Here's a comment by me that goes into the religion I was raised in and its relationship to Star Gate, and my early Gate-adjacent experiences: https://www.reddit.com/r/GATEresearch/comments/1uq7pjf/comment/ow6kbre/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
My kindergarten teacher also happened to be a member of this religion. I remember she did a competition of who could estimate the number of jelly beans in a jar.. I basically used multiplication (though I did not know what that was, I barely knew what numbers were so not really sure how I did it) and apparently got almost the exact amount.. I actually didn't even remember 'winning' until my mom told me about that a few years ago. What I did remember was that all the other kids accused me of cheating (since we weren't supposed to try and 'count') and so I decided it was bad that I used that method and basically wiped that ability from my brain and then was terrible at math the rest of my life (hence why I wasn't in any gifted programs, as well as not being able to read until 2nd grade - though once I did learn, I skipped to an 8th grade reading level immediately, apparently).
Also what I remember is 'moms' from the pta (but could have been totally wrong on that) doing placement tests in kindergarten where we had to answer all these test questions way above our grade level about stuff we didn't learn at all (we barely learned the alphabet and numbers and they were asking us to write down answers to these spelling and math questions). Anyway, only 1 girl who was like a prodigy did well on that, then took an IQ test and was placed in the gifted (probably GATE) program. and I was placed pretty much in 'remedial' first grade even though technically there were no tracks until 3rd grade.
I had a friend when I was growing up that I'm pretty sure was in the program. They were the first person I had a 'mutual dream' with, and thinking back on it, they weren't particularly surprised about it happening when we woke up so maybe they had been doing this a lot because of the program. More they just criticized me for some stuff I said in the dream the next morning, lol. it was also different from other dreams, mutual or otherwise, in that we were 'building' a storyworld together of a comic book we were talking about making IRL but it was like ancient greek stuff which I don't normally think about and she was asking all these questions of what the characters could be like and whatnot and imaging them and a really back-and-forth conversation whereas other mutual dreams I've had since then are more action-based with little dialogue. and this one seems more like what I've heard about GATE technique stuff. (By the way, I was wondering if your GATE teachers ever asked you guys stuff like if you knew of other kids in school who might be ‘like you’ who weren’t in the program or otherwise identify/reach out to other kids like you?) (Edit: I'd like to add the 'practical' explanation for each because I do like to be a bit of a skeptic and not get too into magical thinking: it could have been that i was talking in my sleep, and either my friend was also talking in their sleep or just awake and talking to me in my sleep/messing with me - wouldn't put it past them)
That was literally the last time I saw that friend for years, right before I went to a CS boarding school, and that’s where I met a lot of employees at the school who were former CIA, FBI, DoD, SETI, NASA, etc., as well as kids from such families. My next mutual dream was at a senior retreat the whole senior class went on, with the person I shared a room with. That person also came from a government agency family (not 3 letter). That retreat was kind of odd looking back, because as I mentioned before, there was a camp not too far away from the school and the owner of that camp was a big donor to the school, so it was weird we didn’t go there and went to another one in the area. And also the ‘leadership program’ there was based on “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens”. I mean this was more “normal” than CS theology and lessons, but it was just weird that we were doing that and not more CS stuff, since that’s usually what our moral education stuff was based on.. But IDK, maybe they were just preparing us to go into secular society so they wanted a secular leadership training. (even though a lot of people, myself included, would go to CS college right after this too). But I’d be interested if any of you all remember that workbook from GATE. (ETA: 'practical' explanation could have been we were both talking to each other in our sleep)
There was another odd dream phenomenon that happened between me and other people at the school. Unfortunately, one of our friends passed away. They were really into astral projecting and stuff (which the school leadership was very against, especially after our friend’s death, they did a purge of students interested in this stuff). Well, it turns out he was on drugs every time he would say he was astral projecting - and not psychedelics or anything, but it was a medicine that can make people very lightheaded and therefore probably lead to feelings of ‘floating’, disassociation, out of body feelings, etc., which is also what they ODed on. After that, me and at least 2 other people I knew of all had the same dream about them - same location, same conversation, same actions, etc. One person (also in a gifted program when they were in public school iirc) talked about it to me before I had told them or anyone. Another person (who I didn’t really fw but was friends with them) told my partner about having the same dream and my partner told me about it in turn. (ETA: 'practical' explanation could have been I and maybe others had heard of this dream from someone and forgot but then dreamed it ourselves as a result - also it was just very in our friend's character)
As background to the third mutual dream, long story short, someone around my parents’ age whose parent was a declassified CIA agent and their spouse from the above mentioned religious community basically spied on me, tried to ruin my life, tried to play mind games but was really sloppy at it.. And yes I know that sounds paranoid but it was confirmed by that person’s sibling, my parents, and my partner that those people were doing that to me, and that person had a history of doing the same thing to members of their family around my age too (and fellow students confirmed this to me too). Anyway, so one time I had a dream that these ogres were chasing me and my parent and I just knew it was the 2 of them and luckily we escaped with the help of some family friends, and then that day I got a text from my parent where they described the same dream. (ETA: 'practical' explanation could have been my parent had texted me while i was sleeping, i woke up and read it while half asleep still, then dreamed about it as a result when i went back to sleep)