisely, AC. I guess that is the benefit of having had a grandfather as highly positioned as he was. He spoke of things that were done, risks that were taken, and more on a fairly frequent basis and I think his point was to highlight the perceived need of doing such things. I think it also was to excuse what he let happen to his wife. Secrecy gets justified in their minds for the public would never understand that sometimes you have to do whatever it takes and misdeeds get justified in that sometimes it takes whatever it takes to win for the greater good. Thing is, it really doesn't make it right. It never does for as you said, they have done so much to the very people that they were empowered to protect. People don't want to see that reality though.

I don't know if this one will ever see the light of day. I think they learned a great deal post MK-ULTRA and our gifted records were destroyed 5 years post 18. If there was a problem and the shootings of the 90's kind of points to that, then they buried it deeply. Both DARPA and the NSA are fairly autonomous so I am not sure if the rules of classification would necessarily apply. Depending on who did what, they really could only keep it quiet for 75 years at a maximum. That's a long time from now and a lifetime for some of us. And honestly, I understand the need to identify us all. National security does depend on it. DARPA and the NSA depend on it. NASA, too. We are precisely the type of people that they need so in that sense, I suspect that their intentions were for good but perhaps the greater good.

Thank you. I sometimes think I must be looney tunes to be actually thinking something might have happened.

I've been researching and trying to find info on the MGM program and its hard to find much.

I did find the following and I encourage everyone to look up the following info. Its very interesting.

Project Coordinators for the MGM program were:
Joseph P. Rice
Paul D. Plowman
Irving Soto

Contracting agencies (that helped with the formation and curriculum, etc.:
Brooks Research Foundation (of Santa Barbara)
San Fernando Valley State College FOundation
USC

Principle Agents:
Donald D Bushnell
John Gowan (VP of Brooks)
James Magary (The Exceptional Child, 1960)
Mary Meeker (SOI Institute)

I have started digging and there are some interesting finds when you search the above names.

Especially interesting, right now, to me is Mary Meeker and her husband Robert Meeker (Experimental Psychology).

Look up those two names and see what they've done and who Robert Meeker has done analysis for (The Defense Department). Its all VERY interesting.

I'm still going to go back - but suffice it to say - I have A LOT of similarities to the posters on this thread.

Interesting. Soi Systems is located in Vida, OR, a bustling town with a population of 867. Interesting location to set up shop for something that is being used in classrooms around the country.

Even more interesting is John Gowan just from the wiki alone. Apparently, he formed the National Association for Gifted Children. He also had an apparent interest in psychic phenomena as it "relates to human creativity". Wow, people. Look him up especially. I'd say that he is probably the source for much of the oddities of the various programs.

Very nice finds. I'll keep poking around on them.

[link to www.csun.edu]

Wow.

I can't find anything on the Brooks Research Foundation - Gowan was VP there. Strange.

I noted that as well. Been reading through Gowan's writings and wow indeed. It's kind of grimly funny that I have spent my life saying things like "time is just a man-made construct", being aware that materiality didn't matter and what mattered was within, knowing that everything was connected and etc. Well, now I know the source of all that--I'd say it was Gowan.

No but i was part of the mentally challenged