I was a student in a Gifted and Talented program in around 1978-1981 give or take. Honestly my memories are really blurry. This was a long time ago, but also it seems that many of us in the program have especially poor memories of our time in the program. I do have some paper work from the later years in the program but no info on when I began.

So, I recall a number of “special” programs beginning in the first grade. Whether these were just cool things my school did or a part of the Gifted and Talented program or a test to get in to the program, I don’t know for sure. I remember a big program on human biology that the whole class did (and I think there may have been visitors from another school, too), where we explored basic physiology, bones, etc., with a strong emphasis on the senses. We even had the experience of a sheep eyeball dissection that got into the local newspaper. (My best friend at the time and I were in the photo in the paper. I still have it around someplace.) This program wasn’t Gifted and Talented, but looking back, I think it may have been related to the screening process to get in. I recall one embarrassing moment, where we were given paper and crayons and told to draw what comes to mind when listening to some classical music piece. The goal was to learn about how music can trigger a specific image in the listeners, but rather than drawing a house like many did, I drew an abstract mess. I wanted to illustrate the sound waves overlapping, but it just came out wrong.

It was some time around there (specifically, both first and second grades) that I recall the hearing tests. Plural. Too many to be just hearing tests. I recall at least two different devices and the really uncomfortable headphones that never fit right. My grandfather who I spent a lot of time with back then, was an audiophile and had really nice headphones and I recall how bad the fit in these was, compared to my grandfather’s. I also remember the infamous red dye tablets that were supposed to show where we weren’t brushing our teeth properly.

I remember being taken into a special room, with dimmer lighting and the windows covered in construction paper. It might have been a storage room but it also served as a meeting place for special education and for Gifted and Talented. I remember there was a core of us who were in the program. I barely even recall who most were, but I know we were all eventually on the accelerated, college prep programs later in high school. There were cabinets along one wall, with a counter-like work area on the same wall. In the middle of the room was a table with chairs around it and that I believe is where we sat together. We also had individual sessions in the same room. There was a facilitator who was not one of our teachers. I believe there were more than one, but the one who was in charge and worked with us most did eventually become a teacher if she wasn’t one already. She has, since, passed away so I can’t ask her what we did.

I’ve mentioned the red tablets. They were chewable and cherry flavored. I actually kind of liked the flavor. Many others report about a pink, chalky liquid. Oddly, I don’t really remember that but I do remember the first time I tasted Pepto Bismol and thinking “This isn’t the same stuff I remember.” But I don’t know what I remember it from. This could be connected.

Many have talked about some of the activities they did. I recall a lot of problem solving, puzzles, and the like. There were many that required creative thinking and teamwork. I find it disturbing that I don’t recall much at all of the group activities.

I DO remember the feeling of being the special kids. It was definitely a feeling of superiority. I remember we, as a group felt a tangible connection to eachother. We were a part of something greater. We were set apart for this special program and we were a team… and yet, socially, I don’t recall this feeling spilling over into our lives outside the program. Some did end up forming lifelong friendships, but this wasn’t a direct connection.

This is important because at some point, many of us became involved in a new program, called “Olympics of the Mind” (re-named in 1984 to “Odyssey of the Mind”). I remember thinking that they (the administrators) were breaking up out awesome team because the people involved in Gifted and Talented and those in Olympics of the Mind, while having a significant overlap, were not the same people. Now, this is odd, but I remember distinctly that those of us in Olympics of the Mind were those who failed some sort of screening for the next level of Gifted and Talented. I have no evidence as to why, but I strongly remember this feeling. To be fair, those in the Olympics of the Mind team were still extremely intelligent and mostly high achievers. This team was not drawn from one school though, but rather from the entire district. We formed (new) teams, with each team dedicated to one of the challenges the Olympics of the Mind offered.

My group was tasked with “Strategy Structure, a challenge to build a balsa wood and glue structure (with all kinds of technical requirements) that would bear the most weight. (Looking at the Odyssey of the Mind website, I see this was for the 1984 competition. Outr parent leader, the father of a family friend who attended a different school, seemed to take the challenge as his own and, sadly, our design was almost entirely his. This may have allowed us to have a competitive advantage since he was an engineer, but it also reduced our interest in the program. I know some of the students I did Gifted and Talented with were involved in different challenges. That was part of the feeling of “breaking up the team”. We did travel to some big competition but I don’t recall if it was a regional thing or the big championship in Ohio. I do remember it was someplace we drove to, but not much more. It wasn’t all that exciting to me.

Getting back to Gifted and Talented, specifically, many have reported psychic testing and meditation and the like. The intro sound to the “Gateway Tapes” does trigger some distant memory, but the voice doesn’t. While I have no direct memories of anything psychic or the like from Gifted and Talented, I have some serious core memories from the time that do involve these topics.

In 1975, Disney released “Escape to Witch Mountain”. While it didn’t do much for me at the time (I was only 3 then), it did lodge in my memory as something important a few years later. I believe it was about the time “Beyond Witch Mountain” aired in 1982. While “Return From Witch Mountain” and “Beyond Witch Mountain” didn’t do that much for me, it was at that time in the early 80’s that the original film hit me as something I felt strongly connected to. The 2009 “Race to Witch Mountain” did almost nothing for me, though it was kind of fun.

From 1981-1984, the children’s’ cable TV channel, Nickelodeon, aired the British series, The Tomorrow People. I was absolutely hooked on this show.

In 1984, Ghostbusters came out. In the opening scenes, I recognized the Zener cards and instantly wanted a deck. At this point, I wanted to study parapsychology. Little did I know how few places offered that as a course of study….

Also in 1984, was the movie, Dreamscape. While much of it was cheesy horror, there was a speck of relatable parapsychology and the premise of shared lucid dreaming created a strong resonance in me.

Much later, and I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but Disney’s Tomorrowland in 2015 escaped my radar, but when I watched it on a whim recently, it struck a resounding cord in me. It might have been the concept of a secret world of wonders or maybe it was Raffey Cassidy’s creepy kid robot version of a young Audrey Hepburn.

I’m not sure when exactly I left the Gifted and Talented program but it must have been associated with the feelings of abandonment and betrayal associated with being moved to Olympics of the Mind around 1983-1984.

After that time, and ever since, I’ve had a strong interest in the scientific study of paranormal phenomena. In middle school around 1983-1986, I don’t recall exactly when, there was an interest in the Ouija board. I think it began as some science project, but soon expanded to be something many of us experimented with. While some (many) were content with the effects as a game or an interesting activity they lay aside over time, I was strongly interested in how it worked and ended up reading about ideomotor function and expanded into a lifelong interest in real parapsychology. This also extended in to things like meditation and hypnosis and later Neuro Linguistic Programming.

I’m still very curious about the parts I can’t recall and whether there was a real connection to my interest in the paranormal or if my feelings of failing some entrance exam when many of us moved to Olympics of the Mind was just that we were assigned to different teams or if we really did fail some entrance exam for the next stage in some covert government training program.

Of course, my experiences, such as I recall them, were from a relatively early point in the Gifted and Talented (later GATE, or GT) program, so I’m sure whatever we did then has evolved over the years. Still very curious as to the paranormal/psychic connections though.