What's it like being ni dom?

[Wolfie]

Well ill explain my position. It is only from anecdotal and personal evidence, but ive always been odd and on the fringe, even when I appear to fit in...I dont. However I would not call myself mysterious or complex, as far as I can tell most people are not mysterious or complex either, but this is only based off those I know intimately.

However ive never noticed any gravitational pull from anyone towards me or vice versa. I suppose im just bitter, but my experience has been like a piece of bait on a line; I have to thrust myself into the pirahna pool of social interaction. I always have to fight for any kind of attention, that's if I actually desire any.

Then these 'mysterious people' pop up with their 'complexity' and im so sidelined that I may as well not bother at all. It seems to me that unique and special are words applied to people so as to keep the dregs and subordinated, (such as myself), under heel so that those touched by 'mystery' can have their fun.
You see the sad reality of the world around us is that we believe in fairness when it really only exists inside our heads and then through our actions because we wish for it to happen. But this produces such trite mentalities as 'there is someone for everyone'....actually there isnt. I know so many people who lived lives of misery and died alone, no friends, family, other relatives or even lovers.

The truth is you either sparkle or you dont, something seems to be...alive within those who sparkle and they become the major players in the stage of life. But me? Im barely a bit part...Crowd member #6....ok you did your part...now exit stage left....

...curtains.

I now understand what you're saying. I can relate to you completely.

I think there are two things that go on here. One, there really are people who present themselves socially in such a way to seem compelling, or as you are putting it "complex". My best friend growing up is once such type. One of the reasons we stopped being such close friends is I perceived her socializing style to be inauthentic. She would bait people with a certain persona that created such wild (and inaccurate) perceptions of her. I know because, as her best friend, people would talk about her to me, and I'd be like, "Huh?" So, yes, there are people who purposefully do that.

Second, there are people who are just going about being themselves and other people are drawn to them, for some reason according their own criteria, not according to some general principle. Sure, some people's criteria might seem complete shit to you or me, but it's them making these connections and the people targeted should not be held liable as if they had been trying to attract that attention.

But I can see where the bitterness comes in. As someone who is shy and more reserved, I constantly feel irritated that I face a life of being ignored unless I learn how to throw out cheap signals to others, like, "Look at me! I'm so interesting!" But really how can I blame them if I sit around being quiet, why should I expect anyone to just magically find me interesting. You can stave off the bitterness at others by realizing that they are just socializing normally. I would suggest reflecting on the part you play in all of it and how you attract (or detract) others. If you aren't an inherently dull person, which I don't think you are, what is it? Don't know the details of your particular situation, but just sharing that this is something that I've been working on.

 

[sulfit]

Could you please explain how a video of a woman singing with the backdrop of rioting people is supposed to explain introverted intuition? I'm genuinely interested.

I am not a native Ni user but from what I have been told Ni disengages one from one's environment as you can see of Fiona in that video. The person then goes into observer mode where all perceptions are absorbed, but not initially filtered or judged, as happens with Fi or Ti, just apprehended.

There is also this write-up on what different functions feel like: Experiencing Different Function-Attitudes

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I am not a native Ni user but from what I have been told Ni disengages one from one's environment as you can see of Fiona in that video. The person then goes into observer mode where all perceptions are absorbed, but not initially filtered or judged, as happens with Fi or Ti, just apprehended.

There is also this write-up on what different functions feel like: Experiencing Different Function-Attitudes

I wonder if that is a strong example of Ni because I do completely get that. During one of my emotionally darkest periods that video was an example of one of the few things that really made sense to me. I had actually been thinking it was more Fi because the emotional state is so internalized that the external negatively could not break through. That video had made me wonder if I was a Fi dominant because I always thought it must be Fi.

 

[Nicodemus]

i just truly wonder what it feels like to be a ni dom...or rather just how ni feels differently than ne.

That nobody can tell you because we have all but been ourselves our wholes lives through.

It would be wrong to summarize by saying we have shown how communication is possible between people who have different [conceptual] schemes, a way that works without need of what there cannot be, namely a neutral ground, or a common co-ordinate system. For we have found no intelligible basis on which it can be said that schemes are different. It would be equally wrong to announce the glorious news that all mankind—all speakers of language, at least—share a common scheme and ontology. For if we cannot intelligibly say that schemes are different, neither can we intelligibly say that they are one.

 

[skylights]

I'd write that up as Si. Or more exactly, the active process of making an inner determination happens in a context of the process of inner perception, and since you've identified as ENFP that perception is Si, goddammit! But both of them, Si and Ni, synthesize content, which actually I don't know if anyone's been able to talk about clearly, like, ever. What is the synthesis and how does it happen?

I was just thinking aloud about how I think it's hard to separate Si (or Ni) from Fi (or Ti) because essentially the instant you take in information, it becomes laced with your personal prioritization, but maybe Si and Ni are the unconscious places in ourselves where we store information sans prioritization, which allows it to aggregate in a different manner. That would explain why they are so hard to access, too, because it may be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for us to draw out that information without fitting it into our Fi/Ti schemata. The question becoming, of course, how Ni aggregation differs from Si aggregation. Both are distillation of some sort? Like Ni distills processes in time and Si distills "statics" in space. They both feed into... definitions? Like our mind-dictionaries. It seems like they're a sort of fundamental building block for how we understand. But I assume Si feels very different for me than Ni feels for you, being very far away and hard to access. I understand it mostly in terms of how it feeds Ne.

Thus, interestingly, you said:

I focus on constant definitions that remain static through time, like "love", which is a state and not a process, or "happiness", which again is a state. I like "light" and "dark", which are states. I guess I think and idealize mostly in "feeling-states".

Within the bolded you have the names of concepts. That it is a conceptual scheme does not tell us whether it is Ni or Si content. Si, it would seem, does concepts too. But, presumably, the concept schemes are grounded in accumulated history. If asked to produce exemplars, there will be stories to tell. (I'm just making this up, incidentally, but it seems true.) I *think* that while there can be names for the concepts that wander around in Ni, those concepts tend to be considerably more made up than those you find in the real world. The schemes are personal. Surely this should be true of Si schemes as well, but I think I want to try claiming that Si is so much more directly related to real, nameable things that..... I"M MORE SPECIAL! IF I WANT TO GO GROUNDING IDEAS I CHOOSE ACTION AND ACCIDENT! THAT'S HOW MY IDEAS GET THEIR NAMES!

Yes, Kalach, you're a special butterfly. Just like all the other butterflies. The problem to me here is, what's the difference between concrete and external? You say history and stories, but that seems to suggest "experience". Which is not necessarily the domain of Si... because internal processes don't do external. I would agree that Si is more "linear" than Ni, but only in the same way that Se is more "linear" than Ne. Which, really, it seems like N is always more "linear" (at least to an N dom!) because S takes the data from the senses. So maybe Si takes data from sensory memory storage? Whereas Ni takes data from... theoretical memory storage? Maybe it's not so much that Si is related to "real" things as it is related to sensory things, while Ni is more of a frontal process, just as Se must be more sensory while Ne is more frontal. Maybe they derive from different areas of the brain. And that would make sense in terms of why Ni concepts are less relatable in general, since they are internally accumulated theoretical concepts, while Si concepts are internally accumulated sensory concepts. The S area of the brain is probably more easily relatable in general, because even if "pain" differs from person to person, we all understand "pain". Whereas I imagine Ni concepts are harder to translate? Even though clearly they do, between Ni doms, and with things like the "collective unconscious". It just seems like there's another layer of complication to N processes, because they are so abstract. Though obviously that doesn't make them better, just more removed. It could be an asset or a detriment, depending. Best when balanced, I assume.

I'm not sure if the above presents the key difference between Si and Ni or just obscures Ni production (all the while being overly sure of Si production). Let's move on...

Like I said, I don't think either is more "personal", just that N is harder to communicate in general.

CHEATER!!!! CHEATER!!! With the bolded you privilege external perception over internal. The outer world provides the real check on schemes and concepts. THAT'S PREFERENTIALIST!

Nuh uh. The inner world provides the check on the outer world, too. You see everything from behind your eyes. Nothing is purely external. Likewise, you cannot remove the effects of your environment on your mind. Nothing is purely internal.

And "Truth doesn't need interpretation..."? OMG!

Pronounce it with me: OH. EM. GEEE!



ETA a point of clarification: where I say "truth" up there, I'm really saying, or naming a concept of, "the outer world". (Calling the outer world "truth", or the source of truths, is me being preferentialist.) Maybe to be INJ is to insist on interpreting the outer world. (Like Zeeb and fidelia were pointing out above too.)

Maybe so... I don't really feel like I am so externally preferential, though. I acknowledge that I lean externally to search for answers - that is my nature - obviously I am much better at scouring the external world than dealing with the internal. But when I am trying to be objective, I assume that the nebulous thing we call "truth" lies in the in-between.

 

[The Outsider]

I wonder if that is a strong example of Ni because I do completely get that. During one of my emotionally darkest periods that video was an example of one of the few things that really made sense to me. I had actually been thinking it was more Fi because the emotional state is so internalized that the external negatively could not break through. That video had made me wonder if I was a Fi dominant because I always thought it must be Fi.

You answered the question yourself by pointing out that it was an emotionally dark period. Withdrawing into a shock-like state of disengagement is an extremely common reaction to emotional turmoil and stress and it's a completely normal, natural function of the human mind.

 

[Nicodemus]

You answered the question yourself by pointing out that it was an emotionally dark period. Withdrawing into a shock-like state of disengagement is an extremely common reaction to emotional turmoil and stress and it's a completely normal, natural function of the human mind.

Hey there, that is not the typologist approach. Everything needs to be described using eight two-letter words with ever-changing definitions.

 

[Kalach]

I was just thinking aloud about how I think it's hard to separate Si (or Ni) from Fi (or Ti) because essentially the instant you take in information, it becomes laced with your personal prioritization, but maybe Si and Ni are the unconscious places in ourselves where we store information sans prioritization, which allows it to aggregate in a different manner.

It's hard to separate out any of the functions. THEY'RE NOT REAL!

But as qualities of cognition, they're more identifiable the closer they come to consciousness. Which still doesn't mean they can exist as bundles on their own. I believe it's going to be hugely easier to understand cognition if it is rendered in terms of clumps of cognitive content, some accessible by the person (through preference probably), and some not.

That would explain why they are so hard to access, too, because it may be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for us to draw out that information without fitting it into our Fi/Ti schemata.

It'S OKAY, YOU CAN SAY YOU PREFER FI JUDGEMENT

The question becoming, of course, how Ni aggregation differs from Si aggregation.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Maybe yes, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Content is key. I don't know why. It just is. Stories of mechanism will lead us away from cognition as clumps of content. You can process and extract content from content. The content will differ according to preferences for content. IF IT DIFFERS ACCORDING TO MECHANISM FOR CREATING CONTENT TOO THEN WE ARE LOST!

If cognition is clumps of content, and "functions" are qualities of clumps, then parts of clumps can be developed according to preference. The clumps grow in that way. They neither lose nor are unaffected by their unconscious parts. But to make the story of a common psychic structure possible, then everyone is going to have to have some primitive mechanisms in common. These primitive mechanism would be the mechanism is introversion and the mechanism of extroversion and the mechanism of interaction between the two, I guess. Not sure about the third one, but it seems like it's needed (a mechanism of extroversion will wipe out a mechanism of introversion, and vice versa, if there is no interaction.... /blog)

Both are distillation of some sort? Like Ni distills processes in time and Si distills "statics" in space.

Distillation seems too directed a process. This is perception we speak of so it must in some sense be open-ended. I think Ni is a process of forming conceptual similarity relationships between conceptions. The only formal rule (disregarding the billions of limits imposed by lack of experience, things you didn't read, unconscious motives and your mom) is fundamental non-contradiction.

Ni

Step 1: Make conceptions by stripping immediate experience piece by piece of whatever localizes it. (Remove date from the event and get a generalisation, remove place and generalize more, remove names of particular individuals and make the story more wide reaching... and keep going, shedding layers of particularisation, leaving behind whole universes of related and layered conceptualisations built out of just one event)

Step 2: Go wide and recombine.

In step 2 you bring in the universes from other singular experiences and you plug then together with what you got in Step 1. Aspects of the universes will contradict one another--times, places, names, dates, forms, shapes, images--but essential contradiction is rare. There will be some level of the universes where they do not contradict. And there is where you make your assertion of conceptual similarity.

Step 2 is why I find it weird when people to say Ni is focused on the object. I also think Si does the same step 1 and step 2 as Ni. But with different base content and therefore with a different similarity relationship. Not conceptual similarity, but physical.

Yes, Kalach, you're a special butterfly.

You bet I am. You want to try naming those universes of concepts? Where does one even start?

Just like all the other butterflies. The problem to me here is, what's the difference between concrete and external? You say history and stories, but that seems to suggest "experience". Which is not necessarily the domain of Si... because internal processes don't do external.

OMG, STOP IT! Internal processes do anything that's been internalized (and suits their preference profile).

I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE IT"S KILLING ME

Whereas I imagine Ni concepts are harder to translate? Even though clearly they do, between Ni doms, and with things like the "collective unconscious".

Collective unconscious is just the stuff we all can't help but discover. It's there because any cognitive process is always going to end up there.

It just seems like there's another layer of complication to N processes, because they are so abstract. Though obviously that doesn't make them better, just more removed. It could be an asset or a detriment, depending. Best when balanced, I assume.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Best when imbalanced. If you're balanced, you don't move either way. The best abstract ideas come when you pay less attention to the physical. LESS CONSCIOUS ATTENTION! Attention will be paid anyway via the unconscious elements of whatever you have in your head. BALANCE IS A CONSCIOUS VALUE THAT HAS LITTLE TO DO HOW AN ACTUAL COGNITIVE MECHANISM COMES INTO BEING!

Nuh uh. The inner world provides the check on the outer world, too. You see everything from behind your eyes. Nothing is purely external. Likewise, you cannot remove the effects of your environment on your mind. Nothing is purely internal.

^ conscious value again.

Though an important one, undoubtedly. The CONSCIOUS person needs it if he or she is to, in his or her own terms, function.

Maybe so... I don't really feel like I am so externally preferential, though. I acknowledge that I lean externally to search for answers - that is my nature - obviously I am much better at scouring the external world than dealing with the internal. But when I am trying to be objective, I assume that the nebulous thing we call "truth" lies in the in-between.

SHOUTING SHOUTING I LOVE SHOUTING

 

[Kalach]

Ni

Step 1: Make conceptions by stripping immediate experience piece by piece of whatever localizes it. (Remove date from the event and get a generalisation, remove place and generalize more, remove names of particular individuals and make the story more wide reaching... and keep going, shedding layers of particularisation, leaving behind whole universes of related and layered conceptualisations built out of just one event)

Step 2: Go wide and recombine.

In step 2 you bring in the universes from other singular experiences and you plug then together with what you got in Step 1. Aspects of the universes will contradict one another--times, places, names, dates, forms, shapes, images--but essential contradiction is rare. There will be some level of the universes where they do not contradict. And there is where you make your assertion of conceptual similarity.

Some clarification is needed, obviously.

Step 1 is true. It happens like that. But the universes of layered conceptualizations exist mostly just in principle. The lower levels, where the conceptualisations still contain a lot of local data, are mostly ignored. One tends to delocalize on instinct and go straight to step 2 with whatever imperfect conceptualization was invented in step 1.

Also, Si can't have the same step 1 as Ni. If I say it will have the same step 2, then probably the Si Step 1 is a sorting of physical properties. Instead of attending to the experience delocalised, the Si person attends to, and keeps as the object of attention, those parts stripped out of the experience. They don't delocalise. They categorise the localisation. Maybe.

 

[SilkRoad]

Something else occurred to me; again, not sure if this is really "Ni-specific".

But i was thinking about why certain places and landmarks end up meaning so much to me. It is usually because I can relate them to something else - most often literature or art, or perhaps something in my family's history. The first time I visited London I was particularly excited because so many places made me think of Sherlock Holmes stories - and I still feel that way! If I'm walking down a street and I see a plaque indicating that one of my favourite writers lived there, I get warm fuzzy feelings (though it's a bit more complex than that too). When I lived in Dublin I discovered that the house where my grandfather had grown up used to be just down the road. I've visited places specifically because I read about them in books. When I was in the Australian desert, I was excited to see Luritja Way and other places because they are specifically mentioned in Midnight Oil songs. I could go on and on.

Things always become so much more meaningful to me when I can tie them to something else meaningful. Which sooner or later I usually can. At the same time, I feel like it probably keeps me deep inside my head a lot of the time. And I miss out on the joys of the moment. Which is why I always value the flow and the pure sensation of those Se-heavy moments.

 

[Fidelia]

I was just realizing that teaching is another area where Ni shows up for me. For example, I have a pretty clear philosophy and broad goals of what I want to accomplish. However, it feels like I need time to think and be exposed to a variety of sources and then have time for it all to boil around before a specific plan emerges. When it does emerge though, a lot of different thoughts, sources, possibilities and interesting ways of doing things are synthesized together into something that is fairly fleshed out and full blown. It's like a camera lens coming into clear focus. I'm not really quite sure when it will, but have realized that there's not a lot of point in trying to nail something down until that percolating time has happened as the product will be much better in the end and will come much easier if I just wait. If the broad goals are in place to give direction, the specifics materialize in time.

 

[redacted]

I know this has a good amount to do with Fe use, but I find it very hard to ground myself in the assumption set it seems most people take for granted. In other words, the way other people interpret things frequently surprises me and I almost feel like an impostor attempting to copy them in a desperate attempt to come off as normal. I guess deep down I really believe other people would think I were insane if they knew what I were thinking.

The ever present drive of my Ni is to interpret the world through the lens of my (mostly) unvoiced abstract ideals. Since those ideals don't have much contact with present moment experience, I have to consciously push myself to remember the conventions that allow me to communicate. It's as if I'll float away like a balloon if I don't keep up my vigilance.

As a kid, I remember studying other kids to figure out how people think (although I wouldn't have described it that way at the time). Even very early on, I was fascinated by the way other people could be so confident in their interpretations of things, and I longed to have that feeling of groundedness. I now realize that's never coming .

 

[Cloud of Thunder]

I think for me, it just means thinking and being in a way so differently from your peers (including family and friends) that you might think you're a freak. But then you realize that you think that way for a reason, and there is no need for you to try to modify it to the whims of others. It may even be a big help sometimes.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I know this has a good amount to do with Fe use, but I find it very hard to ground myself in the assumption set it seems most people take for granted. In other words, the way other people interpret things frequently surprises me and I almost feel like an impostor attempting to copy them in a desperate attempt to come off as normal. I guess deep down I really believe other people would think I were insane if they knew what I were thinking.

The ever present drive of my Ni is to interpret the world through the lens of my (mostly) unvoiced abstract ideals. Since those ideals don't have much contact with present moment experience, I have to consciously push myself to remember the conventions that allow me to communicate. It's as if I'll float away like a balloon if I don't keep up my vigilance.

As a kid, I remember studying other kids to figure out how people think (although I wouldn't have described it that way at the time). Even very early on, I was fascinated by the way other people could be so confident in their interpretations of things, and I longed to have that feeling of groundedness. I now realize that's never coming .

I can definitely relate. I've used the imagery of a balloon in the past. I wrote this awhile ago as a metaphor for what it is like to interact with people:

Imagine a helium balloon you received when you weren’t feeling physically well, perhaps needed cheering up, or you received it as a reminder that you are loved. It was there to provide a lightening of the spirit and perhaps a little hope. As your hand held the string it served a purpose, there was a reason for the balloon to drift lightly alongside you.

There came a day it slipped through your fingers. It might have been that you no longer needed it, possibly you changed your mind and didn’t care for it, but then again it might have slipped accidentally from your hand. As it drifted upwards the reason disintegrated into the air.

It is ridiculous to imagine the balloon becoming angry or revengeful as a reaction to these events because that isn’t why balloons exist in the first place. Instead it begins to drift ever upwards with an increasing existential isolation fueled by inevitability. The balloon becomes lost with a sense of increasing internal pressure resulting from its upward momentum into the vast expanse.

As time passes there appears to be an advantage to these circumstances after all. A broader perspective comes into view as the balloon looks down now being able to see all the people. Some are holding balloons, some have just let go, and others are hoping to find another. There is purpose and inter-connection all around. There is but one lingering question at this juncture: how can one become unstuck from the edge of the stratosphere?

 

[uumlau]

I know this has a good amount to do with Fe use, but I find it very hard to ground myself in the assumption set it seems most people take for granted. In other words, the way other people interpret things frequently surprises me and I almost feel like an impostor attempting to copy them in a desperate attempt to come off as normal. I guess deep down I really believe other people would think I were insane if they knew what I were thinking.

The ever present drive of my Ni is to interpret the world through the lens of my (mostly) unvoiced abstract ideals. Since those ideals don't have much contact with present moment experience, I have to consciously push myself to remember the conventions that allow me to communicate. It's as if I'll float away like a balloon if I don't keep up my vigilance.

As a kid, I remember studying other kids to figure out how people think (although I wouldn't have described it that way at the time). Even very early on, I was fascinated by the way other people could be so confident in their interpretations of things, and I longed to have that feeling of groundedness. I now realize that's never coming .

I think that might be more Ni with Fe than Ni with Te, or perhaps something else you're sensing. I have a sense of being grounded, it's just not where everyone else is grounded. I see things that others don't see, and I'm sure of them. Others see things I don't see, and I'm other unsure about such things, trust others' judgment in such matters, or I'm completely ignorant that there is even something to see.

 

[RaptorWizard]

Ni users are have awesomely epic psychic powers of unprecedented magnitudes!

 

[ReflecTcelfeR]

I just read all of this and wonder why no one gives much credit to Se.... It's lonely. IT JUST WANTS TO BE LOVED!

Se I think is the least understood of the function lot! HA. Come at me bros.

 

[Poki]

I just read all of this and wonder why no one gives much credit to Se.... It's lonely. IT JUST WANTS TO BE LOVED!

Se I think is the least understood of the function lot! HA. Come at me bros.

Its not misunderstood, its about knowing that the sky is not always blue, but sometimes grey, or black, or pink, or orange, or red, or purple, or white. And that water is not clear, sometimes its green or brown, unless you put food coloring then it can be red, blue, purlpe, yellow. We can even stick our finger in a water sample and tell you that the PH is 4.35109876 to the nearest millionths. SE IS AWESOME we know the world spins because we can sense it, we know the ground shakes because we can see it, we know the wind blows because we can feel it!!!!!!! When a butter fly flaps its wings we can tell you not only what country its in, but what its near because of our our sensory perception.

 

[ReflecTcelfeR]

Its not misunderstood, its about knowing that the sky is not always blue, but sometimes grey, or black, or pink, or orange, or red, or purple, or white. And that water is not clear, sometimes its green or brown, unless you put food coloring then it can be red, blue, purlpe, yellow. We can even stick our finger in a water sample and tell you that the PH is 4.35109876 to the nearest millionths. SE IS AWESOME we know the world spins because we can sense it, we know the ground shakes because we can see it, we know the wind blows because we can feel it!!!!!!! When a butter fly flaps its wings we can tell you not only what country its in, but what its near because of our our sensory perception.

People don't seem to grasp that complexity though. They see it as simple. This is what I mean.

 

[Poki]

People don't seem to grasp that complexity though. They see it as simple. This is what I mean.

And I was just playing around, that is actually very simple and isnt much to it. I actually see ISxJ as more of a type who notices that stuff, Se more or less takes that for granted when you compare it to the depth that an ISxJ appreciates it. We dont internalize that stuff, its part of our world and we interact heavily, not just see everything. Look at ESxPs. They are extremely active types, always moving, always doing things, always active. That is more along the lines of Se, its about interacting with your environment. We are very perceptive people, but dont just sit and enjoy every scent and every texture, we interact with it. My wheel borrow has a solid rubber tire because I got tired of it going flat because I weighed it down so much. I moved and laid 3 palettes of sod in a couple hours because I wanted to. I chopped down a tree because I love physically doing things when a chain saw was sitting next to me. I put up my ex-father in laws christmas lights with snow/ice on the roof for fun. I enjoyed laying in the mud changing his oil filter on the side of the highway as a storm rolled in and it started raining. Fixing my ex-sister in laws roof on a 2 story house with a lightning storm rolling in. I love all that stuff. Carrying a box with a queen size memory foam matress up 3 flights of stairs by myself. And I dont bitch and moan and groan, I enjoy it. I love the challenge.