How do you envision time?

[zhandao]

"Stand up and visualize time as a continuum flowing from future to past. Spatially indicate with your hands where the future, present, and past are, respectively, in relation to yourself. Try to actually FEEL where they are around you by touching them with your hands. After you have done so (for real! -- not just in your head!), read this."

Taken from infjorinfp.com, but applies in theory to NJs and NPs. However, I'm curious as how this correlates with others besides NJs and NPs, so responses from all types are welcome.

Lenore Thompson also comments on this "test": INFJ or INFP? a closer look

 

[nightning]

Time for me is left and right... because I'm use to writing from left to right, left for me is past and right is future. I'm NJ.

For some people it's in front of them or behind them... I've read it from a book somewhere that they think of themselves as being at "present". They're directly interacting... where as the left and right people take on more observational roles.

Have very thought of it as relating to type though. My guess would be NJs (left & right), SPs (front & back), SJ (leaning towards left & right, I'm pretty sure ISJ is left and right... not sure about ESJ), NP (leaning towards front and back... although probably ENP front and back, INP left and right).

 

[Colors]

I misunderstood the exercise. I didn't know that some people had problems understanding time in the spatial manner. I've never really thought about, I guess, it's just easy to think of time as a line (like the other three dimensions).

 

[zhandao]

Time for me is left and right... because I'm use to writing from left to right, left for me is past and right is future. I'm NJ.

For some people it's in front of them or behind them... I've read it from a book somewhere that they think of themselves as being at "present". They're directly interacting... where as the left and right people take on more observational roles.

Have very thought of it as relating to type though. My guess would be NJs (left & right), SPs (front & back), SJ (leaning towards left & right, I'm pretty sure ISJ is left and right... not sure about ESJ), NP (leaning towards front and back... although probably ENP front and back, INP left and right).

Interesting... well, do read the links.

 

[bluebell]

Time is very visual for me - left is the past, the right is the future. I'm standing in the present. The end of the year/Christmas is the anchor to see how far through the year I am. Last year is to the left of the Xmas marker.

The second link made me smile. I'm curious if that's true or not.

I believe I'm NP (small possibility that I'm SP).

 

[jnick1972]

Seeing time can be a form of synesthesia. (Just because someone can visualize time doesn't necessarily mean that they have synesthesia--the sense has to follow certain guidelines for it to be considered so, and even then, there aren't any official guidelines for diagnosis.)

Although I've never seen any studies on whether synesthesia and MBTI are linked, I'd be curious to know if they are. It's possible that if you got a lot of true synesthetes answering your question, (from a population that has an equal number of intuitives and sensors), you might find that how they visualize time doesn't correlate with their MBTI type.

Just a guess, though.

 

[bluebell]

Seeing time can be a form of synesthesia. (Just because someone can visualize time doesn't necessarily mean that they have synesthesia--the sense has to follow certain guidelines for it to be considered so, and even then, there aren't any official guidelines for diagnosis.)

Oh, oops. I should have mentioned that. Yes, I have strong synaesthesia - but it didn't occur to me to mention it in the context of this thread. Not sure if it's type-related, but man, there's a high proportion on INTPc.

 

[Seanan]

"Stand up and visualize time as a continuum flowing from future to past.

I find that an odd way of stating it.

I can't respond because, odd ball that I am, neither applied and I would have a hard time describing what did.

 

[nightning]

Interesting... well, do read the links.

*chuckles* I posted before the read... figure not to bias the results. So according to what they said I better fit as an NP than NJ?

I don't have a problem with the terms "moving forward" or "moving backwards" when it comes to describing events. But then again, I rarely use the word "move". I use "bring forward" and "pushed back". Perhaps that helps to remove the confusion. Bringing something makes it closer to you... where as pushing is always away from you.

Or alternatively I'm really a P and not a J!

"Stand up and visualize time as a continuum flowing from future to past.

I find that an odd way of stating it.

I can't respond because, odd ball that I am, neither applied and I would have a hard time describing what did.

Try visualizing this... If you have to give spatial locations for the past and the future. Where will they be located with reference to yourself?

 

[Seanan]

Try visualizing this... If you have to give spatial locations for the past and the future. Where will they be located with reference to yourself?

What happens when I try to do that is:

I'm seeing from above... looking down on a circle. I'm in the center of a circle where the entire left field (180 degrees) is one color.. changing in values. The entire right field is another and doing the same thing. Where these two fields meet, I see a blending, merging, line my own width of multi-colors that are moving and changing... front to back. I'm sorry, I cannot visualize spatially without seeing color I guess.

Anyway, I can't determine because its left to right? but also front to back? or maybe not front to back since I'm in the center and assuming the blending color line is present, that is what's front to back? Like I said, my profession probably makes me a dud on this... don't mean to be confusing but its hard to describe.

Edit: Hubby and I went for a drive and while I waited for him at a stop, I tried this again and got a clear left (past) right (future) "feeling" but its not what I think of as visualizing "spatially"... anyway that feeling might be what you want.

 

[Domino]

"Stand up and visualize time as a continuum flowing from future to past. Spatially indicate with your hands where the future, present, and past are, respectively, in relation to yourself. Try to actually FEEL where they are around you by touching them with your hands. After you have done so (for real! -- not just in your head!), read this."

Taken from infjorinfp.com, but applies in theory to NJs and NPs. However, I'm curious as how this correlates with others besides NJs and NPs, so responses from all types are welcome.

Lenore Thompson also comments on this "test": INFJ or INFP? a closer look

The past is on me, the future moves in an arc in front of me. The present is squeezed to either side like matter escaping a black hole.

Woo - that NJ/NP link description is eerie.

 

[Splittet]

I didn't fully get the idea of the question at first so I looked on what the answers indicated and got it, but after that you become too aware of what the answers mean to actually be able to take the test. Anyway I noticed the interesting thing that when I think about the past, it's quite hard if I don't shut my eyes and focus quite hard. When I think about the future, I am much more comfortable doing it with open eyes, and it comes easier to me. In a way that might be relevant to the test, because in a sense I see the future in front of me with open eyes, while I have to close my eyes and look back to see the past.

 

[Tallulah]

Hmm! Interesting! I'm about the least J person ever, but I could relate to the description on the site describing NJs. I see time as front to back, although now that I think of it, it's more like I'm a piece on a board game, with me on the current month and the other months either in front or behind me. But I'm also kind of looking at it from above. It's weird.

It definitely feels like my childhood is "behind" me, and the future is in front of me, but that is more a feeling than a visual thing most of the time.

It always confuses me when people say "move the meeting up a day." Also, when people say "it's a quarter of..." referring to time. I always have to stop and think whether it means before or after the hour.

 

[Anonymous]

I kind of see time as to the right, present in the center, and past to the left, but otherwise, I don't really visualize time. I have a sense of how long things take, but I really have no symbolic measures for time, and generally ignore it. Things just tend to happen to me, and time flows along at a steady rate.

It's probably wroth mentioning that I'm being coerced to write this post, and wouldn't have done so if I had found it on my own (worth mentioning, because there may be quite a few like me who just ignore the thread). It's difficult to really say much about it for me, because it seems so simple and obvious. Hadn't realized that some people have extra cognitions related to time flow.

 

[Athenian200]

I usually see the future as in front of me, the past as behind me, and the present as where I'm standing... haven't looked it up yet.

One thing I should mention is that I don't see time as linear. I usually see it as being more like another dimension that we move through unconsciously, choosing our directions by our actions in ways we don't understand. It's also sort of like we're all positioned moving forward at a preset pace, but as we walk forward, we can move from left to right. However, we don't know what the consequences of doing so, or even how to do so consciously, although it's affected by our actions. All we have to do is find a way to "wake up" and become aware of our movement in this plane, and figure out how to control it... just as a child has to learn how to control its limbs.

EDIT: Yes, I'm definitely a J rather than a P. Probably not much of a surprise to anyone who knows me.

 

[ygolo]

I can place the past, present and future anywhere I want (even all right in front of me, in the same place) and it doesn't feel wrong.

If a relax a lot, a try to choose the most "natural" time line. I get one that goes upwards from past to present to future.

The past comes out behind me but towards the floor (depending of-course on how far in the past I go). The future moves upward, way upward. The present is right at my forehead.

I should say that the past is a lot more "compressed" than the future. The further in the future I go, the more protracted the intervals. It is a strange scale, since even my earliest memories are only a little below the back of my knees. However, even two weeks from now is about 4 feet above me (and about a foot in front of me).

As far as the NP vs. NJ thing, it seems close (the forehead is almost right in front of me, but is still in me).

I am overall inclined to think this is bunk, since the next time I visualize my time-line, it can be completely different.

EDIT: After reading the 2nd link in the 1st post, I can see how the "move-up" vs. "move-back" can be misinterpreted. But I was also thinking that the proposed deadline is an "enemy." If it moves "up," it moves closer, and is more threatening to me. If it moves back, it has become less "aggressive" and less threatening.

 

[GZA]

Uncanny

I do see it as left is past, right is future, and present is in front of me. However, there is also somewhat of an upward curve at the present.

Where it goes upwards it also goes slightly away from me, too.

 

[nemo]

Time is an illusion. The only time now is party time.

I imagined it like drops dripping into a pool, with full blown ripple effect and everything. WTF does that mean?

 

[SillySapienne]

I view time as motion.


Don't know why, but I view things that are not static to be "producing" time via their movement.

Or perhaps I should say that objects that move exhibit time.

 

[typo]

left is past, right is future, and present is in front of me. However, there is also somewhat of an upward curve at the present.

Time has a non-linear feel to it for me also, which is interesting since I am constantly monitoring my time throughout the day, much more so than I monitor my travel in space. I only track that on long trips, and the distance always seems consistent, it's only the perceived time of travel that occasionally changes.

I also notice that my perception of time for myself is different than my perception of time for others. The months (or years) I spend on a project or stage in life seem to fly by, but when someone else completes a similar stage in life, I admire how far they have come, how *long* their efforts must have taken.